Justina Chen

What writers do in the name of research... I've gone buildering and rock climbing when I prefer both feet on the ground. I've snowboarded when I'm a skier at heart--a cross-country skier at heart. (The headfirst trip down the mountain, strapped into a toboggan, was unintentional research. So was the reconstructive knee surgery.) I've tromped all over China, interviewed adoption agencies, taken collage classes, and took up geocaching as a new hobby. All in the name of my writing.

And now, I can claim that I've attended my first ever FAIRY AND HUMAN RELATIONS CONGRESS, thanks to a fantasy novel I'm working on.

Yesterday, along with 100 believers in the sunny and hot Methow Valley in Central Washington, I communed with fairies, dragging my daughter with me. We chanted our love for the earth fairies and the water fairies, introduced ourselves by song as we danced in two concentric circles, listened to a workshop leader channel Aphrodite.

Daughter to me, muttered as she skipped in front of me in her circle: Dad would have hated this.

Me, fluttering my hands in the air: Yes, yes, that's why he's in FINANCE, not writing.

Daughter, glaring:

Me, spinning: Aren't you glad you get to go on field trips with me instead of Dad?

We made offerings to the fairies. We watched a healer channel Aphrodite. We listened to fairy music (performed by humans, not fairies). We spoke to wiccans. After a thirty-minute meditation, asking fairies how we humans can be of service to them, we shared our revelations. People heard new fairy songs. Others were given mystical messages.

As for me? I got a new scene for my story.