The latest visit to Archon!

(photo is of a new reader-friend, Martin Austin, with myself on the right, at Archon 2010)

I am about a week behind in my report on Archon, as I came right back from it and did the last two shoots for Swordbearer, and had to get a full set report up with pics on the final shoots.

The trip to St. Louis went very well, and I had another good Archon experience. Archon was held at a new convention site in the city, so it had a new layout and arrangement. The dealers room and registration was in one building, with most of the programming in another building that was a short walk away. It made for a little adventure upon arrival, as I first went to the programming office (as I was slated for 5 panels, a reading, and a signing), and had to do a little walking around to get my badge and such.

Literary Underworld was on hand in the dealers room, and were carrying The Exodus Gate, The Storm Guardians, and Crown of Vengeance, so I did not have to worry about running a dealer/exhibition table for the weekend. I did spend several hours there during the weekend so I could be on hand for Becky, who was the primary person running the table. Other "Underlords" as Elizabeth calls the authors that she stocks for The Literary Underworld, included Angelia Sparrow, Sara Harvey, Jimmy Gillentine, and Jon Klement. I finally got to met Angelia's mom, which was a very cool surprise!

Speaking of Jon, he was really awesome in that he picked me up at my hotel and was my guide on day one for getting to the convention site. Really helped, as my travel to and from the site was smooth on the following days.

Panels went very well. Elizabeth Donald and I were almost late to the Urban Fantasy panel, but we made it in the nick of time (Elizabeth had to get from the dealers room to the building with the panels and I was having my adventure getting my credentials). A promotion/marketing panel, focusing on low-budget promotion and marketing for authors and others, followed, which included Joy Ward, myself, and filmmaker Jack Snyder. This was a fun panel, where I found out about the mutual love of basset hounds that I share with author Barbara Hodges, who turned out to be one of my main new friends that weekend.

Later, I was on a "Not New York" panel, which focused on small press publishers. This was the second panel I have been on with Selina Rosen (chief editor of Yard Dog Press), who is one of the most out-going, informative, and fun panelists you can encounter. She doesn't hold back! Van Plexico was my other co-panelist, and this one turned out to be a lot of fun.

They day was rounded out with a signing hour on the lower level, where I was with Sandy Lender, Angie Fox, and Murv Sellars. Sandy and I met at ConText in 2009, and she is part of an exciting new publishing venture. Angie is one of the authors at the Something Wicked blog, where my friend Shirley Damsgaard does her blogging. Angie and I talked about new projects and some of the things in the state of the publishing industry. It is definitely a new frontier now, with the eBook element!

On Saturday, Elizabeth hosted a Literary Underworld panel, which included Angelia Sparrow, Jimmy Gillentine, Sara Harvey, Jon Klement, and Elizabeth, who was brandishing a riding crop, I suppose for keeping us in line! We talked about author's groups, such as The Literary Underworld and Imagicopter, both of which I participate in. I was able to give out copies of the new issue of Imagyro, the Imagicopter magazine, which has yours truly on the cover. If you haven't seen it yet, here it is!



I was also on a Book vs. Movie panel that Saturday with Jack Snyder, a successful independent producer, whose movie Ghost Image has met with outstanding success in both domestic and foreign markets. Jack is a great panelist, very knowledgeable and fun to listen to, and I found myself taking a few notes as he talked about his experiences.

Had a reading towards the end of the day, and ended up doing a section of "In the Mountain Skies", the new short story in the Dreams of Steam steampunk anthology from Kerlak Publishing (Kimberly Richardson, editor).

I did get to meet and talk with some new readers in the dealers room, and hang out a little with some of my author friends like Mike D'Ambrosio, a great science fiction writer out of the Philly Area. Mike is very active on the Con circuit, and also is working on the film/screenplay side of things, so we always have lots to talk about and catch up on. (Photo is of Mike D'Ambrosio talking with one of his fans in the dealer room at Archon).

I caught up with Haley Elizabeth Garwood and a new author friend, Barbara Hodges, at panels and author signings later on Saturday. The day definitely ended on a good note there, and I headed back for the night to my hotel, as I needed to get back earlier on Sunday to meet with Aaron Champion, the cinematographer on Swordbearer as we had the final two shoots coming up on that Monday and Tuesday.

Archon was definitely a good experience, and the new location is nice. My hat is off to Beth Bancroft for putting together another great programming track, which I really enjoyed participating in!

Alaska, Fright Night, Indy, and on to Swordbearer!

