Fantasy and sci-fi novelist Terry Brooks is coming to this year’s Realm Makers conference.

This news comes from conference co-founder Scott Minor: “That’s right, writers. Dig out your books and get ready for a good time! He’ll be signing books at our book festival this year.”

Minor adds that Brooks will do more at the conference besides book-signing.

“He’s been gracious enough to offer a few mentor appointments during the conference,” Minor says. “We will be offering four of those appointments to backers during the RealmScapes Kickstarter, and the others will be a lottery for the first one hundred writers that register for the conference!”

Several of our Realm Makers friends first met Terry Brooks during the fall 2017 World Fantasy Con in San Antonio, Texas.

From left: Breakwater author Catherine Jones Payne with author Terry Brooks. (Courtesy Catherine Jones Payne)

Minor shares how this happened:

Well, it all started when he sat down at the table across from us to sign books.

S. D. Grimm, Jamie Foley, and Catherine Jones Payne got in line after it had gotten shorter. . . .

Then right when Catherine was next in line, he had to excuse himself for a panel he needed to get to, but promised to return. . . . He returned to sign the book for her. Turns out, his niece writes about selkies, and so he bought Breakwater and asked Catherine to sign it!

[Later,] I waited patiently at the entrance to the ballroom, careful not to miss when he arrived . . . before the awards dinner, [I] got to speak with him for several minutes. Then I reached out every six months after. Then after the new year, he accepted our invitation!

Realm Makers hosts its seventh annual conference for Christian and faith-based fantasy writers Thursday, July 18–Saturday, July 20, at the Sheraton Westport Chalet in St. Louis, Missouri. Registration opens this Friday, Feb. 1.