Full Circle - Realm Makers 2026 Recap

Last month, I attended the Realm Makers Writing Conference for the 11th time. Over 10 years of making friends, learning new writing, marketing, and publishing techniques, and buying way too many new and excellent books. During those many years, I started my own editing business, wrote 3 full books (and started a few others), published two short stories, and made so many amazing friends.

Although so much happened over the years I’ve been attending this particular conference, one thing hasn’t happened that I’d expected to by now—I don’t have a published book. Something that really hit home a couple years ago at this very conference.

I still remember my very first Realm Makers conference back in 2016. Fresh out of college, I was excited to meet other Christian speculative fiction authors—because it felt like there were so few of us out there. I met new friends, but I was also very shy and intimidated by many of the other conferees—who’d already published books. Not all of them, but many I met did. I didn’t network very well, but I still learned a lot.

The next year and the year after that, I made sure to attend again. In the years since that first intimidating conference, I’ve gotten better at networking and relaxing around the “big names” in the industry—after all, they’re people, too. Over the years, I pitched different books to small publishers attending the conference, but never really had something polished or what I would consider ready to present (though I thought it was ready at the time).

Six years ago, the idea for my retelling of The Nutcracker with a dash of inspiration from “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” rose from the depths of my creativity and a new book was born. I wrote and edited the book within 2-3 years, and I knew this book was the one that would be my debut novel. I heard from peers and other professionals that the book was a wonderful idea and I was a great writer—but rejection after rejection began to make me question my own skills and dreams.

I know 2020 was a hard year for everyone, but the end of that year and the following three years really tested a lot for me personally. Very little writing got done from 2021 onward, and creativity was impossible to find amongst family health issues, losing a close family member almost every year, and a dramatic increase in workload at my full-time desk job. All while trying to run my own business and get a book published. To say stress made an appearance is vast understatement.

During those years at the Realm Makers conference, I didn’t pitch much. I was simply there to meet up with friends and hope to find some inspiration—because I missed writing. I wasn’t focused on my dreams of publishing; I was just trying to survive, and Realm Makers was the most relaxing and inspirational place I could think of to be.

The 2024 conference was a pivotal moment for me, especially in my writing career and pursuit of publishing. I’d just quit my desk job and found creativity again, dove full-time into my editing business, and knew I could do nothing more to improve my Nutcracker retelling until it sold somewhere.

The year began with a keynote address from Carla Hoch. Her story during her keynote moved me to tears—because she was describing exactly what I’d been through over the last few years, and I found so much encouragement in that. I left the keynote emotionally rocked in the best way, but determined to pitch my book well to the one agent I had an appointment with.

Needless to say, things did not go to plan over the weekend. Though the classes were wonderful and friends were so very supportive and great to see in person after so long, it was a hard weekend for me to stomach in many ways. I met new wonderful people, first- or second-time Realmies who were so excited to be there, and although I always enjoy meeting new Realmies, some of their questions were a gut-punch I didn’t expect. Seeing the number nine on my badge, they were impressed at how long I’d been a part of Realm Makers. Then followed the question that shook a lot of foundations: “So, what do you have published?”

Not “Are you published?”, not “What are you working on?”, not “What do you write?”, but what I had already published.

I was devastated by that question. Although I passed it off well in conversation, it cut my legs from beneath me and shook my confidence in ways I can’t fully describe even now. And then I went to pitch my book, and it went about as bad as it could go.

I almost quit pursuing publication right then and there.

But the next hour found friends surrounding and encouraging me—both for my writing and that the disastrous pitch meant that simply wasn’t the agent for me. (When I found some stability and logic weeks later, I absolutely agreed with them.) In the week after the conference, other writing friends, both published and unpublished, reached out with encouragement and to build me back up after such a blow.

Later that year, I started querying my Nutcracker retelling. I confidently entered a couple of contests. Queries came back with either form rejections or no response at all. In every contest, I was eliminated in the first round. Again, confidence was cut from beneath me and I found myself wondering if I was really supposed to publish—yet I couldn’t banish the sense my stories were supposed to be out there in the world, even if they only helped one person. Since the very beginning of my journey toward publication, when I realized writing books could be a career, that’s been the center of why I want to publish.

At the 2025 Realm Makers Conference & Expo, I pitched again. This time, I got excellent feedback as to why my retelling wasn’t selling. It made sense, and it just meant I needed to write a new book and try to sell that one. While it didn’t necessarily boost my confidence, it was a step forward I could take, rather than feeling like I was in either a vacuum or a cycle that would never end. It didn’t fix everything—over the rest of that year, I definitely continued to question if pursuing publication for my novels was the right path.

Spoiler: I know it is. It’s part of the dream, and has always been part of the dream since I discovered writing and editing were viable career options. And I’m not giving up on that dream.

By the end of 2025, I’d decided to write the next book in my series of standalone retellings—where Swan Lake meets “The Snow Queen.” In January of 2026, I began writing. In the midst of that was my first Realm Makers Writing Retreat. Lindsay Franklin, one of my favorite people, authors, and speakers, was the instructor. After chatting with her about my struggles, my frustrations, and simply how lost I felt on how to move forward, she commiserated and helped me come up with some actionable steps for what to do with the Nutcracker novel. It’s been the most helpful thing to me over the year, a different kind of encouragement when the writing’s been ridiculously difficult.

So for 2026, I expected big things from the Realm Makers Conference & Expo, and it absolutely did not disappoint. From the opening keynote from Kathy Tyers Gillin to the closing keynote from Steve Taylor, the weekend was full of encouragement. I had several meetings and two pitches, and every single one went well. Although there was no confirmation of publication or agent representation, there was genuine interest in my stories, in my style of writing, and in what I can bring to the table. That alone was enough to make the weekend a success.

But more than that, the keynotes and classes hit on exactly what I needed to hear at this point in my writing and publishing journey. Some of the quotes from classes that helped me this year:

• “Storytelling is work . . . Good writing involves a lot of self-editing.” ~Kathy Tyers Gillin
• “The question was never whether or not the wound [rejection] would come. The question is how we will respond when it does.” ~Steve Laube
• “Artists are peculiarly prone to this self-imposed condition [affirmation, praise, etc.] because we’ve learned to believe that our worth is equal to the rejection of our art.” ~Steve Laube
• “From the moment your words leave the safety of your mind and meet the indifferent surface of the page, they are subject to the scrutiny of others, and you have surrendered forever the power to control how they are received.” ~Steve Laube
• “The only sure way to escape criticism is to attempt nothing meaningful.” ~Steve Laube
• “The rejection that wounds us becomes the instrument of our growth.” ~Steve Laube
• “Writers assume that success is a safe condition and failure is a dangerous one.” ~Steve Laube
• “The summit [success] is not a destination. It’s an exposure—and one can die of exposure.” ~Steve Laube
• “When being noticed becomes the goal, the discipline of writing devolves into stage performance and your every action becomes theater.” ~Steve Laube
• “It’s natural to be encouraged by success and discouraged by failure, and there’s no sin in that feeling. But when a writer’s sense of self-worth becomes bound to the vagaries of public opinion, the rising and falling of the sales figures, an idol has taken up residence.” ~Steve Laube
• “The applause of your audience may be sweet, but it will be brief, fading the instant the next performance begins because the crowd was never clapping for you. It was clapping for the moment, and moments don’t last.” ~Steve Laube
• “Create with excellence, but hold the results loosely with an open hand.” ~Steve Laube
• “We are born creative, in the image of our Creator. The challenge is not whether we have creativity inside of us, but what we are going to do with it.” ~Steve Taylor
• “A true artist wants to be where originality is celebrated, not stifled.” ~Steve Taylor
• “When you’re trying to speak truth to people who don’t want to hear it, pair creativity with courage.” ~Steve Taylor
• “Yes, it starts with talent, but talent has to be matched by a work ethic and a commitment to quality. You’ve gotta be willing to put in the time that’s required for excellence.” ~Steve Taylor

A lot of quotes, but only a sampling of the encouragement this conference always brings in unexpected ways. And the quotes above? Only from three of a multitude of sessions. To say I love this conference, these people, and the love, thought, and care the organizers put into it every single year is the understatement of understatements.

Perhaps the most meaningful and true quote for me this year though hit upon a concept I’ve slowly found my way toward over the year—a concept I put into conscious words for the first time only a few weeks before the conference.

“God in His mercy sometimes withholds success that we dream about precisely because He sees our soul isn’t ready for it yet. Not ready to bear its weight without becoming deformed.” ~Steve Laube, The Spiritual Life of a Writer: The Peril of Both Failure and Success

In watching the replay of Steve’s talk on these deeper concepts, I’ve been struck by more and more of his words and what he taught upon—something that’s built upon hearing the words at the in-person conference and ruminating with them in the month following. My notes are riddled with cramped handwriting and excellent quotes, because these are concepts that are important and immediately relevant to me.

I may have gone into the weekend hoping for some direction on where to push my writing, but I didn’t really get it. Instead, I got what I needed to hear—to wait on God’s timing, because His timing is always perfect. That despite the fact I don’t yet have a book published, after years upon years of striving and work and late nights no one else has seen, my words are worth writing. Publication is still worth the pursuit. And when the time is right, God will reveal the right path to me—whatever that path looks like.

I honestly cannot wait to see what next year has in store. 💙