Reflecting on PARA-CON 2024

I just got back from attending PARA-CON 2024.  Let me tell you about the event, the wonderful paraunity community that I met, and the spooky merch that I brought home.

Reflecting on PARA-CON 2024

 

Phew, what a busy day that was! I am so glad it was local to me, although I am excited to travel around the UK with upcoming author events. This one was in Northwich, just a fifteen-minute drive from home and a town where I do most of my weekend shopping with the family. The venue was cosy and traditional, and I’m told that PARA-CON 2025 will be bigger and better so that’s exciting. I have already confirmed attendance for the next event so keep checking my blog for updates.

 

Anyway, back to the weekend. PARA-CON was organised by BiB Paranormal who offer a comprehensive paraunity community platform for ghost hunters, historians, paranormal investigators and anyone interested in the paranormal world to meet and share stories. They brought together a fantastic line-up of speakers for the main stage including Richard Felix (I totally did not go all fangirl when I saw him in the same room as me!), The Occult Family, Paranormal Penny Pinchers, Jack O’Lantern (where it was my daughter’s turn to be the fangirl), and many more.

 

Meeting The Occult Family
 

My girls and I had a lovely chat with The Occult Family and were invited to look inside their haunted museum at the venue. It was a tent set up inside the main hall where they displayed a selection of haunted artifacts from their personal collection. I was fascinated with a prom dress on a mannequin and my daughters loved the haunted dolls. The energy inside that tent was intense and I couldn’t look at one of the dolls, reportedly the most haunted doll in the UK, because she gave me a very strange energetic sensation in the pit of my stomach, and I knew that she didn’t like me. I can’t explain it, but I could feel it. So, I left the tent and retreated to the safety of my book table.

 

Meeting the Paraunity Community

 

I was very happy to meet my fellow paraunity community members and share stories. We had a lovely mix of ghost hunters, UFO chasers, movie merch traders, historians, mediums and many more diverse people to speak with. And we met the ghostbusters who were raising money for charity. We had to hide Gary the Ghost on my table so he wasn’t hit by the proton packs!

 

I discovered groups where I can take my children ghost hunting, so we shall be busy next year once I book us onto some events. I was interviewed on video and live stream throughout the day so I’m excited to see what comes of those. You can already see me and my fellow PARA-CON attendees on the usual social media channels.

 

I’m a Happy Spooky Lady

 

This event was a great way to start the Halloween season and get me out of my daytime routine of work and parenting. It will be great to see reviews of my books from the fans that I met at the event, I am happily playing with the ghost equipment that we bought from Polter Gear, and I got my PARA-CON T-shirt that I will wear with pride in Benidorm at the end of October.

My next event is Romance in the North on 12^th October. See you there!

 

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Inspired by a Family Day Trip

Writers find inspiration in the strangest of places, and for me it happens all the time. I recently took my husband and children to our local Legoland Discovery Centre to participate in the Lego brick building challenge. That was for my SpookyMrsGreen blog. We had lots of fun that day, and I took the opportunity to watch our fellow Lego enthusiasts as they enjoyed the discovery centre.

 At one point I sat at a table sipping my coffee, and my husband was distracted by his phone. Our children had run away to play in one of the Lego play areas, so I looked all around at the building. It is basically a big warehouse filled with Lego themed equipment and rides. I watched the staff members hurrying to and fro, speaking into their walkie talkies, giving out orders, dashing from one job to the next, and I wondered what they do when the discovery centre closes for the day. What are their homes like? Do they have partners, children, families waiting for them? Are they completely human? How could I incorporate this domestic setting into my vampire and werewolf stories? Watch this space…

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“My Mummy’s a Vampire Writer”

I make no secret of the fact that I write adult novels. My children are only young, aged 6 and 3, and my eldest daughter is now of an age where she can read full sentences. I realised that I must now take care of what I am writing when she is in the room! I had a similar experience with our next-door neighbour a few years ago, so have been fairly secretive since then. I usually write my novels at night, when the children are in bed.

Anyway, I took my daughters to our local Scribe Festival recently. As a volunteer organiser, I took an active role in preparation of the event, and on the day, I wanted my children to get involved with the family activities. They loved it! I also wanted an author presence at the event, so I took my display banner and a collection of books to showcase. My banner has a vampire image on it, taken from the cover of my short story, Christmas with the Vampires. I thought nothing of it until my daughter studied the image for a while, asked a few questions about what that red stuff in the glass was, why was the lady lying down, and was the man a vampire? She began to look a little frightened as I explained that it was from one of my stories. Whoops!

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