Wednesday, May 25th, 2016  I hope I’ll be seeing you at Balticon this weekend!
I drew the short stick when it comes to panels, but I’ll be at several events over the weekend:
Saturday – 2:00 PM Autographing!
The Gimungous Autograph Session
Signing my name, along with: Diana Bastine, Walt Boyes, Alessia Brio, Val Griswold-Ford, Tom Doyle, Scott Edelman, Phil Giunta, Kelly Harmon, Starla Huchton, Mur Lafferty, Grig Larson, Chris Lester, Gail Z. Martin, Mark MacDicken, Christine Norris, Ada Palmer, TJ Perkins, Jennifer R. Povey, Izolda Trakhtenberg, Linda Swann, Lawrence Watt-Evans, S. L. Wideman, Robyn Wyrick (Room: Kent)
Saturday – 5:00 PM – Reading!
Readings with Paul Ellis, Kelly A. Harmon, Emily Leverett, Izolda Trakhtenberg (Room: Parlor 8029)
Sunday – 3:30 PM – More Reading!
Readings with: Broad Universe Members: Randdee Dawn (M), Gail Z. Martin, Jean Marie Ward, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Kelly A. Harmon, Jody Lynn Nye, Vonnie Winslow Crist (Room: Pride of Baltimore)
Sunday – 3:30 PM – Party!
Gaslight and Grimm Launch Party!
If you do nothing else this weekend, join us at this launch party! There will be AWESOME food, entertainment, readings, a lottery and more! (Room: MD Salon B)
When I’m not autographing or reading, I’ll probably be in the Dealer’s Room at the Broad Universe Table. Please stop by and say hello!
Friday, May 25th, 2012  I have my preliminary Balticon Schedule…yay! The Con God’s were clairvoyant when they scheduled me lightly this year, knowing in advance that my foot injury would flare. So, lucky, lucky me: I’m only on three panels.
The cool thing is: I’ll be at the Con all four days, thanks to other commitments, so I’ll be around (either at the Broad Universe Information Table or in the Con Suite if you want to come hang out) pretty much from dawn to dusk every day.
And I’ll have books if anyone wants to purchase and not pay shipping fees. Yay!
Here’s my schedule:
Friday
5:00 p.m. – Swords & Sorcery – Salon B (50 minutes)
How Has It Evolved, panelists contrast New Swords & Sorcery to that of earlier decades.
Saturday
9:00 a.m. – The Back Story – Salon B
The experiences authors had that inspired them to write the novels they wrote.
Sunday
9:00 a.m. – Readings by Brand Gamblin, Mur Lafferty and Me. – The Chase Room
1:00 p.m. Broad Universe Reading – Salon B
Includes Readings by: Jean Marie Ward; Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Roxanne Bland, Emilie P. Bush, Elaine Corvidae, J. R. Blackwell, Trish J. Wooldridge, T.J. Perkins, S. J. Tucker, and me! Six-minute readings Rapid Fire readings from some amazing women/authors.
Update!
5:00 p.m. – Publishing Nightmares – Pimlico Room
Self explanatory! I’m moderating this one…
8:00 p.m. – Teen Writers Collaboration – Parlor 1041
Teens put their heads together to write a fantasy short story.
Stop by and say ‘hello!’ if you’re around.
Sunday
Monday, February 27th, 2012 The National Education Association celebrates Read Across America annually on Dr. Seuss’s birthday, March 2, but the local elementary schools are celebrating all this week.
Today, the kids started the program with a reading of The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss, and at random intervals throughout the day, they had to DEAR: Drop Everything and Read.
Part of the fun was loudly dropping one’s pencil on the desk to clatter, and scootching out your chair to go find a book.
(Personally, I would love it if the boss called out intervals of “DEAR” at work on occasion. I think it would make the work day much more relaxed.)
I’ve been invited to read to a class of first graders tomorrow. I’m so excited!
I was asked to read my favorite children’s book, which, unfortunately is probably too long and too scary, for first graders. I speak of Patricia Coffin’s The Gruesome Green Witch. It’s a treasure unto itself: written and illustrated in green ink.
