All In! Crown of Vengeance, ConText, and more...

Just turned in a short preview section of the 2nd book in the new Fires In Eden series, which will be placed at the end of Crown of Vengeance, so all the pieces are ready for the book. We plan on making an announcement very shortly regarding the limited edition version, which will probably be around 100 copies and include some special elements and extras.

ConText was a really great experience. I ended up doing 4 panels that weekend, three of which focused on translations from books to other media and vice versa. Doug Johnson, Michael D' Ambrosio, Sandy Lender, Scott Sandridge, Dr. Maura Heaphy, and Gregory Hall were some of my co-panelists, and we had some fantastic discussions.

I actually made it to two parties over the weekend, hanging out with Michael West and Nicole Cushing on Friday (held by Indiana Horror Writers and Apex Publications) and the Meadowhawk Press gang on Saturday night (co-hosted with Shroud Publishing). Suffice it to say that Michael and Jason's party was shut down by security on friday night...they know how to party! Saturday's went the distance, though I bowed out early, but not before I got to see Dan Gamber of Meadowhawk demonstrating yet another of his many talents as he danced the night away!

I am really digging Sandy Lender's book Choices Meant For Gods, and I picked up a few Michael West stories as well that were highly enjoyable. I also picked up the "Best Magazine Ever Released by Apex Publications"...which Maurice and I agreed is the appropriate designation for it as it has a Maurice Broaddus short story in it!

Speaking of...I had a great panel to round out Sunday with Sandy Lender and Scott Sandridge, who is one of the more colorful characters I've met out there! He's got a whole new conception of orcs in his new podcast novel, The Silverblade Prophecy. I believe Scott set a record for panel participation at ConText. He did a stretch of 6 straight panels on Saturday, and I believe he was on around 10 panels in all that weekend. He is the iron man for sure!

Jason Sizemore was an editing guest of honor over the weekend, and the hour focusing on him, hosted by author Geoffrey Girard, was awesome! Didn't know Jason was a Transylvania University guy and got to learn alot about Apex history. Jason's really doing some great things and I hope every reader out there tries out some Apex stuff...it's very, very good!

Finally got to talk for a bit with Michael D'Ambrosio, who was at the Fright Night Film Festival that I was at, though we didn't get to talk there. Michael is really pursuing some film avenues, so we got to talk a little shop in that respect as well.

ConText had some outstanding programming, and was really enjoyable as a smaller convention that is literary focused. I definitely want to return to this one again next year. Columbus is not too far away, after all! (and I did get to visit the Borders on Kenny Rd. in Columbus, where I will be returning on Thursday, November 5th for a signing for both The Exodus Gate AND Crown of Vengeance)

The Hypericon Adventure!

I really love Hypericon. Actually, I am beginning to think of Nashville as my second home. I have attended Hypericon since the early days of this Con, missing only the year that my father passed away, and this convention has always been a very pleasant experience.

It is still a smaller convention, though it has grown alot since its first year. It showed more growth this year, and as always was a pleasant environment in which to meet and talk with people.

There were alot of outstanding writers, starting with the guest of honor, Brian Keene, who has written some magnificent horror novels such as The Rising, City of the Dead, and Dark Hollow. I was pleased to discover that Brian apparently has excellent taste in music, attested to by his Iron Maiden shirt.

Scott Nicholson, who wrote one of the coolest and most visceral non-typical vampire books out there, They Hunger, was actually on one of the film track panels with me (a screenwriting panel). Scott has alot going on, including the world of graphic novels.



I was very happy to see Dan and Jackie Gamber of Meadowhawk Press (and look out for a special blog article on Jackie's book Redheart...coming very soon to this blog and the Seventh Star Press blog too!). Jackie unveiled a new sharpie tattoo, showing off her new rock n' roll image...it looked a little faded on the last day of the convention, but Jackie explained that was because she was demonstrating her toughness by using a brillo pad to remove the tattoo! Don't mess with Meadowhawk Press! lol

Actually, Meadowhawk Press became one of 4 small press publishers ever to have a release win the Philip K. Dick award! (for Terminal Mind by David Walton) THAT ROCKS!

