Dragoncon

This is one of several “first conventions” for me this year, and it’s a big one–Dragoncon has been around for a number of years, and has become one of the biggest fantasy and science fiction conventions on the East Coast.  Besides the costumes and celebrities, it’s also got quite the author/literature track, and I’m happy […]

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Gen Con 2015

This is my ninth appearance at Gen Con, seventh as member of the Writers’ Symposium, and as always I’m looking forward to my favorite convention of the year.  The Symposium continues to grow by leaps and bounds, this year featuring Terry Brooks as Guest of Honor, and I couldn’t be happier to be a part […]

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Norwescon, April 4, 2015–He Said, She Said–Writing Dialogue

This panel wrapped up a very busy Saturday for me at Norwescon as I moderated a panel on writing effective and believable dialogue with fellow authors and panelists Tori Centanni, Cymbric Early-Smith, Carol Berg, Patrick Swenson and the inimitable Simon R. Green.  Among other topics we chatted about the differences between spoken and written dialogue, differentiating character voices, and the importance of reading and listening to dialogue, and I admit that I hadn’t expected the panel to be as funny (for me and, I think, the audience) and informative as it turned out to be.

Norwescon, April 4, 2015–Forms of Plot Structure

I wasn’t expecting attendance for this panel to be overwhelming, but in fact the room was standing room only as Steven Barnes, Susan DeFreitas, Matt Youngmark, Mike Selinker and I spent almost an hour tackling the finer points of plot structure: different forms, modes, uses, how and why we care so much about plot, does it override the characterizations, and so on. As it turned out, the lively audience and panelist interaction made this one of my favorite panels from the 2015 edition of Norwescon.

Norwescon, April 4, 2015–Your Anti-Procrastination First Aid Kit

This was an interesting panel on avoiding the dreaded pitfall of “putting things off until some indeterminate later time,” a particular problem for authors.  Nina Post, Jennifer Brozek, Stephanie Herman, Kevin Scott, Harold Gross and I (pretty sizable group for an hour long panel) talked quite a bit about why we tend to procrastinate and strategies for getting back on track–along with some fairly serious discussion on listening to your best inner voice, not your “you’re terrible and everyone knows it” one.

Heading to Boston again!

Hi all, On my way to Boston for my eighth Readercon, a really interesting and different fantasy and science fiction convention, where I’ll be on a couple of panels and doing a reading.  If you’re in the area of the Burlington Marriott, please stop by and say hello–and as always, details can be found on […]

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Readercon

This is my (amazingly!) eighth year at Readercon, which means I’m heading up to Beantown again for a great fantasy and science fiction conference.  (As always, there may be a day pass cost for the con, but it’s well worth it given how many awesome authors and editors they have.)  This year I have two […]

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Farpoint, February 14, 2015–War and Peace in Fantasy and Science Fiction

I really enjoyed this panel, a discussion of war and peace (and the movements between those conditions) in speculative fiction.  Timothy Zahn, David Mack, Mike McPhail and I spent the better part of an hour talking about ways to render war and conflict both on the macro level, and how real life war and peace necessarily flows into our writing about the same topics in our fiction.  We weren’t one hundred percent in agreement (not surprisingly), but the conversation was both civil and productive, and my favorite one from Farpoint this year.

World Fantasy Convention, November 7, 2014–Place Matters, Geography and Fantasy

This was a really interesting panel at World Fantasy (which tends to have a lot of them) on the subject of place and geography in fantasy fiction.  Joshua Palmatier, Marie Brennan, Robert Redick, Max Gladstone, Siobhan Carroll and I spent about an hour looking at the way various fantasy novels consider the subject of place and environment in a number of different ways. I’ve always been fascinated by place and space (in fact that subject made up much of my early academic work), and the conversation here was a really enjoyable one.  A word of warning–we were placed in some random area of a larger floor, and so the audio quality is not optimal.

Gen Con, August 15, 2014–Twists vs Gimmicks

This was an interesting panel on the difference between twists vs. gimmicks, and how authors can use the twist (not the gimmick!) to hold and heighten the reader’s interest.  Brian McClellan, Howard Andrew Jones, Don Bingle, Cassandra Rose Clark and I also talked about the distinctions between twists and gimmicks, and how the sometimes unfortunate transition of the former to the latter should be avoided at all costs…and how to do that in practical terms.