February

Event name:  Romance Readers Social

Time:  1:00 pm – 2:00 pm

Date:   Saturday, February 25

Description:  Meet local romance authors April Kihlstrom, Jane Myers Perrine, and Patrice Sarath at the library’s annual Romance Readers Social. Enjoy refreshments and bring your old romance paperbacks for a book swap.

Location:  Pflugerville Community Library

Street address:  102 S. 10th Street, Pflugerville

Phone:  512-251-9185

Cost:  N/A

Website: http://www.pflugervilletx.gov/library

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

March 10 (date and time tentative; more details as they come in)

Houston Town & Country Barnes & Noble: with Jennifer Ziegler and Alyssa Goodnight.

Expect lots of fun and a good time. Alyssa Goodnight is the author of Austentatious, which comes out any second now and looks like so much fun I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy (January 31 is the official date), and Unladylike Pursuits, which also looks like a romp (come on — highwaymen? an arranged marriage? I am so there).

Jennifer Ziegler is the author of Sass & Serendipity and several other young adult and children’s novels. Join us!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

May 19 (details to come)

BookPeople: Austen in Austin! The three Musketeers (Alyssa, Jenny, and me) join forces again at Austin’s own BookPeople for Jane, more Jane, and still more Jane. There will no doubt be Pride, Persuasion, and Sensibility.

I’m sure that if you want to hear a bit of The Unexpected Miss Bennet, I can arrange that. I will also have copies of Gordath Wood and Red Gold Bridge. And let’s all get Scott Cupp to tell spooky stories.

Event name: Sci-fi / Pfantasy Readers Meetup
Time: 1:00 – 3:00 pm
Date: Saturday, October 29, 2011
Description: Join fellow fans at the Pflugerville Community Library to meet local science fiction and fantasy authors. Dress up as your favorite sci-fi or fantasy character to compete in a costume contest and enjoy games and refreshments. Visiting authors will include Aaron Allston, Scott Cupp, Amanda Downum, Natalie Grigson, Patrice Sarath, Matthew Sturges, and Wendy Wheeler.
Location: Pflugerville Community Library
Street address: 102 S. 10th Street, Pflugerville
Phone: 512-251-9185
Cost: N/A

To those who borrow this book: If you don’t return it to Patrice, your hard drive will crash, losing the last two hours work on your project, which were the best thing you’d ever done. Also, your e-reader will fall off the counter into the toilet. And your cat will throw up in your favorite shoes. So just save yourself the trouble and RETURN THE BOOK. Sincerely, The Author

The aforementioned book curse was by Emma Bull, who so inscribed my new edition of War for the Oaks. I had loaned a previous copy to a friend, who moved out of state with it.

This was a high point of a con with with many high points. I know that crests imply troughs, but seriously, there were very few of those. Everywhere I went I heard people praising the programming and the panels. Truly one of the best literary science fiction conventions in the US, not just in Texas.

It does an author good to have people at his or her reading, and mine was nicely attended. I read the first two chapters of Miss Bennet, and then a bit from the middle section of Lady of Temia, and people laughed at the funny bits. I decided not to do the book signing, because while I love sitting and chatting with my author friends, I also wanted to see some more panels, so I went to the one on Imagining the World without Fossil Fuel. Matthew Bey rode up on his bike and it was a great visual. Thought-provoking panel with great back and forth among audience and many salient points. Also, I got to hear Martha Wells read from the second book in the Cloud Roads series (Books of the Raksura I believe is the official series title). Have I mentioned that if you love fantasy you need to read her books? You need to read her books.

The guest of honor interview with Paolo Bacigalupi went very well. I like an interview subject who loves to talk, and entertainingly and intelligently so. Paolo gives great interview. It was fun and absorbing and a lot of people said they enjoyed it. If I had thought ahead I might have seen about recording it, but oh well. If you get a chance to see Paolo at a convention or elsewhere, take it. He is thoughtful and engaging. I really enjoyed his follow up to Ship Breaker, called The Drowned Cities, which he read from on Sunday and I’m looking forward to that book when it comes out next May.

