Apex Sci-Fi Day
Meet the publisher, editors, authors and artists who bring Apex Digest to life. Please join us for an afternoon of readings, signings, art displays and presentations!

Featured authors and editors: Jason Sizemore, Mari Adkins, Gary A. Braunbeck, Lucy A. Snyder, Michael West, Alethea Kontis, Maurice Broaddus, Douglas F. Warrick, Geoffrey Girard, and Rob D. Smith

Featured artists: Melissa Gay, Justin Stewart, Steven C. Gilberts, Billy Tackett, Carrie Rapp, Chris Hill, Judi Davidson and Kyle Thomas

Time and Location:
Saturday, September 22nd starting at 2:00 pm
Joseph-Beth Booksellers
161 Lexington Green Circle, Suite B1
Lexington KY 40503
800 248 6849

This week, I'm interviewed at Sequential Tart.

(Edit: They also have a review of Sparks and Shadows up here. The link was initially inaccessible.)

Gary and I went to Hot Damn 5 in the Hocking Hills last week and InConJunction this past weekend ... we had a great time, but boy were we tired afterward. We'll be visiting Indianapolis in another couple of weekends for Mo*Con II. We're still waiting to see if DragonCon will be doable or not.

I did the sensible thing (for a change) and took off work the evening before we leave for Madison so that we have a fighting chance of getting to bed at a decent hour instead of crashing at 3 am after a frenzy of packing and waking up at 5 am to catch our early-morning flight.

I won't be on any panels, though -- originally I was supposed to do a poetry reading on Monday along with a group of other people, but it looks like that got cancelled. Ah well. Gary's going to be on a bunch of things, and I have more fun watching him work ;-)

I expect I'll see a fair number of you at the convention :)

Gary and I will be Guests of Honor at Mo*Con II, which will be taking place Saturday, July 28th in Indianapolis. The theme of the con is "The Intersection of Faith, Race, and Art".

Other guests and attendees include Wrath James White, Brian Keene, Chesya Burke, Gary Frank, Steve Saville, and of course Maurice Broaddus.

flaggerx, I think you'll want in on this ....

Context 20 will be held September 28-30, 2007 in Columbus, OH:

Guest of Honor: Tim Powers
Editor Guest of Honor: Mike Resnick
Horror Guest of Honor: Michael A. Arnzen
Special Guest: Juanita Coulson
Special Guest: Walter Hunt
Special Anime Guests: Matt Greenfield and Tiffany Grant
Music Guest: Tom Smith
Music Guest: Luke Ski

The convention will be hosting a variety of writing workshops on:

• Writing SF/F/H Poetry (Michael Arnzen)
  
• World-Building (Timons Esaias)
  
• Maintaining Emotional Realism in Speculative Fiction (Gary A. Braunbeck)
  
• Plotting the Novel (Tim Powers)
  
• The Art and Business of Adaption for Visual Media (Diana Botsford)
  
• Writing Great Openings (Tim Waggoner)
  
• Writing Cover Letters and Synopses (Tobias Buckell and Paul Melko)

Seating is limited. This year's instructors teach writing at Clarion, Missouri State University, and Seton Hill University's Master of Arts in Writing Popular Fiction program.

Tim Powers' and Gary Braunbeck's workshops are filling quickly. Very. Quickly.

Gary and I will be at World Horror in Toronto (March 29-April 1).

We'll also be at WisCon in Madison (May 25-28).


Gary's been invited to be a guest at InConJunction in Indianapolis (July 6-8).

Gary and I will be Guests of Honor at Mo*Con II, which will be taking place Saturday, July 28th in Indianapolis. The theme of the con is "The Intersection of Faith, Race, and Art".

We of course will also be at Context (Sept. 28-30, 2007) in Columbus, OH.

Sadly, Necon won't be doable this year.

Found out today that the Context SF Convention (contextsf) has a new hotel: The Midwest Hotel & Conference Center. We've got a block reserved for the same weekend as before (Oct. 6-8, 2006) and rooms for convention attendees will cost $79/night.

This hotel used to be a Ramada, and it hosted the convention a couple of years ago.

It should be a good convention for fans and writers both:

Editor Guest of Honor: Ellen Datlow
Guest of Honor: Maureen McHugh
Horror Guest of Honor: Tim Waggoner
Special Guest: Gary A. Braunbeck
Special Guest: Kay Kenyon
Special Guest: Louise Marley
Special Guest: Mike Resnick

The writing workshops will be led by: Charles Coleman Finlay, Tobias Buckell, Diana Botsford, Rosemary Laurey, Paul Melko, Gary A. Braunbeck, and Tim Waggoner

Charlie Finlay's said that this will be the last workshop he teaches for quite a while, so if you ever wanted to take his workshop, this might be your last chance!

I'm also going to be working with the programming director (flaggerx) to see that we've got a better publisher presence this year.

The Stokers went pretty well, I think. It was a nice laid-back convention for me. I got to hang out with some cool people and enjoyed the nice weather. Didn't get to do much sightseeing, but I wasn't expecting to. The redeye flight back early Monday morning was hot and sticky and smelly and cramped, but I pretty much expected that and it was bearable.

The Saturday signing at Dark Delicacies was way too crowded for my tastes, but I'm glad it apparently generated a lot of good business for the store. Store owners Sue and Del Howison were very good hosts and gave us a lot of freebies when we went back to browse the next day.

I've heard some grumblings about the lack of catering and afterparty, but I thought the con went very well. IMO HWA treasurer Lisa Morton did an excellent job on fairly short notice; as an added bonus, she did it for $9,000 less than last year's convention.

( Stoker Weekend photos of Karen Taylor, Gary Braunbeck, Jonathan Reitan, Chuck Palahniuk, and Del Howison -- may take some time to load )