The hall swelled with attendees. More waited outside under the red book banner marked FICLY-NOMI-CON, waiting because they hadn’t bothered to pre-register.

Everybody here shared something special that brought them together from all over the world. Two simple beliefs bound them. The first was that anyone could be a writer. The second, everyone had a story worth telling.

A tall, imposing man, dressed in rumpled blacks leaned against a corner, where the hall bent around the convention hall marked B, fingering his badge. Robert Quick. It was his pen name, painstakingly chosen from dozens of others that hadn’t quite made the cut. It meant a lot to him. The only thing thing he wanted more was to see that name grace a book cover.

Blinking behind thick glasses he looked up and tried quell the bout of nausea that came with moving his head. He’d never had a head for flying! Dark eyes darted from badge to badge, checking names against a mental list. He’d made a lot of friends on Ficly, now it was time to meet them.