What I have grown to love the most about Can*Con in the three years I’ve attended so far is truly the community. The wider writing community, both Canadian and international, and also my own community – the authors and writers and readers I’ve had the immense pleasure of getting to meet and befriend.

(Yes, this is a bit late in terms of a reflection piece, but better late than never 😊 ).

It astounds and delights and humbles me that I’ve found and maintained this community, something I marvel at daily. For a long time, in terms of writing community who read my work and talked craft, I did not have much.

Immediate family read and appreciated my unfinished snippets, but didn’t know the craft in the way other writers do. My delightful friends often didn’t read or write SFF – or simply bounced off my writing style, which is fair enough but somewhat discouraging and not very helpful. High school writing club was great, but I often did not have the time to attend, and we often focused on prompts and short snippets rather than the longer-form stories that took up my imagination and energy. I tried finding writer friends and writing communities through various means, but even online spaces are hard to find and to properly integrate into.

It always seemed that the authors whose books I read found the right combination and the perfect writing community almost by luck and happenstance. The stars aligning, the right internet community and the right words. And that I myself just hadn’t found that lucky spark yet.

The prospect of calling actual published authors as friends, all of whom are successful in their own rights – now that never occurred to me as a possibility, even in my wildest imaginings. In fact, now that I think about it, even when I dreamed of being a successful published author when I was a child (a dream I still have and nurture), it never fully clicked that I would be then joining the ranks of people whose names graced bestseller lists, or bookstore and library bookshelves.^[1] That I would have a writing community, that I would have “author friends.”

Now, in 2025, I get to have both. A writing community – including friends who read SFF and really enjoy my work^[2] – and published author friends, who also make up that writing community of mine.

At my first Can*Con, I only knew one other attendee (my author friend Claire, whom I’d never met in person until then). In all honesty, I did not even know it was a convention specifically for readers and writers just like me. Cue shocked Pikachu face when I entered the vendor’s room and only saw fantasy, science-fiction, and horror books, with my wallet and heart unprepared for this sight. Through fortuitous encounters, amazing panels, and great conversations, I was able start to build that writing community, as well as getting so inspired in terms of writing and craft that I finished a novella during NaNoWriMo the next month. Thus ensuring that my second Can*Con was a radically different experience in the best way possible.

I already knew Claire, and I’d brought a best friend with me, and then – it truly feels as if I spent most of the con simply just catching up with everybody. The people I’d met last year, some of whom I’d kept in touch with throughout the year, and even new people whom I’d met the night before at the Halloween party and yet felt I’d known forever. It was almost overwhelming, to be honest!

This year, it was quite simply a great privilege and a fun time, which I did my best to embrace fully. I ran into my first Can*Con friend in the parking lot of the Brookstreet Hotel, and the second at the registration desk. It was lovely to be reunited with everyone and to meet even more new people (and remembering to get contact info, in order to stay in touch afterward). To be greeted warmly by friends (who also happen to be amazing authors), to be recognized and hailed and invited? That is the stuff of dreams, except I get to actually live it.

In all honestly, this newsletter is about Can*Con as a whole, and Can*Con 2025 specifically, but it’s really about the not-so-secret secret party I was honoured to be invited to and to attend. A party which my friend, whom I’d brought along last year for his first Can*Con – which was clearly so amazing that of course he came again this year – also got to be invited to, because he also met some amazing people and had amazing conversation last year.

To know people, who like me enough to ask if I’m interested in coming, and to be glad of my presence. Most importantly, who allowed me to be part of something magical and amazing? For sure the highlight of this year’s Can*Con. I don’t know that I particularly love the phrase an embarrassment of riches, but it does seem apt in this case. I truly do now have an embarrassment of riches in terms of the friends and community that I know.

(The secret party was absolutely wonderful, by the way, and everyone needs to back the Kickstarter for the Heretic’s Guide to Homecoming orchestrated audiobook which is currently running until November 28!)

I can turn to my friend and say, “isn’t this amazing? This is how you know you’ve made it.”

There are many more people I hope to meet; friendships I aim to nurture; old connections I’d like to rekindle. That is the greatest part of all of this, really. Hopefully, it’s just the beginning.

[1] Or even my own bookshelves

[2] Though some do take issue with my word choice sometimes 😉