I thought this was my “big break” into Hollywood. A Latino investor I had interviewed for “The Angel Journal” introduced me to his other client at the time, Marvel Comics Legend Stan Lee. We all sat at the same table at The Angel Ball in NYC in 2008. My company, Biscayne Writers, was producing live and online writing workshops at the time and my investor thought, “Hey, if you featured someone famous on your platform, your company will be successful!” I was completely beside myself that he thought I was cool enough to hang with a legendary creator like Stan. What I did not understand was how to market the event. I tried so hard, though. Flew to SXSW in Austin, struck a deal with Ustream.tv to provide the technology, found developers to help me build a paywall, did as much online marketing as I could through Myspace and Facebook…but not enough people showed up. My investor and Stan’s right hand men considered the project a failure.
Little did I know the workshop would completely change the course of one attendee’s life. His name is Aaron D’Errico and he wrote this message to me via Facebook in 2012:
“Dear Melanie I attended a Biscayne Writers Workshop in 2008, on creating 4-dimensional characters, hosted by Stan Lee. It made a world of difference. Afterwards I streamlined my previous work submitting it to esteemed comic book writer/artist, and creator of Dark Horse Comics’ Concrete, Paul Chadwick. He’s been mentoring me ever since. Later, at Emerald City Comic Con in 2010, my quest to thank Stan for the workshop and how it changed my life resulted in a chance meeting with him where he went out of his way to encourage me. I thought of the class afterwards, and I’m still grateful for all of the amazing things that continue to happen as a result of it. Also, I saw this link to a film clip of the Stan Lee workshop where he answered one of my questions about Peter Parker being molded after James Dean. He also answered several other questions and I wanted to know if you still have all the footage from the entire workshop. If so, may I get a copy of it as a keepsake? Thank you for helping me to become a better writer. Be well, Aaron D’Errico”
I did not see Aaron’s message until 2017. FIVE years later, can you believe that??? It’s because when you’re not friends with someone on FB, their messages get relegated to a hidden separate folder…which I did not discover for many years…so ya. I felt like a jerk. And on top of that, in 2017, I was living in New York, still trying to make The Femmebots universe the next Marvel Comics universe, so I wasn’t really focused on where the DVD of Stan could be.
Fast forward to 2021. I’m back in Orlando and there are tons of boxes in my parents’ closets with my old newspaper clippings, journals and yes, the Stan Lee DVD. Meanwhile, Aaron never lost patience. He messaged me several more times and I replied with, “Uh, I don’t know where it is,” until finally the DVD literally decided to find me at the bottom of a box with my old CD covers and a video of me skydiving in Northern Cali. Ha.
So, now I’m in the process of editing the footage. Here is a preview of one of the questions he answered from the live online audience: