Category Archives: Public Events

Romantic Letters Conference 2024

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For the past few years, I have participated in the Romantic Letters Conference, an adorable writer’s conference hosted by the League of Utah Writers Romance Chapter. Even though I’m definitely not a romance author, I have a handful of classes that can apply to any author at any phase of their writing experience. This year, I presented a class called “Getting Unstuck: A Scientific Approach to Overcoming Writer’s Block.” It’s a class I’ve given several times that I think is a needed message in the creative community.

This year’s conference ended up being unusual. Normally, the class lineup and keynote follow the expected schedule and everything works smoothly. This year, however, the keynote had a last-minute emergency and wasn’t able to come. Anyone who has ever attended a writing conference, know that the keynote is generally the highlight of the day. It’s a chance to better get to know someone who is further along in their writing career and gain inspiration and insight from their journey.

When the reality of this predicament dawned on the conference organizers, they made a last-minute scramble to fill in the gap. Imagine my surprise when I received a slightly panicked email asking if I could pull something together and step in. The reason they thought I was the best pick? I’d won this year’s Diamond Quill award for my book Stonebearer’s Redemption.

Cue imposter syndrome in all its shiny trappings. Even now, even with that level of win, it’s still hard to believe that people look up to me for it. It’s hard for me to believe I deserve any special attention for it. But, at the same time, nods like this are really nice and I appreciate the gesture. I did work really hard to make that book amazing.

So I said yes.

But … I didn’t want the limelight all to myself. I said I’d only do it if my dear friend Rachael Bush, who just happens to be this year’s League of Utah Writers President, would come and share the keynote with me. Because that’s what friends are for. I think I owe her a pack of Oreos…

Our last-minute joint keynote went fantastic and was thankfully short. Rachael was able to share about the league’s mission and goals and her experience with being part of it, and I was able to share my path to becoming a Diamond Quill Winner.

For this conference and getting that opportunity, it all came down to being in the right place at the right time. Had I not agreed to present at this conference, a different deserving author would’ve had their chance to be their last-minute keynote. And that’s okay.

But I’m happy to have been given the opportunity.

Romantic Letters Conference promo card for Jodi L. Milner

Winning the League of Utah Writer’s Diamond Quill Award

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The annual awards banquet of the League of Utah Writers was held on a warm night in August. I’d attended this event every year for nearly a decade, applauding the winners of the various awards and enjoying the company of my favorite fellow writers. While I’d entered more categories this year than I had in the past, I was very aware of the talent level I was competing against.

As the night progressed and the various categories were announced, I was happy to get a third-place win in the YA first chapter category all while trying to ignore the other categories where my work was completely ignored.

The end of the evening is reserved for the announcement of the big winners, including the Quills contest for published books. Back in 2019, I’d entered Stonebearer’s Betrayal and won a Recommended Read. In 2021, Stonebearer’s Apprentice won a Silver.

While I really liked how Stonebearer’s Redemption had turned out, I knew that as a third book in a series, it would be hard for a judge to understand any of the references to the other books. I crossed my fingers for a mention, as even a recommended read would have made me very happy.

As the Quill Awards for all the different categories were announced, and my category came and went, I tried not to be disappointed. Part of being a professional writer is understanding that some people might not like my work. Lurking at the edge of possibility was winning the last and largest award, the Diamond Quill.

This award was always announced after all the others, meaning that everyone who entered whose name hadn’t been called was now on the edge of their seats for this one last chance at recognition.

They called the winner, and it wasn’t me. I was prepared to be okay with it. Annoyed, but okay.

Except – this year they had a tie.

I’d already mentally packed my bags and was eager to leave when a very familiar book cover flashed on the screen and my name was called. Shocked isn’t quite the word for what went through my system. I was floored. Speechless. Stunned. Hubby dearest captured a picture moments after that says it all.

It took a few days to even believe that it had happened. In some ways, I’m still in denial about the whole thing. Perhaps that’s why it took so long to write this post.

To all of you who stood by me through thick and thin, thank you. Writing Stonebearer’s Redemption was possibly one of the hardest projects I’d ever embarked on and required every ounce of skill and inspiration that I could find. It was one of those books that fought back and challenged me to do better, be better. I couldn’t have done it without the support of my family, my writing community, and of course my amazing editor who called me on all the ideas and concepts that weren’t working.