Instead I’ve chosen to read Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, written and illustrated by Virginia Lee Burton.
Had I thought about it longer, I might have read, Ferdinand, by Munroe Leaf. I adore this story.
I love them both, so I’m equally pleased to read one or the other.
Do you have a favorite book? Do you ever DEAR? Do tell!
(And just for completeness’ sake, here’s the cover of Patricia Coffin’s The Gruesome Green Witch.)
Thursday, June 9th, 2011  My to-be-read pile fell over.
It’s been threatening to do so for quite some time, but I haven’t heeded the warning. Good thing I don’t tend to stack things taller than myself.
I may have been hurt in the ensuing avalanche.
I’m also lucky that only a little more than half toppled over. The other bits are on a small, sturdy book shelf, with two large baskets (full of books) on top. Those survived the descent into messiness.
What I need to do is go through the pile and determine if there are any that there’s no hope I’ll ever get to …and then give them away.
(Seriously: with so many new books being printed, where will I find the time to catch up on these?)
But it’s so hard to choose which should go: old sci-fi classics with outdated science, but “necessary” for me to read to complete my education? The literary fiction which I know will probably bore me to tears?
(Disclaimer: I have read *some* lit fic I’ve enjoyed, it’s just that with me it’s hit or miss.)
What about all those gift books by well-meaning friends, who don’t have a clue about what I’d actually read if I’d picked it out myself?
Ahh, I see one about angels right on top. I know someone who may enjoy it more than I. I think I’ll pass that one along at the first opportunity.
There are more than a hundred books in this pile. (Yes, there are others stacked up elsewhere. Don’t tell the Husband of Awesome™.)
I suppose I could re-order them by length (rather than haphazardly putting the newest acquisitions on top), and read the shortest ones first. That might weed out several in a fairly short time. Similarly, I could read all the YA first, since they’re usually quick reads for me.
Or, I could toss out all the oldest ones, thinking that if I haven’t gotten to them yet, I probably won’t. But then, how will I know if I’m passing up a good read?
How do you tame your pile when it gets so large that finishing them seems like a monumental task?
Note: The photo above is not the photo of my poor, beleaguered books. Nonetheless, it’s a fairly good representation in both amount and subject matter!
Monday, January 17th, 2011 I have leaped joyfully into Debra Dixon’s Goal, Motivation & Conflict this morning. (Just one of the fabulous gifts I received for Christmas!)
On the back cover it says, “How to use these key elements to give dimension to your characters and direction to your plot.”, which, IMO, is a sentence fragment, and has no business being on the cover of a non-fiction book. However, it leads me to believe that by reading this book I will be able to work out the snags in my current work-in-progress.
Since I’m only on page 2 (of Dixon’s book), I can’t tell you how true that is. But I will write a review once I’m done.
On the fiction side, I’m reading Barbara Hambly’s Sisters of the Raven (one of the books I picked up during my Ravencon #bookfail).
So far, so good. It takes place in a world where magic was the sole enterprise of men and, suddenly, men find themselves losing their powers and women gaining them. The first two chapters have been very exciting.
So…what are you reading, anything good?
Monday, November 15th, 2010  For all of 2010, BroadUniverse has been making monthly podcasts based on our famous “Rapid Fire Readings.” An RFR is usually held at a bookstore or convention and five or six BroadUniverse members read for only a few moments each.
It’s our way of giving you a “taste” of the writings of many authors, as opposed to one author for an extended length of time.
The 10th episode is all about dragons and other magical beasts and includes readings from me, from The Dragon’s Clause, as well as Sarah Micklem, Diane Whiteside, Danielle Ackley McPhail, and Justine Graykin.
You can download the Broad Pod and listen to it from this page. The November offering is at the top of the list, but the other 9 episodes are available, too.
If you right-click the episode, you can also add it to your iTunes list.
Tuesday, October 12th, 2010  With one exception, I’m declaring a moratorium on book acquisitions until the new year.
(I say “acquisitions” rather than purchase, because I’m just as likely to borrow a half-dozen books from the library or receive an ARC for review as I am to walk into a book store and buy a few. Alas. And these things tend to pile up.)
