Robert E Howard Days 2026

I write this the day after getting home from Howard Days 2026. This is my third trip to Cross Plains, Texas. The first was in 2023, followed by 2024. I was unable to go last year. After just two years, the gathering is already larger than ever. I am so pleased to see it.

(It be a small town, it be.)

A little back story in case you need catching up.

My best recollection is that I first discovered Robert E Howard the summer after sixth grade. I would have been twelve at the time. The book I had seen on the shelf and purchased was a lavishly illustrated edition of the novella “The Flame Knife,” rewritten by L. Sprague de Camp from one of Howard’s El Borak stories, for the Conan character.

(My copy probably eventually looked as worn as this one. And see? Even the cover tells you it’s lavishly illustrated.)

That book led me to the Ace paperback Conan series of twelve volumes. By the time I was in eighth grade, I had managed to collect all 12. I re-read them every year. Through the introductions, I learned of Howard’s other characters and over the years acquired some of those books as well.

At the time I first found Howard, I had been an Edgar Rice Burroughs fan. I had read Tarzan of the Apes in fifth grade, found one of the John Carter of Mars books in the library, and went on a many-years quest to read all of Burroughs. But Howard changed that trajectory. I still read and re-read Burroughs, and eventually had all twenty-four of the Tarzan novels and all twelve of the John Carter books, but Howard had become my favorite author. His vibrant pose, brilliant action, and weird fantastical settings hooked me like nothing else I had ever read. With that first book, I wanted to read everything Howard had ever written.

That was the year 1980.

In June of 1986, ten individuals traveled to Cross Plains in what was to become the inaugural Howard Days gathering. It wasn’t an annual gathering at first, but when it happened, it was always around the time of Robert E Howard’s death (June 11), and eventually settled in to what it is now, the second Friday and Saturday in June. By 1999 or 2000, though, the Howard Days began to take off. A non-profit group, Project Pride, which is dedicated to the promotion and revitalization of Cross Plains (population 899), had been formed, and the home in which Robert E Howard had lived much of his life was purchased by Project Pride and turned in to a museum. It subsequently became an historical landmark.

(The historical marker at the Howard House.)

All this time, through the three and a half decades since I’d discovered Robert E Howard, I never knew of Howard Days. I began vaguely to become aware of it in 2020 or 2021, but then a friend mentioned he was going in 2022, so I looked in to it more. I was unable to go that year, but I set my mind on getting there.

After my first visit in 2023 I was inspired. I’ve already told that story of writing my “barbarian yarn” and sending it off to query for publication. Successfully so the following year. And 2024, while that process was still ongoing, I was even more enthused about Howard and my writing.

It was an experience difficult to describe in 2023, after more than four decades reading Howard and dreaming myself of being a published author, stepping in to Howard’s home, looking at the actual room where he slept and did his writing, and making that tangible historical connection with one of my favorite authors.

(An unruly and unkempt lot of emerging writers.)

This year’s gathering ramped up that writing inspiration and love for all things Howard even more. This year was the inaugural “Emerging Writers Workshop” at Howard Days, which will almost certainly continue next year and the following years. It is meant for new authors seeking to break in to publication that write in the genres (which is pretty wide!) that Howard himself wrote in. I may have more to say about the workshop separately, so I won’t write it about it here.

Howard Days consists primarily of three panels or roundtables each on Friday and Saturday. Each year the topics are different. This year was the celebration of 40 years of Howard Days so there was some retrospection in the panels, but primarily the panels focused on “where do we go from here?” and “how do we grow awareness of Howard and his legacy?” Each year there is an academic symposium featuring papers of academic level research on Howard topics and literary criticism. This year’s presenters shared on the topics of reincarnation in the Howard stories, a comparison between F Scott Fitzgerald and Howard, and a reading of the first chapter of a book arguing that Howard’s stories do in fact form a type of epic literature. Another panel featured the scriptwriter for the movie “The Whole Wide World,” Michale Scott Myers, and other persons—actors, director of photography, film editor—related to the movie. And there was a public showing of the movie after the Friday night banquet.

There were many more vendors this year than in previous years, which was good to see. I, of course, hung out at the Robert E Howard Foundation Press table, and at Bobby Derie’s table. The Press are the authorized publishers of Howard’s writings not included in the Del Rey/Wandering Star volumes, and they focus heavily on publishing the most authoritative Howard texts of his stories and drafts as possible. Derie is a Howard scholar and REH Foundation board member, and each year presents a free book (or two, this year) on things pertaining to Howard. In recent years he has published volumes of Novalyne Price Ellis’ letters (Novalyne was, for a time, Howard’s girlfriend), and this year bequeathed us a massive volume of the notes and interviews that were the basis of L. Sprague de Camp’s terrible biography of Howard and another hefty book on all of Howard’s writings related to the Battle of Clontarf.

(Frenzied mob storming the REH Foundation Press table.)

(The book aforementioned.)

As always, there’s the meandering through the Howard House, and imagining what it might have been like when Howard lived there. I was there in 2023 when they brought out the actual writing table that Howard used in his lifetime. And again in 2024 after the table and had been professionally restored by a conservator and settled in to its place in Howard’s bedroom. This year, I even got a pic of me at that table.

(Clifton D Healy not pictured)

If you have any interest in Robert E Howard, I highly recommend you go. There are accommodations in nearby towns (Cross Plains is too small for its own hotel). And there are a lot of friends to make. And if you’ve never heard of Robert E Howard, I recommend you go and learn.

I’ll be returning every year that I can.