Looking Over those 4 Leaf Clovers

or how my impish side sometimes makes a showing

So I’m late on getting the after action report out for Liberty Con, the WV Ren Faire, and our 4th of July excursion. In my defense, my schedule has been beyond hectic - I honestly have lost track of what day and month it is! But I finally have time to drop a line or three on the topic.

The West Virginia Renaissance Festival ran all four weekends in June this year as usual, and we vended the first 3 weekends, unable to vend the 4th and final weekend because of Liberty Con. This was our 4th year at the faire. The fair managers put us into a much safer location for our books this year - no pop up tent and trying to protect paper books from rain showers!

The weather was decent for the 3 weekends we vended, with only one rainstorm on the second weekend. Attendance was up this year, too. The first weekend we did fairly well; the second not as much, but still within norms and way better than 2025 which was a dismal year for most venders at the fair.

The 3rd weekend, however, was amazing. The crowd was energized from the opening canon and stayed that way most of the day. I had made my stuffy inventory according to the last 3 years of sales, but scrambled in between weekend 1 and weekend 2 to make more turtles and frogs, and then I had to scramble between weekend 2 and weekend 3 to get more bats made. By the time the fair closed on Sunday afternoon of the 3rd weekend, I was down to 2 bats, 1 frog and 1 turtle (which has my nephew happy as he begged for one of them and I had told him he could have one if there were any left).

I then spent the next 3 days sewing a new dress and an apron for a costume I had decided to put together for the Liberty Con Hall Costume contest. I found inspiration in Raconteur Press’s Auntie Heroes anthology, a set of short stories dedicated to “ten women of a certain vintage who possess particular sets of skills and absolutely zero patience for the alternative”.

In other words, older ladies who won’t take any nonsense and save the day and supper in the process!

I don’t have a story in that anthology but thought it was a fun idea and it sparked my imagination. What could a middle aged, rather large woman wear as a costume without having to take on the marshmallow man from Ghostbusters or Ursula from The Little Mermaid? I remembered Auntie Heroes and thought “hey, about about a character that would have fit in that anthology?”

And thus Bonnie M.A. Bridges, anti-fairy godmother, was born!

The concept is this: an Appalachian backwoods woman who knows all the old cryptid and folklore from the area and knows the haints are real and how to deal with each of them, from old world spriggans to new world catywampuses. She has the entire kit and hires out to take care of problematic fairy creatures, sing blue grass at the local church gathering, and deliver blackberry dumplings or peach cobblers or hearty bread pudding to ailing neighbors.

I wore knitting needles in myhair, carried bottles of herbs, pure salt, iron filings, red string, and pins to set up wards as needed. I wore my dress inside out and different shoes as that confuses the little kobalds, and carried an old iron horseshoe, a church hymnal, and of course, a field guide to fairies. I had rose colored glasses purported to allow me to see fairies, and wore a magic rooster pendent that I claimed would crow if fairies were near and carried a wooden cane with a dog head that would bark for the same.

And yes, I drummed up just enough impish delight to walk around the con for two days wearing this get up. I even made business cards to hand out and gave out four leaf clover stickers so people could “see the fairies”.

I admit it was fun watching the confused looks on people’s faces as they heard the bells I had pinned to my apron and looked up to me in my get up walking toward them. Several folks got into the spirit and two young ladies pretended to be naughty goblins that I threatened, good humoredly, with my horseshoe if they didn’t behave.

It was all in good fun, and I was rewarded for my efforts by winning one of the hall awards!

Liberty Con was a whirl, and the weekend was over before we knew it. We started off Thursday evening at a massive group dinner at Rodizio Grill Brazilian Steakhouse Chattanooga Downtown. We took up an entire end of the restaurant. The food was good and the company even better! Thanks to Julian thompson for inviting us along!

One mistake we made was to sign up for 6 hours of author’s alley - 3 hours on Friday; 3 hours on Saturday morning. This meant we missed a lot of panels. and the location where the author’s alley was is always hot! We did get some good discussion in with the neighbors beside us during both sessions though. Still, we don’t plan to sign up for such a long period again. Lesson learned!

We had a great time meeting up with The LaVoices, Michael and his sweet wife Shirl (find Michael at Michael LaVoice ), Charli Cox , and the lovely Debra Reynolds . We had drive by waves to Jesse A Barrett , Jim Curtis (the OldNFO ), and TC Ross .

