Mabfan's Musings

I'm desperately trying to find the time to write up a Readercon 20 report. In the meantime, I've managed to label all the photos in my Readercon 2009 gallery, and I've gotten all but two names. So for those of you who are interested, here's the list of people whose pictures appear in the gallery:

Scott Edelman, Kristin Janz, Chris Davis, Mike Allen, Bob Colby, Danielle Friedman, Hildy Silverman, Jennifer Pelland, Vylar Kaftan, Warren Lapine, Gordon Van Gelder, Tom Purdom, John Benson, Lev Grossman, Allen M. Steele, Robert J. Sawyer, Michael Bishop, Barry N. Malzberg, Todd Giles, Art Henderson, John Joseph Adams, Ian Randal Strock, Debra Doyle, James D. Macdonald, Drew Morse, Robert Killheffer, Michaela Roessner, F. Brett Cox, Paul Di Filippo, Stephen Frug, Sara Frug, Joseph Frug, Margaret Ronald, and of course Nomi and me.

And to answer the question posed earlier: my college friend is Lev Grossman, who is just about to publish his third novel, The Magicians. Hopefully, I'll have more to say about him (and others!) later on.

College Friends: Lev Grossman, Michael A. Burstein Photo copyright ©2009 by Nomi S. Burstein

Nomi and I spent the weekend at the Readercon 20 science fiction convention, and I'm still catching up from it. I'm hoping to have something of a report as soon as I can; in the meantime, if you want to see some pictures from the convention, as yet unlabeled, check out my Readercon 2009 Photo Gallery. Note that it's three pages of photos.

To make this more fun, one of the pictures shows me posing with a friend from college who was in the same dorm as me freshman year. Guess who it is.

Yes, it's true. Nomi and I will be at Readercon this weekend, although chances are we won't be wandering around a lot. More likely, Nomi will pick a place to sit and stay there, so we'll expect the wandering vortex to come toward her.

I will be bringing hardcover and softcover copies of I Remember the Future for anyone who wishes to purchase an autographed book directly from me. If you know you'll want one, let me know in advance which kind. Copies should be available at the SF Scope table and directly from me at my Sunday 12noon Autographing.

Speaking of which, here's my schedule, including descriptions (let me know if you have any questions):

Friday 6:00 PM, RI: Workshop (60 min.)

Speculative Poetry Workshop.  Mike Allen with participation by Leah Bobet, Michael A. Burstein, Vylar Kaftan, Ernest Lilley

What is speculative poetry? How do you write it, why would you want to, and which editors will buy it? Come prepared to write on the fly.

Saturday 12:00 Noon, ME/ CT: Talk / Discussion (60 min.)

The Genre Roots of the Mainstream Tradition in American Fiction.  C. C. Finlay with discussion by Michael A. Burstein, Helen Collins, F. Brett Cox, Debra Doyle, Chris Nakashima-Brown

The plots of Charles Brockden Brown, America's first novelist, frequently hinged on scientific speculation. Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne employed fantasy elements, Edgar Allen Poe invented a range of genre tropes, and  James Fenimore Cooper introduced the series character-a staple of modern genre fiction.  In the last century, some of F. Scott Fitzgerald's earliest works depend on fantastic elements.  Mainstream American writers, in fact, have regularly created fiction that would now be considered part of the speculative genre.  Finlay will argue that genre elements are not isolated in a separate branch of the American literary tradition, but are instead at the heart of it.

Sunday 10:00 AM, ME/ CT: Panel

The Future of Speculative Fiction Magazines, Part 1: Introduction / Print Magazines.  John Benson, Michael A. Burstein (L), Warren Lapine, Tom Purdom, Hildy Silverman, Gordon Van Gelder

Are print magazines doomed?  (Heck, if _newspapers_ can't make it ...)  Or will they survive in their tiny niches? Are there ways to make them more viable?  Is that even worth the bother?  After all, online magazines are now easy and relatively inexpensive to start-are they the answer?  Part one of our discussion begins with an overview and then examines the future of print magazines.