Likewise the panel of Strong Female Protagonists, which had insightful commentary from all the panelists, but especially Amanda Downum, who had thoughtful things to say about the fallacy of Writing the Other  — women and men are not necessarily the Other. And thinking of women as being somehow Other (or men, for that matter) is, well, demeaning.

The agent panel with Kimberly Frost was interesting and absorbing. Aspiring writers may think they desperately need an agent, or they may be troubled by the idea of having to think about the business side of writing. However, being informed and armed with proper information better enables a writer to navigate their career and achieve their goals. Be informed, people.

The WisCon panel, which discussed the disinvitation of Elizabeth Moon as Guest of Honor, was ably moderated by Emma Bull, but I am conflicted about some of the conclusions drawn by the panel, and even exactly why it had to be discussed. I’ve made my feelings clear here, and certainly don’t think shutting down discourse ever serves any purpose, but…I will process my inchoate impressions into cogent thought and discuss further in a single blog post.

A wonderful little surprise was a short film by Jessica Gardner based on William Browning Spencer’s short story, “A Child’s Christmas in Florida.” The film transferred the story to Texas, and it was lovely and heartwarming, and truly deeply weird. If you get a chance to see it at a film festival or other source, do. Extraordinary.

On Sunday, I was treated to Jessica Reisman‘s reading from her new novel, then put myself on the Guns in SF/F panel on account of researching and learning how to shoot for the gunrunning subplot of Gordath Wood, and then, even though I was scheduled to moderate the Learning to Write panel, I made everyone from that panel go to Emma Bull’s reading instead, on the grounds that we can TELL you all about books and writing classes, but the best way to learn to write is to learn from the masters. Emma Bull read from Claim, her sequel to Territory, and then talked about researching Territory and the shootout at OK Corral and the politics of the old West, and how they resonate in our psyche. Good stuff.

Excellent meals, marvelous parties, a wonderful mai-tai at Mark Finn’s party that I had to leave unfinished or I would be unfit to drive home. Good friends, good conversation, books, and more. I love my ArmadilloCon!

The first day was the writers workshop. We had excellent commentary from the teachers on everything from the necessity of redrafting to applying the screenwriting formul to novels (an excellent presentation by Lou Anders with great relevance to writing novels) to discussing the place of epublishing for writers. In the final case, basically, don’t do it as a beginning writer. It’s established writers with backlists and experience who can get the most out of self-publishing their work for Kindle or Nook.

We broke up into groups after lunch and went over the stories. The writers got feedback from their teachers and fellow students and I saw plenty of conversation afterwards as students got together and enthusiastically discussed the day’s critiques. Workshops are an excellent way to get together with fellow writers and talk craft.

After the workshop, I got together with Kimberly Frost and a slew of other writers and we went to dinner and had a great time, and then it was back to the con for opening ceremonies. With Mark Finn as toastmaster (wearing a fez, throwing toast into the audience and lauding primatology) it was entertaining and fun.

The evening panels included worldbuilding, moderated by Elizabeth Bear and future worlds and economies, which include Bruce Sterling and a host of others, and was a thought-provoking panel with plenty of back and forth with the audience, and a reading by JM McDermott, who read a retelling of a Eurydice short story that was both lovely and slightly depressing and at the same time hopeful. Chatted a bit, but at that point it was 10:30 and I was done.

So now I’m here, ready for bed, and exhausted. Hence the fact that there are no links in this post.

Tomorrow I read, interview Paolo, and do other panels and parties. Will post later.

Thanks to Stina Leicht and the workshoppers and students for a most excellent day.

Ages ago I was a reporter for my hometown newspaper, The Ridgefield Press, and later I worked for computer magazines, but it’s been a while since I’ve interviewed someone for a feature. People mostly like to talk about themselves though, and the good part is I don’t have to write it all up afterwards.

Also in preparation for the convention and the interview I read Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker, which is really good. I read it in one day and had a very hard time putting it down. I haven’t plowed through a book like that in forever. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Everything came together — setting, character, and the technology, which is highly important in a science fiction novel. It has a Heinleinesque feel with a darker edge to it. If you have boys aged 12 and up, I think they would really like it.

