First of all, I want to congratulate you on the recent birth of your son. How does it feel to be a mother?

I absolutely love this new mom gig. The lack of sleep is difficult, to put it mildly, but baby cuddles trump everything else. Everything. We’re so happy and privileged to have our son in our lives.

Besides your new parental role, you are also busy in the fandom and are planning the Creative Ink Festival for this April. Can you tell us more about your vision for the event?

Thanks for asking about my new venture, I’m really excited about it. My goal is to provide a great event for writers, artists and readers, all rolled into one. I really want people to get inspired, motivated and encouraged when attending the festival. You know that awesome feeling you have when you attend a great workshop or informative conference or fun convention? That's what I want for attendees. I want it to be both fun and educational. For anyone who has attended When Words Collide in Calgary, I am modelling it after that.

What audience and participants do you want to attract?

I’m hoping to get people involved that are as passionate about the creative arts as I am. Any writers or artists looking to pass it forward make great presenters and panelists. We’ve got a terrific GoH for our one day event, author and publisher, Mark Teppo. Our GoHs for 2016 have also been booked! We’re thrilled to have New York Times Best Selling author Carrie Vaughn and Hugo award winning artist Galen Dara coming to Creative Ink Fest next year.

As for the audience, the festival is really for everyone! If you’re a writer, a reader, an artist or a fan of creative endeavours, there will be something there for you.

What are your plans for advertising and fundraising for the event?

Social media is our friend, we’ll be using our website, twitter and facebook to get the word out. I’ve contacted those in the community who run workshops and critique groups, I’ll also be contacting the wonderful members of SF Canada. We’ve been generously given a listing in Pulp Literature, who are also going to be one of our sponsors. Speaking of sponsors (see how I did that), the money to fund this event is going to come solely from memberships and sponsors. We’re keeping the cost of memberships extremely low to keep it accessible, so sponsors are going to be vital. We offer different sponsor packages, depending on whether people want a booth, program ad, etc. Yes! I’m plugging sponsorship. Please check out the website for more information!

How can people get involved in the Festival?

I’ll always be looking for presenters, volunteers, sponsors and vendors. Visit the website or email me at sandrawickham@live.ca and we can chat!