Sunday 12:00 Noon, Salon F: Autographing

Sunday 1:00 PM, Salon A: Panel

We Won, We Lost.  John Joseph Adams, Michael A. Burstein, F. Brett Cox (L), Paul Di Filippo, Robert Killheffer, Michaela Roessner

[Greatest Hit from Readercon 12.]  It's an sf world. Our once-visionary iconography is now commonplace. The present turns into the future even before we wear it comfortably, let alone wear it out, and this sense of constant change is now the common currency of our culture  rather than our precious private truth. And yet the sf readership shrinks, or at least gets older, every year; as sf media ascends (and merges with real life), the written sf word seems ever more irrelevant-and certainly wins no greater prestige for its creators than in the past. Maybe this has nothing to do with sf, but just reflects the death of reading (a development we perhaps ironically foresaw). But maybe somehow the contents of sf, the accidents, have conquered mass culture, but some crucial part of the form, the essence, has been left behind. Is it an sf world after all? Or just a holographic simulation of one?

Sunday 2:00 PM, RI: Talk / Discussion (60 min.)

Lasers, Death Rays, and the Quest for the Ultimate Weapon.  Jeff Hecht with discussion by Ian Randal Strock

Nature invented lightning bolts first, but the ancients put them in the hands of their mythical gods, and ever since we've had dreams of destruction in fiction and in fact. H.G. Wells armed his Martian invaders with heat rays; Nikoka Tesla and others tried to build real death rays. In 1958, the director of the then-new DARPA said his agency would be interested in far-out ideas like death rays, and a few months later Gordon Gould arrived at their door with a plan to build the laser. Hecht will talk about the real (and the questionable) science, the fictional visions, the bizarre history, and the quest for the ultimate weapon of directed energy.

Last month, I moderated a panel at Boskone called How Not to Edit Yourself, and drcpunk was in the audience taking notes. drcpunk's notes on the panel can be found here, for anyone who would like to read the pearls of wisdom provided by Eleanor Wood, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, David Hartwell, Josepha Sherman, and me. The notes are a little disjointed, which is inevitable, but drcpunk managed to jot down some of the more important things we said, including advice on turning off your inner editor when writing, and making sure not to over-edit before sending work out into the world.

"If you have imagination enough to be a writer, you should have imagination enough to be an editor." - Michael A. Burstein

Go read: Panel Write Up From Boskone: How Not to Edit Yourself

One of the people I feel very privileged to be friends with is Katherine Bryant (LJ: saxikath). And this weekend, I have many reasons to wish her good luck.

Katherine Bryant Solves a Sunday Times Puzzle Photo copyright © Michael A. Burstein. All rights reserved.

I first met Katherine in my sophomore year of college, when she was in her first year. We met through the Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert & Sullivan Players' production of Princess Ida. We were both in the chorus, and as it so happens, the director chose to make us a G&S couple, so that gave us a chance to talk. Even back in college, I was impressed with her quick wit, her love of wordplay, and her ability to solve puzzles. (Embarrassed yet, Katherine? Be glad I didn't mention your appearance on Jeopardy!)

Our own lives caused us to drift apart for a few years until we found ourselves working together at the same company. During that time, Katherine became very well-known in the puzzling community. For one thing, she spent many years serving as the editor of The Enigma, the monthly magazine of the National Puzzlers' League. And for another...

For the past few years, she's consistently scored in the highest levels at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. The ACPT is known as Stamford to many people, since until last year it was held at a hotel in Stamford, Connecticut. Last year it moved to Brooklyn, where it's being held again this year.

Katherine was already placing in the top ten at the ACPT even before we started working together in December 2005. But after she returned from the 2006 ACPT, I decided that I wanted to help her out. So since March of 2006 or so, I've taken on the role of being Katherine's personal "puzzle trainer." Essentially, every workday morning I've made a copy of that day's New York Times crossword puzzle, and then timed her on it. Katherine routinely finishes the puzzle in anywhere from two to six minutes. On occasion, it's taken her a little longer, but those occasions are few and far between.

