When my friend, pen name Amy Alex Campbell, asked me to split a stall at Fair Day, my anxiety immediately wanted to say no. My imposter syndrome put its foot down and said absolutely not you’re not good enough and your books won’t sell. The more AAC talked about Fair Day the easier I was able to say yes. My husband, Joel, would be with us, helping us both out. AAC already had 3 years experience with Fair Day and both of us had grown as queer people throughout the year. We stood confidently knowing what kind of people we were and I’m so grateful for that. Though we weren’t able to meet up as much as we would have liked to work on the stall ideas, AAC went above and beyond with some fantastic signs to hang up.

It was a 5am wakeup call with a few hiccups along the way, but I finally made it there and we three quickly got set up for a 10am start. All in all, it was a great success for both of us.

There were a few highlights for me that I wanted to share. A person part of the Fair Day facilitators came up and was grinning ear to ear, “Literacy at Fair Day?!” He quickly purchased books and happily skipped away. I just loved his exclamation!

Another one was having some fans of mine rock up to buy second editions and other books they didn’t have yet. To hear how much they needed to read the sequels was inspiring. Silver’s sequel comes out this November so plenty of time to buy it and get ready!

Another great moment was when a parent was looking at my books and was talking to me about their trans-daughter and how hard it was to find books about them. I pointed them to Shorts, which has trans stories inside. I talked about my own experiences as a non-binary person and how “despite the world” I was going to be me anyway. A few heartwarming stories were shared and tears. It’s a major reason why I write the stories that I do.

If you ever have moments like these that terrify you, require you to take a change, to invest time, money and a whole lot of energy, do it. Say yes. Even when you want to say no.