Sigma Tau Delta's International Convention: My Highlights

HOLY COW. What a week!

Last week I attended Sigma Tau Delta’s International Convention for the second time and what a trip! I had some great adventures, met some fun and interesting people, presented my own short story and was privileged to hear some other, absolutely spectacular work, and to top it all off, I am now the Student Representative for the Southwestern Region, which includes Arkansas, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and of course, Texas. The whole thing was an adventure and I am so glad that I went, especially with the wonderful group that accompanied me.

Wrapping up Day One, during which I got to hear some out of this world stories, I met up with some friends from the last convention, including our dedicated student representative, associate student representative, and the Southwestern reagent. Funnily enough, I didn’t actually know what their positions were when we met at the last convention. The group quickly swelled to include over a dozen people and we set out into the Minneapolis chill to settle into a cozy Irish tavern. Or that was the plan. The tavern was overflowing with so many people that they couldn’t accommodate our party. And so we struck forth, heading for an Italian place someone had mentioned, picking up a second group along the way. Several more blocks of Minneapolis chill and good natured laughter later the Italian restaurant has closed its kitchen for the evening. But third times the charm, right? So once more into the breech! Uncounted, but assuredly numerous blocks further than we’d initially intended, the party arrived in a tiny pizza parlor, where we filled all but one table. It may have been colder on the walk back, but between the pizza and the jokes we kept warm all the way…to the bookstore right across from the hotel. That’s dangerous to us writer types, you realize. Like hosting an AA meeting across the street from a bar. How could some of us NOT splinter off to check it out? The pull was especially strong for me having come from Huntsville Texas where there is only a single, solitary book store that sells used paperback romances. The whole experience was a breath of fresh air.

The following evening I brought my chapter associates to the Wild Rumpus. My wife is actually the one who discovered this gem in a Top Five article about indie bookstores. Her not being able to visit with us was the only point of bitterness in this whole experience—and what an experience! The original plan had been to duck out early, just after 4:00, because no one from our group was presenting in the final block scheduled for the day, and perhaps have dinner while we were out. In a way, this was an exercise in Murphy’s Law, and absolutely hilarious in hindsight—and admittedly not at all un-fun once we got started. One lost credit card, a rushed editing job on an application, splitting and regrouping the part amidst the overburdened hotel elevators, and working out transit instructions and directions with a concierge (who went above and beyond the call of duty!) and we set out at around 6:00.

 

We hiked through Minneapolis once more, pausing to play in the freshly fallen snow—a novelty for us Southerners, I assure you—and eventually arrived at our bus stop. Or what we thought was our bus stop. After a good five minutes of loading up and figuring out how the tickets actually worked (efficient public transportation is about as elusive in Texas as the chupacabra, so none of us had any idea what we were doing) we realized the bus we were on was taking us in the opposite direction of where we needed to go. One five block hike later we found our proper bus stop. The delay was a blessing in disguise. Our new bus driver serenaded our group with a song about Houston, shared a poem about her dog with us when she learned we were English types, pointed out the best restaurants, and actually pulled aside another rider to help walk us to the Wild Rumpus—a middle school science teacher following in his mother’s footsteps. A second, much longer hike than we expected later, and we arrived with less than an hour before closing time.

SO WORTH IT!

The Wild Rumpus made it into that Top Five article for a very good reason. Let me start with a general description of the place. It’s deceptively large, easy to get lost in (in the best possible way!) and wall to wall with books and critters. The ceiling is a work of art—literally—and is designed to look like a boat breaking through ice. Over all, I’d say that visiting the Wild Rumpus was almost as much visiting the children’s section at the zoo as it was a bookstore, with little houses and jungle-esque designs. And animals everywhere. Two cats, a tarantula, the chilliest rock star chicken ever, a pair of ferrets, and an unknown number of chinchillas and birds. And I cannot rave enough about how incredible the staff were! We weren’t treated like customers in this bookstore—we were treated like friends and they went above and beyond to accommodate our group and make sure we had a good time.

After our mix up with the busses and the hiking, we cheated and used Uber to get back to the hotel, a drive that took us all of five minutes.

Another reason for the quick return however, was because earlier that day, I’d been elected the student representative of the Southwestern Region and I was due to meet up with the former representatives, the reagent, and my new partner to discuss where things stood and where they were going. My props to the 2015 representative (I’m deliberately no using her name because I don’t have her permission at the time of writing this), she has been an incredible leader. If she was not graduating this year I don’t know that I would have run. As it is, she’s applying to graduate school and should hopefully be back in the academic scene come fall as if she never left, and I look forward to working with her. Heck, I’m looking forward to working with all of these fine folks. We’ve got some big ideas and I think we may just see something really special come out of this year.

On the subject of something special, the stories read at this convention were spectacular. I may have said that already but it warrants repeating. One of the projects I’ve been working on on the side is an anthology of fantasy and magical realism stories. The original goal was to use it as a fundraiser for our chapter…I don’t think that’s the direction I want it to go, especially with the power in some of these stories. Instead, I want to direct the royalties toward programs working to help women escape and recover from human trafficking. This was something my wonderful bride has always felt very strongly about and has taken action about before, and I think it may be my turn. I spoke to several students who presented exceptional work and all were highly receptive to the idea. Hopefully we’ll see this project through to fruition and bloom into something big.

And as exciting as all of this was—I am so glad to be home. I don’t know that I’m a genuine country boy, but I love living on this ranch. I love the nature, the isolation, the romanticism of it all. And I love sleeping in the same bed as my wife again. There was so much activity during the convention that there wasn’t really any time to avoid being in the present but somehow her absence was as present as my shadow. Not seeing her every day was strange, in an aching way, like my day was never really complete. I’m sure I annoyed most of the people around me by vomiting newlywed romantics all over them and talking about my bride every chance I got and I hope that they’ll forgive me. If not, oh well. I’ve had an adventure and now I’m home.