Naturally since I have very little free time, I sat down and wrote the first 1,700 words to a new short story. It’s one I’ve been mulling over for years and there’s nothing like the feeling that I needed to do a million other things to get the creative flow going. I have to commit to it over the next two days, since starting Thursday night, it’s all con, all the time, until Sunday. If I can finish a rough draft by Wednesday night, I will be ecstatic.

In other convention news, WorldCon will be in San Antonio in 2013. The last time it was here was in 1997. That was my very first Worldcon, my very first major convention ever, in fact. I’m really looking forward to experiencing WorldCon again. I wish I had gone to Renovation, which just finished up this year, but it wasn’t meant to be. Alas.

Thanks to all the fans for their great questions and comments. That was fun. It was like a big party where everyone is sitting around with their beverage of choice (mine would be a mojito) and just gabbing away.

We covered heroes, bad boys, the eternal appeal of Jane Austen’s novels, and way more. Favorite tweet by Emily CA Snyder:

In life, yes rakes do suck. For Regency novels, they’re invaluable.

She has a point.

If you are jonesing for some more Austenesque novels, here was the lineup for this week’s Twitter chat

Emily C.A. Snyder

Karen Doornebos

Lory Lilian (I don’t think she has a website but her books are Remembrance of the Past and Rainy Days, and she lives in Bucharest, which is totally cool!)

Shannon Winslow

Many thanks to Meredith Esparza for setting up the chat and all the other events going on at her website. It’s been wonderful fun, and I will be sure to drop in on the rest of the festivities. There are so many wonderful writers to learn about, and we’re all united in our love for all things Austen.

A note to readers from the US who are looking for The Unexpected Miss Bennet. Currently the edition is out in the UK, and it can be purchased through Amazon UK or The Book Depository, or directly from the publisher. I have links on the front page of my website for your convenience. The US edition comes out in December, just in time for Christmas presents! (hint). Thank you all for coming to visit, and please come back as I update my blog often with news and excerpts from all of my work.

ArmadilloCon Program

Here’s what I’m doing:

FRIDAY 9 am to 4 pm. Writer’s Workshop

SATURDAY

10:30. Reading. I’ll read from Miss Bennet. Will I manage to not speak in an English accent? This could be … interesting. In the Chinese sense of the word.

11:00 am. Signing.

3:00 pm. Guest of Honor interview with Paolo Bacigalupi. Will try not to fan girl too much.

7:00 pm. What do agents do and are they worth their fees? Oh, hollow laugh indeed.

SUNDAY

Noon. Learning to Write. Recommended Books and Classes. We should just do boot camp again. That was fun.

There are a lot of good panels and it looks like this is going to be fun, so if you are in Austin at the end of August, drop by and say hi.

Costumes from "Emma," exhibited at the Jane Austen museum in Chawton.

Hey peeps! I will be participating in the Austenesque Extravaganza in August. What’s that? Why, it’s simply all thing Austen (and Heyer and the Brontes, and Alcott and…) from the site Austenesque. There will be giveaways, blog tours, twitter chats, and more. If you love Jane Austen and the myriad sequels to her work, hop over to Austenesque for your fix.

I will be linking to the activities so you won’t miss out on the fun. I will be part of the blog tour with my entry on August 11 and will join the twitter party on August 14 where we will be chatting on all things Austen. The list of participating authors is intensive. Be sure to check it out.

Here is a rundown of all the events:

Sociable Sunday — twitter chats

My Recommendation Monday — recommendations

Traveling Tuesday– blog posts by participating authors

What’s Your Favorite Wednesday –  favorite characters, scenes, elements, etc.

Touring Thursday — more blog posts by participating authors

Fun and Games Friday — quizzes and other games

Spotlight Saturday — guest authors on the Austenesque site

The bookfairy made an appearance at Apollo Con.

