BayCon 2014

Baycon 2013 Indie Publishing panel

BayCon, one of the biggest Bay Area Science Fiction conventions, is held each Memorial Day weekend at the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara, CA. BayCon is a lot of fun for adults and children alike; there’s a full programme of interesting panels, plenty of hands-on activities for younger guests, as well as costuming, Klingons, Space Marines, a Regency Dance, and the fabulous Slave Auction. This year’s writer Guest of Honour is David Weber, creator of the celebrated “Honor Harrington” novels.

I’ll be attending, and am on four panels this year as participant/moderator:

1. Building Your Writing Community on Friday at 5:00 PM in Bayshore

So you’re thinking about writing but don’t know how to start. Or you have a manuscript but you’re not ready to show anyone. This panel will discuss how to identify where you are in the process of finishing your book, different types of writing groups and how to utilize them, when to recognize when your work is ready for beta readers, and how to give and receive critique with grace and encouragement.

(moderating; with Adrienne Gormley, Setsu Uzume, Beth Barany, Laurel Anne Hill, Dan Hope)

2. When Good Food Turns Evil on Saturday at 2:00 PM in Lawrence

At one time, margarine was touted as a healthier alternative to butter. This ended after the dangers of trans-fats was discovered. There are still differing opinions on what makes a healthy diet, even after decades of research. What highly touted food items might not be as healthy as you think? Join the panelists as they chew the fat on this topic.

(moderating; with Christine Doyle, Sydney Thomson, M.D., Laurel Anne Hill)

3. Self Publishing: Where does it fit in the Literary Food Chain? on Saturday at 3:30 PM in Ballroom A

Between Amazon and Barnes & Noble, self-publishing has taken off; no longer the classical vanity press, often seen as the redheaded stepchild. Is it? Should it be? Where does this fit in the food chain, or is this about to become the Shark?

(moderating; with David Friedman, Kyle Aisteach, Emerian Rich, Ursula Vernon)

4. Surveillance and the End of Privacy on Sunday at 11:30 AM in Bayshore

Between government surveillance of citizens and ubiquitous cameras, is privacy a lost cause? What can you do to preserve your privacy? 

(with Jason Malcolm Stewart, David Friedman, Griffin Barber)

The link for BayCon 2014 is http://baycon.org/2014/

I hope to see you there!

 

Back in the Saddle

As some of you know, I’ve been stretched very thin of late. The demands of running Panverse Publishing singlehandedly as well as my part-time CAD work and the need to balance work with some of sort of real life and family time–I will not yield it all to work!–hasn’t left a great deal of time for my own writing in the last year. I had started work on a new novel last Spring, but made a conscious decision to put it on hold at 30k words while I took care of getting Panverse off the ground in its new incarnation as a publisher of novels rather than simply anthologies.

I’m happy to report that my business partner in Panverse, co-owner Herma Lichtenstein, is now able to join me fulltime; Herma will be taking over the vast bulk of the marketing and promotion, as well as some of the developmental editing. This means that I can now get back to my own writing. In the past few weeks I have in fact been flexing the muscles by completing a number of short stories that I’d either begun and stalled on, or simply didn’t have the craft to raise to the level where I thought they were ready for an audience (one of the double-edged issues with being an editor is that your standards tend to climb all the time, and of course your toughest criticism is reserved for your own writing).

So the good news is that before long I’ll be publishing a number of my short stories–possibly even a small collection. You have been warned! And once the shorts are done and earning their keep, I’ll be back to the novel…unless I get sidetracked into writing another Billy Sutherland novel. So many readers have asked for a sequel to “Sutherland’s Rules” (though a prequel is likelier), that I’m very, very tempted. I’ve never had so much fun writing as I did with “Sutherland’s Rules”, and readers have certainly responded to that.

I’m also delighted to say that YA author and superstar writing maven Janice Hardy has invited me to guest blog regularly on her shiny new Fiction University site. As one of six “visiting professors” guesting for her “Indie Author” series, I’ll be blogging there once every six weeks on some aspect of indie publishing. In fact, I have a shiny new post on Fiction University today on the ridiculous and needless war between the promoters of Traditional and Indie publishing–click here to check it out.

Thanks as always for your time and your interest. I’m going to try to blog here a little more frequently; so what would you like to see me blog about?