{"id":77953,"date":"2026-10-03T21:23:53","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T04:23:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/?p=77953"},"modified":"2026-10-03T21:23:53","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T04:23:53","slug":"wordstock-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/?p=77953","title":{"rendered":"Wordstock 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It’s Saturday night. I’m sitting at my desk, having just eaten junk food for dinner, and I’m listening to a bunch of acoustic Chris Cornell songs. This is what I look like when I’m trying to quickly recover from an event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event today was Wordstock<\/a>, the 1st instance of this annual event, in Stockton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s turn the rest of this into an informal Q&A. We all love those.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How was the event? It must have really been something if you’re binging on soulful, sad music and eating cheeseburgers.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The event was okay, but very lightly attended. There were panels, and live readings, both prose and poetry, and there was a taco truck, and pizza, and soft drinks, and a pitching event. Lots of good stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just not a ton of people, so we didn’t have a ton of sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, it was ridiculously hot. Too hot for an October afternoon in Stockton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you bummed out about the sales?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Not really. Most of the people that came to our table bought something. Compared to the other vendors, we did really well, at nearly $100 for the day. Other vendors averaged around $45. It didn’t cost us anything, other than our time and gas, so that’s basically a win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It did cost me $80 to fill my mustang, but I needed to do that, anyway. I wasn’t going to be able to put off fueling my vehicle forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, I wouldn’t say I’m bummed, per se.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then what is all this recovery business about?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The event was lightly attended and easier than many I’ve done this year, but it still took a lot out of me. I was recently sick, and I don’t think I’m at 100% yet. Helping setup, and staying present physically and mentally took a toll on me. Driving to Stockton was the longest car trip I’ve taken since coming back from the cruise. And I had to get up early in order to get there by around 7:30AM for setup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once I got home, I needed to sit down and recharge, in all ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And sometimes these Chris Cornell binges just sort of happen on their own. No one sings like him anymore<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you sure you’re okay?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I’m good. Just tired, kind of emotional, and needing some comfort food and comfort music. By tomorrow, I should be right as rain. I hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anything else about Wordstock?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, I think the event has a lot of potential. The world is still hungry for books. San Jose recently had a book festival, while Melissa and I were on the cruise, and I hear it was phenomenal. The Sacramento book festival has been incredible year after year, and it keeps getting bigger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think Wordstock has the potential. It takes a few years for events like this to build up word of mouth and inertia. The staff was extremely friendly, helpful, and even provided a bunch of free food for us vendors and participants. They have the right stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For them to succeed in the future, they’ll need to find more ways to get the word out. And, from what I heard, they’ll need to figure out ways to get the event to pay for itself, maybe through charging vendors like us a small fee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, maybe they just need to keep doing exactly what they’ve been doing, because like I said before, it takes a couple years before the event becomes big enough and settled enough that people just know about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Money and attendance aside, there was one thing that happened that made the entire event worth it, at least to me. There were a couple of High School kids that came to booth, excited about books and fiction. One is a fledgling writer, and I had the opportunity to give her encouragement, the kind of encouragement that fanned the flames when I was at her point in my writing journey. She and her brother both lit up when I spoke to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That, to me, made it all worth it. It made my day. Maybe my whole weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will you attend Wordstock next year?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I don’t see why not. Steven and I both had a good time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think that’s all I have to say about the event today. I still have a query to write and send out, before the weekend is over. Not tonight, though. Definitely not tonight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s Saturday night. I’m sitting at my desk, having just eaten junk food for dinner, and I’m listening to a bunch of acoustic Chris Cornell songs. This is what I look like when I’m trying to quickly recover from an event. The event today was Wordstock, the 1st instance of this annual event, in Stockton. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77954,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77953\/revisions\/77954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}