I’m in the midst of furious writing and reading in preparation for a busy conference month in August, so I only have time for a quick update post on what’s been going on with me:
1. Last month brought two conferences, Westercon and Readercon. Westercon was a lot of fun; I was out in the Seattle area visiting family, so it was easy to stop by for a few days for some panels, readings and even a workshop or two. Just about everything went well, and because there were fewer tracks panel attendance was generally pretty good. I also got to hang out a bit with Brenda Cooper of Wellspring fame, and was on several panels with Robin Hobb…so it was both a fun and professionally rewarding conference. Coolest mini-fame moment: one person (a nice guy, too) came up to me and said he had been looking forward to meeting me because he listens to Speculate (on which more in a moment)! Awesome.
After some more family time it was back east for Readercon in Boston. This was my fifth time at Readercon, and I probably enjoyed it more than any previous edition, both because the turnout at panels and readings was generally so strong and because I was able to connect with some good people–fellow Codex members at the Codex group reading, fellow When The Villain Comes Home anthology authors Leah Petersen and Chris Jackson (both of whom I’d met before at Ad Astra), Jim Freund, Steve Davidson from Amazing Stories, and many others. Both of the panels I had proposed, one on podcasting for the speculative fiction author and one on the connections between teaching and creative work, got accepted, and both were a good time. We had a particularly good turnout for the academic panel, and the conversation was both lively and thought-provoking.
In sum: Readercon is always good professionally, but having some more people to whom I’m connected made it a lot more enjoyable personally. I’ve uploaded two recordings of the two panels I did over on my Media page, if you’re interested in hearing some of the proceedings for yourself.
2. We’ve been going great guns over at Speculate!, where we’re currently in the midst of a quadtych of shows on the work of Saladin Ahmed, and we’re booked all the way through early October at the moment…so make sure to stop by if you’re interested in a more inside look at the world of speculative fiction. Also let us know if you’ve got something you’d like us to check out on the show next, or if you have thoughts on the shows we’ve done so far…we always welcome the feedback.
3. I’ve got the novel writing workshop Wellspring coming up in a few weeks; last year’s edition was an intense and great time, and I’m really looking forward to this year. Both for that reason and others (various projects, two novels currently on submission and my fourth in progress), I’m up to my ears in writing and reading…but it’ll all be worth it soon, as they say!
4. Finally, GenCon and Worldcon are both coming up next month, so I’ve got a few more travel miles to put on…schedules for both will be over on my Schedule page soon.
In general, then, everything is going well on the professional side, though I’m looking forward to a bit of a break in a few days before the big end of summer push. I’ll update with new information soon–until then, thanks for checking in!
Greg
