July 2025.

A month I will never forget.

Two weeks in this month was spent traveling across the states. Driving, driving, driving. Several hotels.

First major stop: Grand Rapids, Michigan for the Realm Makers Conference and Expo. My first Realm Makers experience was wonderful! Every bit as wonderful as going to an actual magical world!

I had heard of Realm Makers from other attendees of the 2024 Write-to-Publish conference. I was interested right away. A conference for Christian authors of fantasy, science fiction, and other speculative fiction? Right up my alley!

My brother came along. I’m not the only author in my family. My brother has published short stories in anthology books by Dragon Soul Press.

Well, there we were at Realm Makers, my brother and I, and we actually had the honor of meeting some big names in the entertainment industry!

First up is our meeting Mike Nawrocki, co-creator of VeggieTales and voice of Larry the Cucumber, in person, and his wife Lisa!

Yep, that’s the featured image for this blog post.

What a blast! Yeah, my family, we’re long-time VeggieTales fans. Like many Christian families, we grew up watching VeggieTales. I have vague memories of a Halloween party in the gym at the Bible college campus where my dad used to teach. I was the four-year-old girl dressed as Laura Carrot. My brother was Larry-Boy.

Anyway, you’re probably noticing the Dead Sea Squirrels poster behind us in the picture. Mike Nawrocki is currently writing a children’s book series. Of course I purchased his books, the Dead Sea Squirrels. One set for myself and another for my niece and nephew. And Mike was more than happy to sign every single copy! And he really liked hearing me tell him about the long-ago Halloween fest while he signed those books. Let me tell you, I’ve really those books, and of course I’ve been buying the most recent releases from Amazon. If you haven’t checked them out yet, well, I’ve just added a dozen or more books to your TBR pile! You’re welcome!

You know what made Mike signing my Dead Sea Squirrels books truly special? In the first book in the series, he didn’t just sign his name and draw Larry the Cucumber, but he wrote To Alicia. Keep on writing!

How special is that? Even to this day, it feels like Larry the Cucumber himself, a fun and lovable character I grew up with, is telling me to always pursue my dream of writing! Oh, and yes, Mike did the Larry voice for my brother and I at my request. “Remember, Alicia, God made you special, and he loves you very much!”

I’m also a big Darkwing Duck fan. If you read my blog post An Author of Autism, you would’ve noticed that I mentioned Darkwing Duck in that post. I’ve even had the pleasure of chatting with Tad Stones, the creator of Darkwing Duck, over Facebook messenger several years ago. And then, lo and behold, at Realm Makers, I met Katie Leigh, the voice of Honker Muddlefoot from Darkwing Duck! She even signed my comic books!

Yes, I am wearing a Darkwing Duck T-shirt in this photo. Oh, I’m a nerd? I guess so. I did dress as Dorothy Gale for the costume parade, as you can see in the photo with Mike and Lisa Nawrocki.

And I wish I could’ve gotten some photos, but my brother and I also met Tony Bancroft, an animator and director who has worked on several characters for Disney movies such as The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and Mary Poppins Returns. I also met J. Chris Wall, showrunner of the animated Wingfeather Saga series. He may not be the author of the books, but he was more than happy to sign the books all the same! I even got a free copy of a book on the making of the The Wingfeather Saga series and he signed that too.

Then we’ve got N.D. Wilson, who wrote a Wingfeather novella. And of course he signed the book right where his story is in the book!

Please pardon me if this blog post sounds like a lot of bragging. Attending Realm Makers has truly shown me the importance of networking within the publishing industry. You never know who you might meet at such a big conference and expo! Realm Makers provided opportunities for an aspiring fantasy author like myself to make connections with some pretty big names. And I want to support my fellow authors the way I want to be supported in my writing journey. I had the chance to reconnect with other authors I’ve met at previous conferences. In June 2024, for example, I met Kara Swanson at the Write-to-Publish conference. I bought both books of her Heirs of Neverland duology, which I really enjoyed and highly recommend. It was great to meet her again at Realm Makers, and of course I purchased her book, Ignite, which is the first book in a new series she’s working on. She happily signed it. And I’m happy to say that Ignite won the Realm Makers Realm Award. I was rooting for Kara and her book!

But Realm Makers was more than just meeting and sharing business cards with the creative minds behind my childhood shows. It was still an author conference. I attended classes on book contracts, how to write like Madeleine L’Engle (an author I adore!), and how to build my platform.

Another event that made this conference stand out was the Sunday morning church service. A good time to gather together as a church to worship, even if we are at a conference and not in a church building. Just goes to show that people make the church. The sermon on the Apostle Paul’s thorn in the flesh from 2 Corinthians 12 made for a relatable message for authors. What kinds of thorns might authors encounter? Maybe they had to kill a darling in order to simplify the plot, or fix a plot hole? Maybe they just received their 27th rejection letter? They signed the contract, only to find undesirable clauses afterwards? It’s a long list of potential thorns.

My biblical learnings didn’t end there. The Realm Makers conference was simply the first major stop of a family vacation. Our second major stop was the Creation Museum. Here’s a photo of one of the exhibits.

So much to learn. And so fascinating! Nothing like a biblical take on history and science!

And look at this beautiful flower outside the museum! Nothing like I had seen in Montana.

But our third major stop?

One of the biggest museum experiences of my life?

The Ark Encounter in Kentucky!

This was no ordinary museum.

This museum is special in that it’s basically a replica of Noah’s Ark as described in the book of Genesis. A replica that serves as a Christian-based museum.

A truly unforgettable experience.

Dioramas of many sizes, movies, and plaques decorated the place, showing off to the thousands of tourists their information. The six days of creation, the Fall, the world before the flood and the wicked horrors that defined it, extinct animals that set foot aboard the Ark, the geologic activity that accompanied the flood and after the flood (a really fascinating thing for me to learn about!), diagrams of world history, the contrasts between the creationist and evolutionist views, and our dire need for Jesus.

So much learning. And conviction.

One movie we watched explained the purpose of the building of the Ark Encounter: to direct people to Jesus. And that makes sense.

The Flood was God’s judgment on the wicked world. But there are hints of mercy to be found in this Flood history.

God took pity on Noah. A righteous man who believed God’s warning of a coming flood, and who, along with his family, spent years building an ark in preparation for the flood, despite being laughed at by the world.

As a result of their enduring faith, they were saved from the many waters.

Through Noah and his family, God started over with the human race. The rainbow is God’s promise to Noah to never to flood the Earth again. The true meaning of the rainbow.

And God kept a certain promise that is recorded in Genesis 3:15.

Jesus being born of woman. A virgin, to be exact.

Yes, Jesus, God the Son, was born into humanity.

Jesus is the door.

By walking up the ramp to check out the doors of the ark, I got a photo of this beautiful view:

A beautiful view from the doors. Just as Jesus is the most beautiful door ever.

So what do the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum have to do with my writing career, other than the fact that my family visited those attractions after Realm Makers?

Well, everything. It’s much more than just a couple of awesome Christian-themed museums.

As a Christian author, I thank Jesus for his sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection. My author career belongs to him. It is for God’s glory. So I strive to write stories that glorify God.

And what an honor it is to be sharing a blog post about what a family vacation has taught me about writing speculative fiction and God’s goodness and mercy.