by James L. Rubart, @jameslrubart
In 2018 I was a Christy Award finalist along with Shawn Smucker. I didn’t know him so thought I’d at least get a feel for who he was through his nominated novel, The Day The Angels Fell.
When I finished, I thought, “He’s going to win.”
My second thought was, “I want to be friends with this guy.”
We were scheduled to be at a conference together in 2020, but you know what happened that year.
Then last fall I was invited to be on faculty at the 2022 Cascade Christian Writers conference and was told Shawn would be there. “Can I room with him?”
So at the end of last month Shawn and I got the chance to meet. And talk. And talk. And have meals together. And go deep on family and faith and life. And feel like we were brothers who had never met.
Rachelle Gardner was at the conference as well. Rachelle is a longtime friend that I hadn’t seen in four years, and we did the same as I did with Shawn. So rich to catch up and talk about the deeper things.
My friend, Matt Mikalatos lives in the area and I was able to connect with him for dinner along with Shawn and friend Linda Howard. Such great conversations with those three!
You want your next conference to be your best ever? Focus on relationships. Or as Randy Ingermanson says, “Think contacts, not contracts.” Because if you think contacts (relationships) the contracts will come. Or as my friend Jim Henderson says, “When people like you, the rules change.”
Yes, take workshops on improving your craft, marketing, speaking, business acumen, etc., but above all, focus on friendships. (And yes, that might mean going up and introducing yourself to that person you’re nervous to meet.) Because relationships are the only thing that will transcend this plane of existence and they are the juice of life.
How Do You Stand Up for Yourself When It Means Losing Everything? Allison Moore is making it. Barely. The Seattle architecture firm she started with her best friend is struggling, but at least they’re free from the games played by the corporate world. She’s gotten over her divorce. And while her dad’s recent passing is tough, their relationship had never been easy.
Then the bomb drops. Her dad was living a secret life and left her mom in massive debt.
As Allison scrambles to help her mom find a way out, she’s given a journal, anonymously, during a visit to her favorite coffee shop. The pressure to rescue her mom mounts, and Allison pours her fears and heartache into the journal.
But then the unexplainable happens. The words in the journal, her words, begin to disappear. And new ones fill the empty spaces—words that force her to look at everything she knows about herself in a new light.
Ignoring those words could cost her everything . . . but so could embracing them.
James L. Rubart is 28 years old, but lives trapped inside an older man’s body. He thinks he’s still young enough to water ski like a madman and dirt bike with his two grown sons. He’s the best-selling, Christy BOOK of the YEAR, CAROL, INSPY, and RT Book Reviews award winning author of ten novels and loves to send readers on journeys they’ll remember months after they finish one of his stories. He’s also a branding expert, audiobook narrator, co-host of the Novel Marketing podcast, and co-founder with his son, Taylor, of the Rubart Writing Academy. He lives with his amazing wife on a small lake in Washington state.