Yes, this is going to be a bit of a long entry, as I have admittedly been slacking on my blogging as of late. I am working to correct that, I promise!

In mid-July, I had the opportunity to go to Alaska for a couple of weeks. Needless to say, I went, and it turned out to be quite an amazing experience. We went up the coastline, visiting places like Ketchikan, Juneau, and Skagway, taking a few detours to go into some big fjords.

The scenery was simply stunning as was the wildlife, ranging from sea otters to humpback whales. The massive, mountainous terrains, capped by snow and with cloud layers well underneath their peaks, were fertile grounds for the mind of a fantasy author!

We finally ended up in Seward, which harbors quite a fishing operation, with the 7th largest output in the entire United States. From there it was inland by bus to Anchorage for a day, and then by train to the Denali national park, and finally we ended up in Fairbanks.

Alaska is a fantastic state, and the people there were definitely my kind of folk...very individualistic with a great deal of self-determination.


After getting back, I had to get ready in a hurry for the Fright Night Film Fest in Louisville Kentucky. This event is a fairly big one, getting a few thousand attendees as a horror genre convention. I had an exhibit in the dealers room, and got to visit quite a few of my indie film friends, to the extent that it felt like a reunion of sorts. Also got to catch up with some of my good author friends, like Michael West (pictured with his son, Kyle), Elizadeth Hetherington (Pictured with the cheerleading outfit on) and Michael D'Ambrosio.

Fright Night is expanding next year into the FandomFest, which is going to have multiple tracks, in multipe genres, and I have agreed to come aboard to help in coordinating the Author's Track for the event. I can't wait to bring together a great group of panelists and develop some outstanding content for what promises to be a very amazing weekend July 29-31 of 2011.

The following weekend was Indianapolis, and my return to the downtown Borders that was one of the first bookstores to embrace me with The Exodus Gate. The signing was being held during the GenCon weekend, as downtown Indy is flooded with thousands of fantasy/scifi/horror fans.

I had a great time, and got to visit with some special readers and friends, some of whom were in for GenCon and some who came from the Indy area. One of the most surprising visitors of all was the guy who was my high school newspaper's editor. He is now a star reporter for the Indianapolis Star, and I can't say enough about how cool it was to look up and see him (I recognized him instantly!)



Jon Klement of DragonTalk Radio and Stephen Kendall, who is on the staff of InConJunction, came by (pictured). I found out that Stephen (who is wearing the awesome Atari shirt) is an afficianado of classic computers like the Commodore Vic-20, Commodore 64, Atari 800, and all the computers that got the PC world started. Also visiting was Courtney Lantz, who was in my film The Sirens, and her boyfriend, Tom Williams (pictured below the photo with Jon and Stephen), both of whom should be making an appearance in Swordbearer. Afterwards, a few of us headed over to the Rock Bottom, which had outstanding micro-beers (I behaved, don't worry...just had one)and sandwiches. After that Michael West, his son, and I headed over to the crosswalk from the large mall there leading to where GenCon was taking place. Elizabeth Darvill and Nick Valentino took a break from GenCon to come out and say hi. I got to chat a little longer with Elizabeth, and found out about her new releases, saw new cover art for one of her upcoming books, and more. She and Nick are becoming quite the steampunk team on the con circuit.

Throughout all of it, I have been working very hard on preparations for Swordbearer. Casting, details of locations, props, costumes, and more occupy a lot of time and tedium, but it is all necessary if you want to pull off a quality project.

We have a great team assembled for this one, including the guys from Cineline Productions, Matt Perry and Sven Granlund, and one helluva DP in Aaron Champion, one of the most talented and craziest people I know. We've been tracking everything on our Facebook page for the short film, and I will be doing a few more posts about the project leading up to the big opening weekend of shooting August 21 and 22.

The Road Trip- Duckon, Des Moines, and back home again

Logged quite a few miles last week, as I headed out for my first Duckon in Chicago, followed by a trip to Des Moines for a book signing at Beaverdale Books.

I really like Chicago, and it serves as the inspiration for a certain city in the Rising Dawn Saga! This trip did not take me into the heart of the city, but rather to Naperville on the outskirts, which is where Duckon took place.

It is nice when the convention is located right on the interstate, though there were toll booths about every 3 miles. Even worse, they had some unattended ones, where if you didn't have exact coin change or the special pass you literally were forced to go through and have your picture taken, so you could go online later, inconveniently, to pay the whopping 80 cent toll. Government on display in all of its "excellence", if you ask me! LOL

Anyhow, be that as it may, I did get to Duckon just fine. It is a convention with a history of over 20 years, so it is well established. Excellent Green Room, for the panelist guests, and good hospitality in the dealer's room. The staff was very friendly, and I didn't have too many problems over the weekend except for a little difficulty in finding a few things due to the spread out nature of the Con through the large hotel complex.