Thank you to the League of Utah Writers for this honor.

Find the entire Shadow Barrier Trilogy, including Stonebearer’s Redemption, in this amazing ebook box set!

Get your copy today!

FanX Salt Lake 2021

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After a year of tumult and avoiding crowds, or to be honest, avoiding people in general, being back at FanX was a welcome step back to normalcy. That said, it was really weird to interact with so many friends and strangers in person after so long of not feeling safe to do so. I was pleased that the majority of attendees chose to respect the mask rule as I know it helped keep us all safer.

This year was a number of firsts for me, which made my FanX experience that much more exciting. I wasn’t until recently that I was able to join the panelist group, thanks to a dear friend who advocated for me. Before that, I’d always bought a ticket and spent my time attending panels in the audience, walking the vendor floor, and finding friends who were actually working the con. Throw in an occasional cosplay, and that was the extent of my experience.

The Booth

In previous years, I’ve never committed to selling my books at any particular booth, mainly because I didn’t really have that many books to sell. Way back in 2019, which feels like forever ago, I got to sign books with my favorite indie bookstore, The Printed Garden. And while it doesn’t hold a candle to the work of running a booth, it was the perfect way to stick my toe in the water.

This year I buddied up with two fabulous authors, Candace J Thomas and C. M. Adler, as well as one amazing artist, Julie Gallegos to make up the Local Fantasy Author Booth #1236. All I can say is, what a learning experience. I got a much greater appreciation for booth design, inventory management, and patron interaction than I ever expected.

Moderating my first panel

It’s one thing to be invited to talk about different topics, it’s quite another to guide the conversation. This year I participated in three fascinating panels, Spirited Away, Flash Gordon, and The Witcher.

2021 marks the 20th anniversary of the Japan release of Spirited Away, so I thought it would be a great year to celebrate. As the panel was my idea, they let me moderate which is something I’ve done a bunch in other smaller venues, but nothing as big as FanX. My fellow panelists were terrific and the discussion ranged from thematic elements of the show to how Miyazaki ties his creations to folklore and culture, to my favorite question – which character each of the panelists felt represented them the best.

The other panels were also great fun. For Flash Gordon the moderator brought some slides that compared the Sam J Jones movie to the original Buster Keaton series. We then talked about our favorite scenes – definitely the tree spider scene – and also brought up all sorts of interesting trivia, like how the role of Flash was originally offered to Kurt Russell.

As for the Witcher panel, I got to let my inner geek shine as only myself and one other panelist had read the novels and many of the questions had a lot to do with how the different medias compared with each other.

Selling out of my book!

As authors, nothing makes us happier than connecting with people who love the subjects and genres we write about. Selling my fantasy series at FanX was a dream come true. I’ve never been in a situation where people would walk by and see the books we offered and say, “I want that” and then buy it. Talk about feeling validated.

Again, this whole event was a learning experience. Part of that learning was all about how many of a title I should ideally bring. Had I brought more, I could have easily sold more. I don’t feel bad. As a first time, I consider the whole experience a raging success.

My one regret

Most years I spend far more time roaming around and seeing the other tables and booths. That said, most years I have my amazing hubby to keep me company as we look at all the cool cosplays and things for sale. While he came this year to visit, I was too overwhelmed at all the newness of working the booth to spend much time with him. When I did take a minute to wander around, it wasn’t the same.

Next year for sure I will make the time to roam the conference and see all the amazing stuff with hubby dearest and perhaps pick up a few more sparkly goodies along the way.

Get Your Tickets Now! League of Utah Writer’s Spring Conference

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It’s Spring time and virtual writer’s conferences are popping out of the ground like daisies. Spring, being a time of renewal, is a wonderful time to learn something new, or reinforce something you’ve learned in the past. On May 23, the League of Utah Writers is holding a day long virtual conference complete with live Q&A sessions.

This year, and every year, there is a great lineup of teachers sharing their experience on everything from character creation to story structure, from utilizing social media to romantic relationships. Chances are, if you have a writing related question, there will be a class tailored to fit your needs.