This weekend, Katherine will once again be competing in the ACPT, and I'll be staying at home, rooting for her in my "Team Bryant" warm-up jacket. I hope she manages to get to the top three, and then win, because then I'll get to check that off my list of life goals: have a friend who wins the ACPT. But even if she doesn't, I'm still delighted that she's allowed me to be a part of it over the past three years.

Good luck, saxikath!

Katherine Bryant Solves Andrew Greene's Puzzle Photo copyright © Michael A. Burstein. All rights reserved.

For many years, Nomi and I have gone to the Boskone science fiction convention in February for the whole weekend. We've reserved a hotel room, primarily because we can't commute in on shabbat but also because we like being present at the convention. I tend to feel that you miss out on the experience if you commute in and don't stay at the hotel.

But this year, for the first time, we looked at our finances and realized that we couldn't really afford the hotel room for the weekend. So, sadly, we decided to attend the convention on Sunday only. We knew we'd miss out on a lot, but it seemed better to attend some of the convention than none.

The first part of our weekend, therefore, was typical for us. I went to synagogue on Friday night and brought guests home for dinner; Nomi and I both went to synagogue on shabbat morning and we were guests for lunch at the home of some good friends. On Saturday night, we played Dungeons & Dragons with our frum D&D group.

Sunday morning we ate breakfast and Rubin's and then went to Boskone. A friend gave us a lift. He was supposed to give us and his wife a lift, but their child hadn't yet woken up, so he gave his wife a lift later in the day. We got the hotel around 9:30 am, which gave us time to register, pick up my program packet, and very briefly circulate to talk to people. We had a chance to chat with Bob Eggleton, Allen Steele, Gay Ellen Dennett, Priscilla Olson, Patty Cryan, and a few others; and as we talked with friends, I couldn't help think about how much I missed not "holding court" in the Con Suite on Saturday night as we usually do at a convention. (I know we were missed; one friend called me on my cell phone on Saturday night looking for us. I texted back that we would be around on Sunday.)

Furthermore, since our convention was contracted into Sunday, I was pretty much programmed for the whole day. Not that I'm complaining; the programming committee put me on some perfect panels for me, and I had a lot of fun. But it did mean having to dash around more than usual.

So here's what I did:

10am
How Not to Edit Yourself
Panelists: Michael A. Burstein, David G. Hartwell, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Josepha Sherman, Eleanor Wood

Jim Kelly was originally supposed to be the moderator, but he wasn't on the panel when the final schedule came out. The others deferred to me as moderator, and I threw out a few questions and had them take questions from the audience. I think we gave folks a lot of good advice, and if I could remember any of it, I'd share it here.

11 am
Superheroes
Panelists: Michael A. Burstein, Yvonne Carts-Powell, Daniel P. Dern (moderator), Matthew Jarpe, Alisa Kwitney Sheckley

This panel was a lot of fun, and I'm glad that Matthew suggested it. I'd never been on a panel with Yvonne before, but I'm enjoying her book The Science of Heroes and I highly recommend it. I'd also never met Alisa before, but now that I know who she is, I'm going to be looking for her work. As for the panel discussion itself, we had a lot of fun discussing silly superpowers and what works and what doesn't.

At 12noon I had my autographing. The autographing table was rather out of the way, and the committee knows that and is planning to place it somewhere more central next year. In my case, I did manage to sell a few copies of I Remember the Future, and I got to catch up with my former student Deborah Sacks, a writer in her own right.

1pm
Marketing Your Book
Panelists: Michael A. Burstein, Elaine Isaak, Dani Kollin, Shane Tourtellotte (moderator).

I enjoyed being on this panel for a few reasons. First of all, it's always good to share panel time with Shane. Secondly, all of us had a lot of great stuff to share about marketing. I thought I was going to have a lot to share, what with my BU Certificate in Publishing and my ten-page marketing plan for I Remember the Future. But Dani is an advertising copywriter, and Elaine has done a lot of creative marketing including making jewelry shaped like books (which I recall seeing her hand out a few years ago). Shane had a hard time keeping us quiet, but I think we managed to make the panel flow well. At the end, an audience member came up to us to tell us that this had been the most useful panel she had attended the whole convention.