On Thursday night, we went down to the lobby to meet and greet, and I had a great conversation with Wally Waltner Wallbanger Creative - Compelling, Creative Stories about his latest novel Fugue of Fire which I’m over halfway through despite my busy time. Seriously folks; this book and its predecessor Overture of Shadow are well worth reading!

I had a lovely conversation with Rita Beeman, the better half of Ian of the The Bugscuffle Gazette . If you can ever pin such a busy lady down, its well worth the effort!

I met Fred Phillips in the hallway while taking a break between events. Fred’s a great guy and a great author and has a terrific boy’s adventure series out that I highly recommend called Gold and Fire with 2 installments - Dreams of Gold and Fire and Sons of Gold and Fire. Check out his substack to find information.

We missed a panel because it took longer to pack up our author’s alley table on Saturday, but that led to a nice, long conversation with Matt Skaggs, known here as the Backporch Writer. Matt was very encouraging and gave some good advice for some stories both I and my husband have in mind.

Meeting Christopher R. DiNote was a highlight of my husband’s weekend. Chris gave him some real encouragement that he was sorely needing and some hope for a boy’s novel idea my husband has been knocking around for over a year now.

We managed to make some of the room parties this year, meeting up with Roger and Janet Carden of “the Halfing and the Spaceman” . Check out their Youtube Channel when you have time. In addition to being an avid gamer, they interview a lot of authors and have become very good friends of ours whom we enjoy getting together with at cons!

We also managed to make it to the Kaffeeklatsch on Sunday, which was loud, raucous, and crowded. Still, I enjoy talking to the authors gathered there and meeting them in a more relaxed (well, relaxed as introverts can be in such a setting) environment.

I know there were many more folks we met and passed by, so this list is by no means exhaustive - I just lost track of everyone. If you met us at Liberty Con and I don’t have you listed here, drop a line in the chat and I’ll apologize profusely for forgetting you!

Later that day, I settled down for a game of D&D 3.0. We started with 3 players, but ended up with only myself and another as the 3rd player had to bow out. We had a hilariously fun time, leaning into our characters: my co-gamer playing a druid I nicknamed Mushroom who had an affinity for fire and my half-orc barbarian I affectionally named Gor. We threw the GM off immediately by deciding to go on a shopping trip right out the gate and for Gor to be very intent on finding a priest of the local good war god to “bless” this outing by cornering a monk, dragging him off into a tavern, and insisting on him drinking a toast and then anointing himself and his companion and his companion’s pet badger all in the name of a successful hunt.

I will have to dig Gor out again sometime later for a game as I had a blast with him.

Saturday morning was miserable with the heat. Packing up the car was not fun, but soon we were on our way up I75, heading to Corbin, KY to play pinball, my husband’s latest obsession (though I have to admit, the Corbin Pinball Museum was my idea). We got our money’s worth out of an all day pass, playing over 5 hours until the business closed, and I have found my second favorite pinball machine:

Truly, if you ever get a chance to play this machine, take it. The gameplay itself is fun enough, but all the little movie easter eggs make it a blast of fun. And I’m not even a fan of the movie! Especially find one with the goblins on top to talk to you.

We made it home Tuesday evening, in time for me to work Wednesday and Thursday. Friday was spent in Louisa, VA, visiting my husband’s iron horse mistress, the 6-1-1. The engine had received a new coat of paint for America’s 250th birthday, and was being run in celebration. I had promised my husband that the next time the train was out on excursions, we’d get tickets to ride it, so we braved the blistering 105 degree, 110 heat index weather after getting up early for the 4 hour drive to take a 1 1/2 hour ride on this classic steam engine. It was well worth it. Thankfully, the passenger cars were air conditions down to about 85, making the ride bearable enough to be enjoyed.

Of course, we couldn’t resist more pinball on our way home and stopped at Decade’s Arcade in Charlottesville, VA and then finished off the night with a viewing of Minions and Monsters.

Saturday afternoon, I was called out to work as a storm dispatcher for my job at the power utility, which has been ongoing through today, Wednesday. At least I can work from home as a dispatcher, though that is a blessing and an irritation, since the company absolutely insisted we all had to be back in the office because “productivity is better together in person!”, yet storm duty which is usually all hands on deck is perfectly fine remote?

Anyway, that catches you up on my whirlwind June and start to July. Stay tuned to next time when I talk of making stuffies (I’m going to try mothman) and a trip to Wisconsin before gearing up for Big Lick Comic Con in August!