Because this is a virtual conference there are several perks that you can’t get in a standard conference. First and foremost, it reduces costs down to the bare minimum for attendees. There are no travel expenses and no trying to find a decent lunch or snacks. You can take a break whenever you like, pause the presentation video if you need to jot down more notes, and you’ll never have to worry if the person next to you might just start eating ranch-flavored corn nuts while you’re trying to pay attention.

If anything, you get a better educational experience and the chance to see all the presentations instead of picking and choosing between two favorites in any given time slot.

The only thing you miss out on is meeting friends and fellow writers in person, and that’s a little sad.

This year I’m teaching about getting over creative roadblocks using a few psychology hacks. There is a discussion of the role fear plays in our ability to make progress in our creative work as well as several practices that can help.

I hope to see you there!

For more information and to register head on over to the League of Utah Writers website.

Shout out to North Ogden Junior High Creative Writers

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As an author, getting to talk and teach in Utah schools is surprisingly difficult. Which means I was all the more thrilled to go talk to not one or two of the English classes at North Ogden Junior High, but all off them.

Myself, along with Charlie N. Holmberg, Steven Heumann, and Scott E. Tarbet, were interviewed by friend, fellow author, and English teacher, Ben Simmons, in a panel style discussion that covered everything to what inspires us, to what sports have we included in our writing. For each period of the day we addressed a different group of awesome teens and answered their questions. So much fun.

Best Questions

The most asked student question was which of our books was our favorite. Lucky me, I only have the one (so far!) so the choice was easy. Charlie choose her Smoke and Summons, Steven chose his Gavin Baller Collection, and Scott choose his Mission: Dragon Moon.

My favorite question of the day was which superpower we as authors would like to have. True to the fiendish plotsters we are, we came up with some pretty bizarre stuff. My favorite was Charlie’s idea of having extreme intimidation as a super power so people can’t bully you.

All in all, we were treated like celebrities, given a yummy lunch, and were able to talk to the wonderful English teachers, librarians, and students of the school. The questions were excellent and the energy and excitement for us to be there validating and much appreciated.

To all the young aspiring writers at North Ogden junior high, you got this! I can’t wait to see what marvels you come up with. Go Knights!

A big shout out to my fellow authors on the panel, check out their books, they’re all amazing

Charlie Holmberg is best known for her Paper Magician series and is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author. She also has the best collection of cool purses and glasses I’ve ever seen. Her most recent release came out January 2020 and it’s called the Will and the Wilds.

Scott E Tarbet has grundles of amazing short stories published everywhere, including a title where we are both contributing authors with, but the book he brought to share with the students is a steampunk version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream called A Midsummer Night’s Steampunk.

Steve Heumann, who has the greatest name ever, writes books that have awesome twists reminiscent of Black Mirror or Twilight Zone. His favorite book and character he’s written is his Gavin Baller series. He’s also has several short stories available, the most interesting to me is Kaleidoscope Shadow: A Dark Sci-Fi Fairy Tale, which takes the idea of the Pied Piper and turns it completely on it’s head.

And our panel moderator, Ben Simmons, who bravely faces the drama that is being an Junior High teacher, everyday. You have my respect sir. Ben’s Archipelago Series is a great science fiction adventure that lines up with an amazing tabletop RPG he’s created. The first book in the series is The Voyage of the Entdecker.

As for me, I’m simply thrilled to be part of the experience. I offered the students my free short story, “Breath” that contains the opening scene to Stonebearer’s Betrayal. Here’s to finding new readers!

You can also find updates and post notifications on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram – chose the one you like the most!

Jodi L Milner is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

NaNoWriMo 2019

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It’s that magical time of year again! No, not the holidays. Oh … wait, those are magical too. I’m talking about NaNoWriMo, the one month novel writing challenge that has grabbed the worldwide writing community by the fingers.

Over the years I’ve participated and succeeded in meeting the 50,000 goal words enough times that I have to think back and count on my fingers. It’s at least four times, if not five. Not super important. Some years I’ve used the challenge to write the second half of books in progress, like the upcoming release of book two in the Stonebearer Saga, Stonebearer’s Apprentice. This year I’m trying something new – writing a novella set in the Stonebearer Universe.

The lovely people running NaNoWriMo create awesome badges and swag for those participating. Aren’t they nice?

