It’s been hard keeping the news under wraps, as this has been in the works for months. We’ve kept our mouths shut, because we didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up or let folks down if plans fell through. We’re literally bringing the convention back to its home town, and to the only remaining venue it had in this town too (the Lismore used to be the Ramada we were hosted in from 2006-2010).
No Brand Con, to me, never felt right in the Dells. The Chula Vista was way too sprawling a venue for us, and we never felt connected to the location. We ran five cons there from 2016-2022, and each year it just felt like we were drifting away from the core of the con’s identity there. Stevens Point wasn’t a bad home, and I think 2023 did feel like we were recapturing something, but things just didn’t work out there.
So we took a long hard look at things over the last two years, and I think some of us really took a hard look at what made the con great for so long. Our most successful years were tied to our home town — the town that most of the staff still live in honestly. And every time we held it away from that, we were just losing that identity more and more.
Coming back to Eau Claire was the obvious and only choice.
I co-founded this event with a few other folks so many years ago. We’ve seen generations of staff come and go, and lost a few of them along the way. But the core of this convention is the community we build together. Growing up, conventions like this were the first place I truly felt like myself, and I’ve been very clear over the years that my goal was providing that kind of place for others.
I’m so excited that we’re back, and I don’t think we’ll ever leave again.
Also, remember, you can pre-order Buried Memories, the fourth book in my contemporary fantasy series the Mia Graves Saga, out December 15th 2025.
The last few months have been busy ones for me. Between August and September, I was at four different in person conventions, recorded an entire season of The Meatgrinder in a cabin in the woods, presented at the virtual event CritWitchCon, a bunch of other stuff I can’t mention, and, of course, went to my grandmother’s memorial. Also in the mix I started a new medication, and kept up with my creative projects (like getting Buried Memories across the finish line).