I vaguely remember mentioning this last year, but for the life of me, I can’t find the post. Maybe I only thought about declaring a moratorium last year…but this time I’m taking action.
The reason: I have more than thirty (30!) books in my to-be-read (TBR) pile, several of which I need to review for folks. (This number does not include books that I’ve purchased on the off-chance I might get around to reading some day.) If I keep obtaining books like this, I’ll never get to finish those promised reviews before December 31. That’s a self-imposed deadline, btw. I just don’t like having accepted books and keeping people waiting on reviews.
My bookshelves are shelved double-deep and I count nine separate stacks of books in this room alone – two of which are in danger of toppling. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the books were breeding on their own.
Sigh.
So, here’s the exception (and the danger)…
I have an hour-plus one-way commute to my day job and I listen to audio books to pass the time. Depending on the length of the book, I plow through one, sometimes two, during the work week. This requires a lot of trips to the bookstore and/or library.
And therein lies the danger: setting foot in either always results in a purchase or loan.
My plan: to stay out of either until my TBR pile is “substantially” reduced.
But temptation looms already!
I received a call from the library yesterday that one of the audio books I reserved is in. (I’ll be stopping by after work today to pick it up.)
And I’ll be reading at Constellation Books on October 30. [Details Here] I already know this is a deal breaker as far as my moratorium is concerned: it’s just not polite to be invited to a book store and not buy something. So, I’m not counting this purchase in my moratorium.
If I’m diligent, I should be able to knock out quite a few of the to-be-reads before January 1. And if I’m lucky, I can replace a few of them with audio books and kill two birds with one stone.
At least, that’s the plan.
Wednesday, September 29th, 2010  So I stopped at the library after work yesterday to pick up a CD I’d been wanting to listen to, but can’t ever seem to find on the shelf.
Reserves are right near the door, so I could have stopped there, checked it out and left — which was my intent. But no, my brain had other ideas and I found myself walking past the books-for-sale and the 7-day loans (for the most popular books!) and deeper into the stacks of the library.
In no time at all, I had a pile of books in my arms.
And when I got home, I dove right in…finishing one entire novel, reading 76 pages of a second, and (sheesh, help me now) 47 pages of a third (this due to the fact that I couldn’t decide which to read first.) While I was reading second, the third just sat beside me, accusingly…aching to be read. I couldn’t help myself.
To make matters worse, I’m already reading a fabulous novel which I’m reviewing for SFReader (Elaine Isaak’s The Singer’s Crown …and I have Beth Bernobich’s Passion Play on tap to review for the Goodread’s First Reader program.
Good thing I’m a fast reader.
Still…it’s like a sickness, this reading thing. Just like writing (I can’t stop myself from doing that, either.)
Anyone else addicted to reading?
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 So i wandered over to Simon Haynes’ Hal Spacejock web site to see when the new book was coming out (2010) and decided to take The Exam.
I passed with flying colors…and the Gold Nut Award has been conferred upon me:
I love, love, love Hal Spacejock…and his sidekick robot, Clunk. (Well, I probably love Clunk more, truth be told.)
If you like dry, witty humor, it’s right up your alley. And you can read the first book for free over at Simon’s sight. Check it out…and then try the nuts test (as Simon calls it) yourself!
Friday, October 16th, 2009  I’ll be at Capclave tomorrow, reading from Blood Soup.
Capclave is hosted by the Washington, DC Science Fiction Association and promotes short fiction. Their motto is: Where reading is not extinct!
The convention tends to be small and literary, but enjoys participation from big names in the field. This year’s Guest of Honor is Harry Turtledove.
I’ll be reading with other members of Broad Universe, including Jean Marie Ward, Roxanne Bland, Victoria Janssen and Diane Arrelle. We’ll be doing a “Rapid Fire Reading.” Each of us will read for ten minutes or less from out works.
And, we’ll have chocolate.
If you’re in the Washington Area around 1 p.m., please join us. I’d love to meet you.
|
Writers - Maryland Writer's Assn.
|