(By the way, Dani's first book isn't even out yet, and he has a fascinating blog all about the process of selling and promoting his first novel, right here on LiveJournal! See dkollin to read it.)

Nomi and I had an hour off after that, and we went to the panel on Jewish science fiction.

At 3 pm, I had my reading. As opposed to my reading at Arisia, which attracted no one, this reading filled the room. At least, all the seats at the table were occupied, so we had about twenty people who came to hear me read. And I sold a few more books. It was a good feeling.

Traditionally, Nomi and I end Boskone by having dinner with Bill & Carol Aronoff and their family at Taam China. This year, the tradition was altered slightly because their sons wanted to go to Rubin's instead. And so, Nomi and I opened and closed the day at Rubin's, which was fitting.

Nomi and I will only be at Boskone on Sunday, February 15. Here's my schedule:

Sunday 10am
How Not to Edit Yourself
Panelists: Michael A. Burstein, David G. Hartwell, James Patrick Kelly (moderator), Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Josepha Sherman. Eleanor Wood

Pitfalls. What? Why? How to avoid them.....


Sunday 11am
Superheroes
Panelists: Michael A. Burstein, Yvonne Carts-Powell, Daniel P. Dern (moderator), Matthew Jarpe, Alisa Kwitney Sheckley

Are there any superpowers left that we haven't seen? That we'd rather not see? Participants will explore these themes, and more.


Sunday 12noon
Autographing
I'll have copies of I Remember the Future available for purchase. If anyone knows they'll want to buy one at the con, let me know in advance and I'll reserve one for you.

Sunday 1pm
Marketing Your Book
Panelists: Michael A. Burstein, Elaine Isaak, Dani Kollin, William O'Connor, Steven Popkes, Shane Tourtellotte (moderator)

From business cards to blogging, advertising to authors' tours....what works? What is dismally disappointing (or even definitively damaging)? The panel discusses interesting ways to become famous (OK, well known?......make a living?) that won't turn people off!


Sunday 3pm
Reading
I'll be reading from I Remember the Future.

Back in 1996, in the early days of the Internet, I became one of the first writers to offer my stories to members of the World Science Fiction Convention who were voting in the Hugo Awards. It actually wasn't until after the nominations came out, when I contacted the Hugo Administrator and suggested that all of us who had been nominated be given a chance to post our stories online for people to read. In the end, I hosted my own story and some of my competitors in the Short Story category, and voters didn't have to struggle to track down the nominated stories and read them.

Of course, today, everyone who has stories to offer for potential nomination now does so over the Internet, and so I'm doing the same. I had three stories published last year that I feel might be worthy of nomination:

Short Story:

• "Collapse" (Polu Texni, September 29, 2008), about an astronomer who discovers that the universal collapse has begun – or so he thinks
  
• "I Remember the Future" (I Remember the Future, Apex Publications, November 2008), about a retired science fiction writer at the end of his life who fears that humanity has forgotten how to dream
  

Novelette:

• "Empty Spaces" (I Remember the Future, Apex Publications, November 2008), about a scientist whose work in studying a parallel universe has come between her and her friends and family
  

You'll notice that while "Collapse" is available to read online, the other stories aren't, because they're the new stories in my collection, I Remember the Future. However, if you're a member of Worldcon who would like to read either one of those stories and you don't have the book, I'm more than willing to email PDF copies of them to you for free.

Just drop me an email at story at mabfan dot com, telling me which story you'd like to read, and I'll send it along.

As I mentioned earlier today, I haven't had much time to blog because we've been very busy. In brief, last month Nomi and I moved to a new apartment. We're still in Brookline, but the move has been both busy and stressful. (We're actually still in the process of moving some of our possessions out of our old apartment.) Our new apartment still isn't completely set up, and is unlikely to be set up for a while, which just adds to the stress.

But overall, we're quite happy.

