Creativity Hacker

Jeff wearing the new Strange Places T-shirt

On the heels of a strange week for friendly people in Calgary, this weekend brings an odd personal event to light for me as well, also set in Calgary: I’ll finally be attending my first Con. Not just my first as an author, but my first Con ever. When Words Collide.

To celebrate these two unrelated (but cosmically coincident) events, and to promote friendly contact among well-meaning (and hopefully unarmed) strangers, I’ve decided to ask for help.

From those very strangers…

See, the point of attending conventions like this is to meet people – like minded folk who share a common interest – to make friends. In my case, this means I’ve got a huge friend-making deficit to catch up on, and I can’t do it alone.

That’s where you come in. If you see me wandering around looking lost or overwhelmed, just walk up and introduce yourself, and if you have a friend with you, introduce him or her as well.

Everyone I meet this way will get a free copy of the Strange Places ebook. Hey, it’s the least I can do. Especially because meeting new people is so hard for us reclusive author types. We can’t let recent international defriending incidents make it even harder, so I’m going to do something about it. I’m going to reward the friendly.

As an added bonus, I’ll pick one of the new friends I meet from a hat and in addition to the ebook, he or she will receive an awesome bonus prize pack consisting of: a signed copy of Strange Places, a Strange Places T-shirt like the one I’ll be wearing all weekend, and a pre-release copy of the Strange Music From Strange Places CD. (Yes, there’s an entire album of strange ambient music, soon to be released, that I wrote as inspiration during the novel writing process.)

If you don’t happen to be in Calgary this weekend, or you don’t happen to be attending the Con, no problem. You can participate too. Friend me on FB or GoodReads. Follow me on Twitter. Or you can register on my web site. Anyone who does any of these things during the 3 days of the Con (Aug 10 – 12) will also get the ebook. But sorry, the bonus prize pack is reserved for my new face to face Con friends. They gotta get some perks for actually being in the same room, right?

And all they gotta do is be a friendly person in Calgary. Easy, huh? Common-place, you might even say. And no, I have not been to the Stampede yet this year. :-)