This year the theme at Apollo Con, or at least the track I did, was young adults. I was on several panels about YA. The first, YA heroines, ended up being about Twilight and why Bella was too passive and too self-sacrificing to be a good role model. Among other complaints. One of the audience members pointed out that we would consider a self-sacrificing man to be a hero, so why couldn’t we consider Bella heroic? Jeanne Gomoll, the fan guest of honor and an all-around neat and interesting person, responded that Bella’s self-sacrifice only served to put the people around her in danger. I went further and said that the behavior could be a kind of self-loathing.

The YA Depravity or Reality panel delved into the Wall Street Journal review and was involved and engaging. I played devil’s advocate a bit and discussed how the reviewer had a point, although perhaps had she read through the books she held up as bad examples, she would have realized they weren’t all about the shock value. For instance, the reviewer talked about the inciting event in shine, by Lauren Myracle, which I read courtesy of my sister the librarian. Had the reviewer finished the book, she would have realized that there was redemption at the end, that the ending was hopeful.

However, as I pointed out, by normalizing some aberrant behavior, we do risk making it acceptable, as in the pro-ana Websites which are support groups for teens with eating disorders, but they often teach teens the “tricks” of anorexia, and are a how-to for what is deadly behavior.

As my fellow panelists pointed out, though, a teen who believes they are alone in their feelings and behavior may feel a sense of relief when they read a book about someone just like them who survives and overcomes their depression or sickness or such.

This year the next generation was well-represented, which is necessary for fandom to grow.

I was also on a panel about how to create the next generation of fans, and essentially we must continue to suggest books and movies to our kids, but also make conventions more young adult friendly, to bring in kids with programming they want to take part in. At Aggie Con, you feel the energy of the convention because it’s all young people, some still in their teens, and the convention is all about the changing guard of fandom.

Finally, I was also on a panel about how to revive science and math education in Texas. We are up against it, folks, and the discussion was fast-moving, thoughtful, and varied, and basically the panelists and the audiences finished up with a mandate to go forth and start causing a ruckus with our local school boards. This is too important to leave to people who frankly are frightened of science. I have nothing against faith and people of faith, but science and religion can co-exist, it has for centuries, and we must continue to stand firm against the forces of that would return us to the dark ages.

The writers workshop.

The writer’s workshop on Saturday was small, with only two workshoppers and two auditors, who didn’t have stories to be critiqued but who came for the discussion. I was able to give the students plenty of attention and I think they got a lot out of it. We talked about editors, markets, the editing process, etc. One of the things that surprised me was how isolated people can be if they live in small towns in Texas, as one of the attendees was. Science fiction and fantasy are still looked at askance in some areas. Cons are great way to let people who maybe are the only ones at work or school interested in science fiction get together with their real community.

I’ll talk about my panels in a later post, but for now wanted to talk about some of the features. The dealer’s room and the art auction are always fantastic, and I bought several books (well, there you go — booksellers are a bunch of pushers, they are): A. Lee Martinez’s Monster, Sharon Shinn‘s Fortune and Fate, and Gail Carriger‘s Soulless. I also bought this lovely figure, who lives in my writing office now:

I was kept pretty busy during the convention, but I made sure I got to go to the panel on Class M planets. Fascinating stuff about what we know about extra-solar planets and what a planet needs for it to be habitable by humans or for life at all. If I had my way it could have gone on for hours. Fantastic discussion, and exactly why I love science fiction conventions — it’s the science.

The masquerade is always great fun, and there were plenty of creative and funny costumes.

From left, Astronaut Stan Love, Paul Abell, Larry Dawson on Class M planets

The Cruellas would be a great name for a band.

Sadly, this time I didn’t get to see any of the movies, and Apollo Con always shows such great features.

The con was a great way to hang out with new friends and old. I enjoyed meeting fan guest Jeanne Gomoll and hope that I get a chance to run into her at another convention elsewhere. Such an interesting and engaging person. I also got to chat with Ann VanderMeer for a bit. I WILL sell another story to Weird Tales. There were the usual suspects from Austin and Houston and points around Texas, and the parties on Saturday night were a blast.

All in all, an excellent convention and I’m already looking forward to next year.