I was part of a screenwriting panel on Friday with Matthew Duhan and Christopher Morgan. Matthew is a screenwriter, and also a game designer, and Christopher is a DP (cinematographer). They were great guys, and knew their stuff. We got off to a little bit of a hesitant start as none of us wanted to run rough-shod over the others on the panel, but once we got a sense of things, it flowed better.

I was also on a panel on screenplay adaptations, and then another on trends in Sci Fi Cinema. More great co-panelists, and good panels.

I met a few new readers, though things were a little subdued in the dealer's room. TammyJo Eckhart and her husband were sharing the space with me, so I had little to worry about. They are wonderful folks, and I was very glad that they were at the Con.

Another fine fellow I spent quite a bit of time with was Jon Klement, the man behind the Smerdiverse and DragonTalk Radio. Yes, the man with the purple ears. In fact, purple ears were beginning to infect the convention by the end of the weekend. Some day I will find myself at a Con surrounded by a sea of people wearing these long purple ears!

In addition to everything, Duckon offered me the position of head of the Writer's Track for 2011. I have accepted and look forward to working with them to make a great track. They have given me a second, Patt, who is local in Chicago and will be of great help in organizing the track and interfacing with the local meetings there. I really am looking forward to working with her as well.

After Chicago I headed on to Des Moines, where I was hosted by none other than fantasy author Lettie Prell and her husband, a literary author named John Domini. They were wonderful to me, and it was great to catch up on things. I got copies of two of John's books and am going to be diving into them right away.

Shirley Damsgaard, another good friend of mine, came into Des Moines and took me around during the day. Shirley, for those of you that don't know, is on Avon (an imprint of HarperCollins) and is the author of the Ophelia and Aby Mystery Series, which stands at an impressive seven books. Shirley is a rock star, and a blast to hang out with, and she really went out of her way to make my day a great one. She took me personally to meet the head of the Des Moines public library system, where I was able to make a donation of some of my books on behalf of my publisher.

Shirley also took me to visit the main Borders there, where I got to speak with the management regarding getting the books carried there as well. She took me to a great lunch at a place called The Machine Shed, where the servers dress in overalls, and it has a decidedly country-cooking flavor. She convinced me to go for the turkey rueben, which used cole slaw instead of sauer kraut, and it turned out to be excellent advice.

Shirley's got some amazing things on the near horizon. Keep a close eye on her, and visit her thursday posts at the Wicked Authors blog on blogspot, which features some other excellent major press authors such as Angie Fox.

That night I did my signing at Beaverdale Books, a bookstore that will always have a special place with me. They carried The Exodus Gate from when it was first released, and made it possible for this signing, which was a makeup visit as I had to cancel my appearance at DemiCon due to my mother's health emergency in early May.

Lettie and Shirley made it, as well as some new faces, and Rachelle, one of the staff at DemiCon. I did a reading and we had a great Q and A, and then finished things up. Very enjoyable, and someday I hope I can reach a point where I can bring Alice a huge turnout, as she is very kind, and runs a very good independent bookstore. It is bookstores like hers that help authors like myself get untracked. I don't forget about individuals like Alice or stores like hers.

I managed to squeeze in a breakfast with Steven L. Shrewsbury on the way back from Des Moines, in Bloomington IL. Steven, of course, is the newest author on Seventh Star Press, and his novel Thrall is going to be released this fall. Steven had some funny stories of his adventures at Cons, and we had a really good visit before I had to continue back to Lexington.

It was a really nice trip, and I managed to do a lot during the four days. Of course, there was no rest upon my return, as this week I had online events (which actually kicked off with a guest blog I did at Fantasy Book Critic), including a big one on Bitten By Books (who gave The Storm Guardians 5 tombstones, like 5 stars, in the first published review of the new book), and a podcast visit with Kim Smith on the great Introducing WRITERS! show. We also had a production meeting on the upcoming Swordbearer short film (the one based on a segment of H. David Blalock's novel Ascendant), and I had to gear up for the big Joseph-Beth Bookseller homecoming night here in Lexington, where we go all out. (exclusive print, door prizes, an after party, and more).

Busy, but I like to be busy. Still need to upload some pics, and hope to do that this weekend! LOL I'll be sure to report on the homecoming event as well!