Leah Petersen

How very timely this post is, in view of the fact that Fox is attempting to shut down all rogue Jayne hat makers.

Bah humbug, and yay me in hindsight for never selling any of my Jayne hats.

Ed Greenwood & me in hats. The others are just cool.

But seriously, I make Jayne hats all the time, and I take them with me to cons. (In fact, I usually make a few on the plane when I’m on my way to cons, and then at the table where I’m hoping very much to sell my books.)

I tend to set the finished hats on the table with the books I’m hoping to sell. People often comment on them, and sometimes they ask how much for the Jayne hat.

And that’s when I hand it to them and say “enjoy.” I don’t sell my Jayne hats. That would take all the fun out of them. The Jayne hats connect me to other Browncoats, people who are passionate enough that they’re willing to fork over money they could spend on the countless other cool things in the dealer’s room at the con. I love the feeling I get when I see how excited they are about it. And then when I go to a panel and there in the audience is the hat, perched lovingly on the head of the person I gave it to and who smiled because I did.

We all get our warm fuzzies out of it and, really, it’s one of the coolest ways I connect with other fans. I love my Jayne hats.

Recently I gave one to Authoress Anonymous, and made some available to her to give away to her readers. I enjoyed that very much.

But there has been one encounter that tops all the others for me. Here is the visual aid:

It was the last day of the con, the last hours, really. The dealer’s room was closing in less than an hour. We were all tired, we were all itching to pack up our things and just go crash somewhere. Oh, we were hoping to sell one more book or two, but the con attendees were crashing too. They were few and far between in the dealer room.

And then here was a group of ladies and one toddler. She was one of those cute ones who smiles when you smile at her, and she waved goodbye to me, vs. hello, but that was cool too, because I got a wave.

I can’t remember the exact chain of events, but somehow the last Jayne hat on the table was mentioned. This was one I wasn’t really expecting to give away because I’d made it too small, and it was child sized, not adult. But I asked the lovely little lady’s mom if she’d like the hat and her mom assured me she would. I asked permission to put it on her, and got it. I put the Jayne hat on the toddler’s head and she grinned at me.

My heart was very happy.

For the next 24 hours, I kicked myself at regular intervals for not getting a picture of her wearing the hat, or even getting anyone’s names. And then I got an email with the subject line: You did something nice for a friend of mine at Ad Astra, which linked to a blog post about it.

Little did they know that THEY had done something nice for me! I was so excited to see the blog post about the encounter, and to hear that Sofia was enjoying the hat that she had, in fact, been wearing all day. They were nice enough to send me a picture when I asked. And now you can see her, and her Jayne hat, and you can imagine me with a huge smile on my face.

Ad Astra was, as always, tons of fun and I saw many good friends and made many new ones. I had a great launch for Cascade Effect, and I sold many books. I was on three panels that were tons of fun, and sat in the audience for others that were great. But Sofia and her hat made my con.

This is why I love the fan community. KEEP IT UP, guys!