A Light Through the Darkness

Is there a way to use someone like a Greek God character WITHOUT it being a deux ex machina?

Edit:

The reason I'm asking this is twofold. One, I just finished a book last night that had Greek Gods in it, and they were characters, and it seemed like every time the hero/heroine hit a bump, some god was there to help them out. I dunno, that seems like authorial copout to me.

Two, I have a demi-god (well, she is, sort of) that is the focal point of the other series that is the companion to Horseman, and I'm sort of hoping to avoid the whole deus ex machina thing. So I'm soliciting opinions about how to pull it off successfully, and if anyone has a recommendation of a book/series that does this well (especially if the MC is the god), let me know.

The only one I can think of off the top of my head is a romance by Roberta Gellis called Burning Brightly, which was the love story of Persephone and Hades. There, they weren't gods, really - they were mages, and there wasn't a lot of "well, I'm a god, so this is the way I'm going to arrange things."

I dunno, maybe I'm overthinking this.

So, I'm looking over cons in my area, and I run across the website for Readercon. And now I defer to those professionals among my friends.

I'm a small press author. I didn't sign up to be a presenter, and I can only make it for Saturday. Is this worthwhile for me to go to?

Also, can anyone suggest any others that it might behoove me to go to? I'm going to be having the 2nd book of the Apocalypse Cycle out next year, so I'm looking at promoting. However, I'm working on a limited budget, both monetarily speaking and time speaking, so I'm not looking at travelling all over the US (although I would love to!).

Any suggestions? And yes, if there are online courses on promotions that you can recommend (free or otherwise), I'd be interested.

Thanks!