This was a reading I did at Origins along with Pat Rothfuss, Brad Beaulieu and Addie King, and is one of the favorite ones I’ve done–I did my best to do properly represent one of the more personal stories I’ve written in “The Caretaker of Mire,” and I was pretty happy with the results. The whole group of readings was great, but my story starts around the 18:15 mark if you’re just interested in that.

This is a reading I did at Ad Astra, and was a lot of fun for two reasons: it was my first time reading my new short story “Sanction,” soon to be seen in print in the Time Traveled Tales anthology, and the audience was tremendous (twenty people crammed into a small hotel room at dinner time, many of whom were folks who had come to see me at a ton of panels during the weekend). I got a couple of interesting questions at the end of this, to boot.

Convention readings tend to be a hit or miss proposition, because there’s so much cool stuff going on at one time that there’s no way of knowing how many people you’re going to get interested in your particular session. In this case, though, we had the benefit of three readers, matching me with Chris Jackson and (wait for it) Ed Greenwood! (Other conventions, take note: this method of pairing newer authors with more experienced/established ones is a great one, and I’m glad Ad Astra decided to go with the feedback they got from myself and some others from last year.) We had a reasonable turnout, particularly concerning it was the next to last session on Sunday after a number of people had already headed for home, and it was great hearing the other readings–particularly Ed’s stuff, which as usual was fun and flawlessly presented. (A D and D session with Ed would be, I think, the most hilarious thing ever. How could it not be?) Audio quality is okay here but a bit quiet; my part of the reading, if you’re only interested in that (but listen to the others if you have the time), starts about fourteen minutes in.

My second live reading took place at our local library–appropriate, since the publisher for my first novel has a long standing relationship with libraries (as do I). Turnout was small but enthusiastic, and everyone (including my daughter Senavene, who you’ll hear a couple of times in this reading) seemed to have a good time.

This was my first “official” live reading after the release of The Third Sign, and I was lucky enough to have not only good turnout but a good venue–the University Bookstore is perhaps the best place for a fantasy/science fiction reading in the Pacific Northwest, and longtime SFF buyer Duane Wilkins has been bringing in big names as part of the author series here for years now. I’m looking forward to more readings here in the future. (My young cousin-in-law, less than a year old here, decided to make her presence felt in the early part of the reading–sorry, but you can take it up with her when she gets old enough to understand what you’re saying!)