Jason Sizemore of Apex Publications was also on hand. I have not gotten to know well Jason yet, even though we both live in Lexington! Apex is an excellent publisher, with many writers that I have alot of respect for ( Sarah Harvey, Fran Friel, etc. ), and I hope to get a chance to meet with Jason on the homefront a little more often.

One of the coolest things I encountered this past weekend were P'ckit Dragons, from the Smerdiverse developed by Jon Klement. He is not hard to find, walking around with a big purple hat with ears and a shirt with a little purple dragon peeking out from the shirt pocket. Jon took some time to tell me some of the background of the multi-dimensional P'ckit dragons, and after learning more, I believe everyone should have their own P'ckit dragon! Jon is from St. Louis, so I hope to catch back up with him in person at Archon later this fall.

I finally got a chance to meet D.A. Adams, author of the Brotherhood of Dwarves series. I had been looking forward to meeting him at MidSouthCon, but he had some last minute schedule conflicts and was not at a reading that we were supposed to do together there. I picked up a copy of his first book and will be reading it for sure. D.A. and I appear to have quite alot in common as well, which was really cool to discover.

Seeing Sarah Harvey, Elizabeth Donald, and Angelia Sparrow is always a great thing, and Hypericon was no exception! Elizabeth was generous/kind enough to consign some of my books there so that I had availability in the dealer's room. Believe me, this is a really helpful thing at a convention, and I appreciated it tremendously.

I did get to visit for a little while with Steven Shrewsbury, though I did not get to talk to him as long as I wanted to. Steven's book Hawg was a great read, if not disturbing! Not for the faint of heart! LOL His new one Tormentor is just now coming available.

I got to spend a good bit of time with my pals/partners in crime/fellow independent media sufferers Stephen and Suzie Lackey (who do all kinds of stuff, like Con Trek, Cinegeek.com), and Mike Young. As always, we came up with absurd ideas, as well as a few that might yet have merit! lol Stephen had his hands full running the film track, but we did get out for some very excellent pizza on Sunday.

Speaking of ideas that might have merit, something may be brewing regarding the film side of things! My cohorts in Cineline Productions, Matt Perry and Sven Granlund, and I had a great meeting with the eminent H. David Blalock, author of Ascendant (Sam's Dot Publishing). Suffice it to say that it appears that I will be directing a new project, short film in nature, fantasy in nature (YEEESSSS!) later this summer. Get ready, I'm fired up!

The good Jarl of House Blalock and his daughter Hericka and I did get to spend a good amount of time together, which was fantastic, as they are rapidly becoming a couple of my favorites out there. I am going to be posting something soon on Ascendant as well...so stay tuned!

Was very happy to meet a couple of Kentucky authors, David Jack Bell, author of The Condemned, and Julie Kagawa, whose first YA release The Iron King comes out at the beginning of 2010.

Big thanks to Matthew, Jon, Deb, and all those that came to support my signing slot in the dealer's room and who picked up a copy of The Exodus Gate. It means alot when you see someone step forward to take a chance on a new author. I can assure you that it is not forgotten! ;)


Many, many thanks and salutes go out to conference chairpersons Fred and Stephania Grimm, who are among those willing to take on the punishing job of running a large event. I think they have really been steadily building a very nice event, and I hope that they continue, despite the many headaches and challenges involved. (and kudos to all the volunteers like Deborah, and all the others involved with various aspects like running registration, cooking for the con suite, and more).


Oh yeah, while in Nashville, I also got to visit Davis-Kidd in Nashville. Awesome store, 2 levels, grand scale, while still being indie friendly. I got to meet Ashley Strosnider and Joe Nettles in person, which was super cool as I just knew them through phone calls and emails before.




Overall, Hypericon 5 was yet another great experience. I am already looking forward to Hypericon 6!!

MidSouthCon 27 -First-Class Experience

What can I say? Other than that the MidSouthCon 27 staff, organizers, and event itself are simply first rate.

