From Dragons to Diagon Alley: The LegendHaven Story from 2022 to 2025+
It started as an online convention for storytellers. LegendHaven is bringing together the coolest storytellers in the world, because stories matter.
It started with dragons. Not real ones, of course—though that wouldn’t be entirely out of place. No, it started with the idea of dragons.
In November 2022, a nerd launched an online event called LegendHaven. Not the ordinary sort of online event, full of Zoom rooms and paywalls and lots of bored people. No, this was a fiction con. And that means… fun.
We started as a one-day convention for Catholic and Orthodox fiction authors—a kind of Diagon Alley. No one quite knew what to expect.
But what did happen surprised everyone.
2022: The First LegendHaven
A hundred writers showed up. Cosplayers logged in from their living rooms. Teens brought their siblings. Grandparents muted their microphones and chuckled along.
Over an October weekend, breakout rooms buzzed with the joy of rediscovery. Strangers became collaborators. Stories were shared that hadn’t been spoken aloud in years.
It didn’t feel like a con. It felt like fun.
What started as a one-day online convention in November 2022—filled with live readings, fantasy panels, and breakout rooms for teens wielding imaginary lightsabers and theological headcanons—has become a cultural campfire.
We call it LegendHaven, the con from the LegendFiction community.
2023: Worlds without End - LegendHaven II
With friends in LegendFiction, Dominic de Souza (founder) had a hunch. A hunch that in the wide world of pop storytelling, fans want more. We want stories to mean something. We know they do.
We need our own Hogwarts. Our cantina. Our firelit gathering where fantasy and faith could talk like old friends. So we decided to build one.
“We started with Catholics. Then welcomed Orthodox,” says Dominic, who built it with zero budget and a tiny team of friends. “Then we realized, we want to welcome so many more people, across all traditions and values. Everyone who shares the same hunger for meaning, morals, and mythic imagination is welcome.
Dominic believes that stories can save lives. And when culture crashes, storytellers are firstresponders. He’s not alone.
From the first event, the signs were clear: attendees called the speed-networking sessions “like walking into Narnia,” and posted quotes about dragons, saints, and Star Wars in the chat threads. Some actually showed up in costume. Some just showed up looking for a place where their stories weren’t dismissed again.
What started as a niche author meetup became an intergalactic fandom of its own.
2024: A Diagon Alley for the Wonder-Hungry
LegendHaven III expanded to welcome readers, gamers, fans of comics, and everything in between. We launched an Awards Challenge, hosted a 5-day writing camp, and ran for a whole weekend.
Afterward, writers joined the community to publish stories together. “It brought back the joy of writing for me,” said Mary Rose, an attendee.
LegendHaven is what happens when a writing community throws in with an RPG guild. Where high schoolers bond with comic artists over a shared love for Beowulf, Battlestar Galactica, or Bluey reruns.
“My daughter said, ‘I didn’t know other kids loved this stuff and believed in God too,’” one parent messaged during the second year. “She found her tribe.”
2025: LegendHaven IV + Starting a Magazine?!
In 2025, LegendHaven returns. And the LegendFiction community dreams of adding a new layer of fun.
We want to create our own quarterly magazine.
"We’re already bringing the coolest storytellers in the world together," Dominic says. “Now we want to talk about the best stories in the world, and feature indie authors.”
We plan LegendHaven magazine to be ~80 pages of author interviews, short stories, reviews, essays, and all the must-reads and must-watch stories. Part coffee-table awesome, part spiritual manifesto, part fiction playground.
Gabriella Batel, a YA thriller writer, professional editor, and LegendFiction mentor, describes it this way: “We’re building the community and magazine we wish we had as teens."
A Movement That Feels Like Home
“The LegendHaven con felt like coming home,” commented one attendee. “Then I joined the community. I stopped worrying about make my story perfect. I started writing for joy again.”
In the post-event threads, attendees leave comments that read more like letters to pen pals:
“I made friends I didn’t know I needed.”
“I didn’t know anyone else thought like this.”
“I haven’t smiled this much in months.”
“There’s a kind of healing here,” said Gabe Chabot, a volunteer. “And its fun.”
The LegendFiction community is restless. We host writing events every quarter and publish the best submissions as anthologies. We’re launching a writing school. We’re hosting morning and evening writing sessions, so that authors keep writing together.
What’s next for LegendHaven? First, LegendHaven 2025 in October.
What’s the future?
We hope for an in-person meetup. A real con. With real-world cosplay.
LegendFiction isn’t just an online weekend event, or a glossy magazine. We’re the coolest storytellers in the world, coming together to see what happens when we do.
Our souls need stories to survive
Maybe you’ll join us, and we’ll build it together.
May the lore be with you.