Life is for Learning

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I recently attended a free two-hour workshop on self-publishing, presented by Arthur Slade, “author of eighteen books, four comics, one graphic novel and a poem.” So says his website. He had many things to say about independent publishing, much of which I concur with because I have put out two novels and a short story under my own imprint (Tansy & Thistle Press) to date. But it was still good to be there, to hear other people’s struggles, questions, suggestions.

Just this past week, I drove down to Moose Jaw to participate in a one-day conference called LitCon, on independent publishing (also free). LitCon is supported by the annual Festival of Words conference I had attended a couple of years ago, so I had confidence that this mini-conference would be worth my while.

I write Christian fiction, primarily. Both of these events were secular in nature. However, I benefitted from attending, from rubbing shoulders with other authors I didn’t know before. We never know when, how or where we will have the opportunity to influence others’ lives.

I do not apologize for being a Christian author. Why would I? It’s who I am, what I do. And sometimes, secular authors are sincerely interested in the difference.

It’s about worldview. The lenses through which I see the world around me. Every one of us has filters that sift and interpret for us. This constitutes our background, experiences, attitudes, decisions, personality. So all’s fair. Just different. I think it’s healthy to observe and listen to people with differing perspectives. We can always learn from each other.

And isn’t life about learning?

P.S. An interesting thing happened at LitCon: I discovered at least two, maybe three other Christians in the group. It only takes a couple of words to connect with people of like faith.

2 thoughts on “Life is for Learning”

  1. sharonespeseth

    Interesting post, Janice. Thanks. Yesterday we had our meeting of the Women Word Weavers. I notice you have different ways of sharing this, so I will pass this on to the gals from our group by e-mail. A couple of our members have previously attended Festival of Words.

    1. Janice L. Dick

      Thanks for sharing this, Sharon. There are many opportunities to learn, even in our local areas, so I thought I’d pass it along. I enjoyed attending Festival of Words, although I was unfamiliar with most of the secular writers and differed in many opinions from certain agendas presented there, but it was still an interesting time. Four of us from our writing group attended together, so that was half the fun.

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