Novellas are short books ranging between 20,000 and 50,000 words (~80-150 pages) long and would be about half the length of the books I normally write. Yep, I’m excited.

The story will center around Isben, a young man who plays a critical role in helping the main character, Katira, in Stonebearer’s Betrayal. I will be backing up several years into his past and showing the path he needed to take to become part of the Stonebearer society.

Most years I promise myself I’ll do lots of great pre-planning and figure out all my characters and places and significant story points before the start of November. AAAAND, most years I end up running out of time and end up figuring it out as I go.

Guess who ran out of time again. Yep. This girl. Remember that awesome trip I took with my family? Turns out it’s really hard to work on stuff like this in a car. Some people can do it, I’m not one of them.

That said, normally scheduled blog posts are probably going to be short and snarky this month.

Wish me luck (and send treats!)

You can also find updates and post notifications on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram – chose the one you like the most!

FanX 2019

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This weekend from Sept 5-7 is FanX, Utah’s biggest fan experience. People from all over the world come to share their love of comics, superheroes, fantasy novels, TV series, and movies. Cosplayers wander the halls, New York Times bestselling authors hang out playing DnD, celebrities come for signings, photo ops, and to be interviewed on the main stage.

And I’m there too.

Thanks to the friendship and support of some truly amazing individuals, I was able to connect with the event organizers and join the brave pack of panelists who share their expertise on everything from costume building tricks and hints to the finer points of novel writing.

On the panel: Robert J. Defendi, M.K. Hutchins, Tom Durham, yours truly, and Corey Moss

The first panel I was part of talked in depth about literally everything hobbit. We covered where they come from, how they influenced the storytelling in Lord of the Rings, which Hobbit was our favorite, and on and on. There was a bit of a love fest about the Silmarillion, which strangely doesn’t really discuss hobbits more than a few mentions.

My favorite hobbit – Samwise Gamgee’s father, often referred to as the old Gaffer. Why? Everyone says Sam is their favorite character because he’s the true hero in Lord of the Rings. Frodo couldn’t complete the task of destroying the ring on his own and would have failed without Sam. Throughout the books, Sam relies on lessons learned from his father to get him through tough times. So I would argue that without the influence of the old Gaffer, Sam wouldn’t have been able to be the hero he needed to be.

On the panel: DJ Butler, Eric Swedin, Mark Avo, me, Cody Goodfellow, and Johnny Worthen

My other panel focused on the American Apocalypse and we discussed everything from religious belief in the end of the world to the nature of the word “apocalypse” which literally means revelation, not destruction as most would assume. We debated on what the real apocalypse might be and where the idea that this would make good fiction stems from.

The strongest argument of what’s going to end it all for us currently is either the AI apocalypse or something horribly bacterial. Although, the supervolcano hiding under Yellowstone was a strong contender.

Come for the free bookmarks! Stay to chat about anything from writing to awesome cosplay.

As part of being a special guest author, I get to do two official signings. One was yesterday night, and the next Saturday at 11. If you’ve been dying to get your hands on a signed copy of Stonebearer’s Betrayal, I’d love to see you!

This year I’m not cosplaying as anything, it would have been one more thing to worry about and I’m supposed to be playing the part of a professional author. But … I saw some amazing clothing items I might have to get …

Don’t forget! The Labor Day sale of Stonebearer’s Betrayal ends this Saturday. You can grab the ebook for FREE over on Amazon this week only!

Here’s a handy link!

You can also find updates and post notifications on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram – chose the one you like the most!

Fyrecon 2019

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Summer is usually a dry spell for writing conferences in Utah, most tend to be in the spring or fall. There is one shining exception – Fyrecon, happening this weekend from June 20-22. Boldly proclaiming its independence from the norm, Fyrecon takes the standard writing conference plan and bumps it up a notch. Its motto “Burn Through Barriers” captures this feeling. There are classes for all flavors of creatives ranging from visual arts to fiber arts to table top RPG to gaming software design – all very cool.

Hey, I know her!