I just got back in from Memphis, and the trip reinforced why I like Tennesee so much. Everyone was extremely hospitable, from the staff members that checked me in to the Ops room to the individuals such as Dan Gamber that were involved in the panels and programming itself.

At a convention like this, there is so much to choose from. As a guest, I had two panels that I was scheduled on (Film and Editing, and another on Paranormal, Supernatural, and the New Gothika). I also was given a reading and an hour slot in the professional's row for signing The Exodus Gate.

Beyond my scheduled items, I tried to attend as many panels and workshops as I could, and there were indeed some fantastic ones.

Jeff VanderMeer and Matt Staggs had a workshop called Explore Your Book Life which centered around a new book they have coming out called Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for 21st Century Writers. With backgrounds in publishing, writing, and publicity, Jeff and Matt were the perfect duo as they delved into the things involved in developing a sustainable writing career. They covered a wide range of elements, from time management, to new media tools, and much more. This workshop had something for everyone from beginning writers, to newly published ones (like myself) and well-established writers.

Another fantastic panel was Folk Dance in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Dee Birnbaum, who is a world-traveling dance expert with a tremendous expertise in Middle Eastern cultures and dancing, was joined by Kirk Stevens (this guy is a renaissance guy if I ever met one. Conducted a very intruiging creativity panel that I had to miss due to schedule conflicts) and Sara M. Harvey (who is also a very talented writer and costume designer). They discussed the use of dance in science fiction and fantasy, and approaches for fictional settings. As someone who is not, to put it mildly, very skilled at dancing, I found this panel very informative and accessible.

My panels were really enjoyable. On the film panel I was joined by the great Luke Ski, a very outgoing and entertaining music and parody performer. Guest of Honor John Hudgens, creator of many Star Wars parody films, was on hand, following his screening of his new DVD documentary release American Scary (check out www.americanscary.com ). Paul Robinson, a producer and editor of numerous tv productions and a former Rolling Stone contributor, and Tim Brown, of Inked Monkey Productions (who are doing the online adult puppet show Them F#@%ing Puppets)rounded it out.

For the Paranormal/Supernatural/Gothika panel, I was joined by Angelia Sparrow, who writes GLBT romance/speculative fiction (you won't often see werewolves and vampires like hers in the mainstream too often!), Rickey Mallory, a very established Romance and speculative fiction writer, and Ruth A. Souther, author of Immortal Journey: The Death of Innocence. It made very a very interesting and diverse discussing of supernatural elements and trends in current fiction, filtering a little over into the movie/television side of things.

It was wonderful to see some faces I'd known before, such as Tyree Campbell of Sams Dot Publishing, Bill Snodgrass of Double-Edged Publishing, and writers such as Elizabeth Donald and the aforementioned Sara M. Harvey. Also got to visit for a few minutes with the legendary Glen Cook (of the Black Company series), one of fantasy's best writers ever. (and I also had the opportunity to attend some panels that had C.J. Cherryh on them. Wow!)

Among the bright new faces that I met were Dan and Jackie Gamber of Meadowhawk Press (I can't wait to dive into Jackie's new book Redheart), Windsong Levitch (Fascinating individual with a very courageous personal story), Kirk Stevens (who I harassed often throughout the weekend), publicist Matt Staggs, and many other wonderful individuals. I sat next to Haley Elizabeth Garwood during my signing hour and had a great visit with her, and got to meet author H. David Blalock as well.

The event itself was run very smoothly, with excellent organization, generous hospitality, and a very good layout for the size of it. The Con Suite was always stocked with Red Bull, Bawls soft drinks, and loads of food, the program was easy to follow, the staff were always polite, and the programming featured excellent topics and outstanding guests. Evidently, this was the first year that they had MidSouthCon at this facility, and I found it to be a very good and efficient location.

Yes, this is a rather long blog posting, but I wanted to give props to the MidSouthCon and the wonderful folks I got to meet and hang out with last weekend!

I now have lots of good new books to read (yes, I went over my intended budget!)