Even better, they let me come play! This year I’m teaching three classes:

  • The Art of Active Setting: Bring your stories to life through the principles of active setting, including the importance of sensory integration, character viewpoints, and how to anchor a scene.
  • Inside-Out Worldbuilding: Learn how to build a unique and engaging fantasy world using your main character as a guide.
  • Magic Systems 101: From Tolkien to Sanderson, a review of what makes good magic a great read and even better, how to build your own

And best yet – I get to play with some pretty cool friends on two different round table discussions:

  • Blood Basics for Beginners with Candace J. Thomas and Maxwell Alexander Drake
  • Muddling Through the Middle: What to do When You’ve Lost Your Map, with Maria V. Snyder, Eric Flint, and David Mark Brown

If you’re a creative in Utah, there’s lots of good stuff for you to find here at Fyrecon.

For more info, go check out their website.

You can also find updates and post notifications on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram – chose the one you like the most!

FanX 2018

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It’s FanX weekend and the streets of downtown Salt Lake have transformed from uptight and respectable to downright weird. This season’s characters are heavily from the Marvel universe. Everywhere you look there’s a Gamora or Peter Quill. Dozens of Tenth Doctor are mixed in with a healthy assortment of stormtroopers wander through the food courts.

And I’m all for it.

In 2015 you would find me wandering the con as a snooty General Kala accompanying the fabulous Emperor Ming. Probably one of our most ambitions costumes of all time. We spent many weekends sewing and piecing together the intricate designs. We even entered the costume contest and were invited to the stage show as finalists in the group division. By the way, if you haven’t watched the 1980 Flash Gordon, you’re missing out.

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In 2016, we took out cosplay in a different direction and tried out large-scale puppetry, with a Miyazaki character affectionately known as No Face. The perk of a puppet is that hubby and I could trade who wore the puppet and who acted as the handler to make sure No Face didn’t accidentally walk into a wall or trip on anything on the floor. We designed him to grow, so at random he’d jump up to over 12 feet tall and startle anyone we happened to be nearby. He could also shrink down to about 3 feet and interact with kids.

 

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Tall No Face

 

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Mini No Face

This year we will be bringing No Face again on Friday only as he is a crowd favorite. We would have loved creating a new costume but this year has been super crazy with the kids getting older, huge projects coming to fruition, and, well, life.

If you are at FanX this weekend, give a shout out in the comments. Even better, if you are cosplaying this weekend, tell me all about it! I’d love to hear what your favorite characters are.

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Brief writing update –

We finalized the cover for my book this week, stay tuned for the big reveal!

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Find me at Fyrecon 2018

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b6228817e7c6ee37bfcc7f548def5a6e-rimg-w720-h273-gmir.jpgWith Spring into Books (Utah’s Awesome-st Author signing and workshop) at the beginning of the month, paired with end of school craziness for my kiddos, June has been a wild ride – and it’s getting wilder.

Fyrecon, the conference that encourages writers and artists alike to “Burn Your Creative Path,” kicks off tomorrow – and they are kind enough to let me play!

Writing conferences are wonderfully gratifying because they give creatives a chance to spend quality time with like-minded people. They are my tribe and I love all of them. This year I decided to be super ambitious and offered three brand new classes to teach, with the hopes that perhaps one or two might be chosen.

And … they asked for all of them. Woohoo!

Needless to say, I’ve been working my little fanny off getting ready and I’m super excited to share the awesomeness that I’ve learned.

Here is my schedule – come find me!

  • Class – Overcoming Ego for Better Head Space (Thurs 11am, Building D2, Rm 318)
  • Panel – Portrayal of Death and Dying: Discussing the Philosophy of the Memento Mori (Friday 1pm, Building D2, Rm 111)
  • Panel – Medical Accuracy in Fiction: Common Pitfalls and What is a Better, More Believable Approach (Friday 3pm, D2 – 111)
  • Class – Gut Punch your Audience with Emotion (Saturday 9am, D2 – 117)
  • Class – Finding Balance in Storytelling: Not Everything can Explode all the Time (D3 – 341

For those of you trying to decide whether you want to go or not – come! If you register at the door for the whole conference it’s only $50 and daily rates range from $22-27. If you’re a student it’s cheaper than a hamburger, $10 dollars for the whole conference or $5 a day. Military gets a 10% discount. That’s a whole lot of amazing for an extremely reasonable rate.

If it doesn’t work out for you to come this year, be sure to like Fyrecon on Facebook to be the first to hear about future events.

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