I'm hoping to get back to a more regular discussion soon of the usual things of interest: writing, science fiction, conventions, history, politics, science, and all those other things I like to talk about. But with deadlines at work, Arisia coming up, and new stories to be researched and written, my presence here may be sporadic at best.

In the meantime, here's some things I want to share:

My high school has been in the news recently, which always interests me. The New York Times reported on The Big Cram for Hunter High School, in which they profiled groups of sixth-graders taking the test for admission. Of course, there's a reason you might want to go to Hunter, as it could help you one day get appointed Solicitor General of the United States (class of 1977).

My friend Michael Marano is a fellow Grub Street instructor, and he's teaching what looks like a fascinating class on "The Art of Genre" on how to give your genre fiction a more literary bent. I wish I had the time to enroll, but if you're a local writer, you might want to check it out.

The Hugo nominating ballots are being sent out, and people are posting all over the Internet about their eligible work. I'll be doing the same soon.

More to come...

Playing catch-up...

Nomi and I will be at the Arisia convention next weekend. Here's an abbreviated panel schedule for the two of us. Of particular note is that on Sunday I will be doing a book signing for I Remember the Future. If anyone coming to the convention wants to buy their copy directly from me, let me know so I'll make sure to bring some.

Friday 8 pm
Super-Mega-Epic Crossovers (Michael)

Friday 9 pm
Uncivil War (Michael)

Saturday 10 am
Iron Man: "Yeah, I Can Fly." (Michael)

Saturday 1 pm
Reading (Michael)

Saturday 1 pm
TV Year in Review (Nomi)

Saturday 2 pm
Keeping the Faith: Changes in Your Comics (Michael)

Saturday 4 pm
15 Years of Babylon 5 (Michael)

Sunday 12noon
Book Signing (Michael)

Sunday 3 pm
Pushing Daisies (Michael, Nomi)

Monday 11 am
Abby Normal (Nomi)

Monday 12noon
Politics in Comics (Michael)

Monday 12noon
Grok, Hobbit! (Nomi)

Monday 1 pm
Your Fandom Origin Story (Nomi)

I just saw this post at Science Fiction Awards Watch that says that Jay Lake has announced a Campbell nominee pin, and that former nominees and winners will be getting pins. As a former nominee and winner myself, I am delighted, and I can't wait to get my pin.

I did ask two questions over there, though:

1. Does this mean that Campbell nominees will no longer get Hugo pins? (Some Worldcons gave them Hugo pins, some didn’t. In my case, I have Hugo pins for both times I was nominated.)

2. Do writers who were nominated for the Campbell twice get two pins? (To put this in perspective, every time someone gets nominated for a Hugo or a Nebula, they get a pin. As a double-nominee for the Campbell myself, I have an admitted vested interest in this question.)

A question I didn't ask about there: what about deceased nominees and winners? I'd like to see David Feintuch's heirs get one.

Also, if anyone has a link to a picture of the new pin, could they post the link? I'd love to see it.

As usual, I'll be gone from the Internet until Saturday night local time. Play nice.

For anyone and everyone who is interested in the intersection of Jewish themes and speculative fiction:

At Readercon on Sunday (which happened to be the 17th of Tammuz, a Jewish fast day), writer Leah Cypess gathered a small group of Jewish speculative fiction writers together. We sat in the Con Suite, not eating, and discussed the issues involved in writing science fiction and fantasy stories that have a Jewish element or theme to them.

Although there already exist groups devoted to the discussion of Jewish science fiction (the group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jewishSF/ comes to mind), as far as we could tell there was no group specifically devoted to Jewish science fiction from the perspective of the writer. Therefore, Leah decided that we should form such a group, and setting up an email discussion group on yahoo is the start.

So, if you're a writer who is interested in writing Jewish speculative fiction, feel free to join. Our grandiose plans include a possible small convention devoted to Jewish speculative fiction, and the question of how to get more markets to publish such fiction.

The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jewishSpecFic/ . Our one-line description: Jewish Speculative Fiction Writers is for writers who are interested in working on fiction at the intersection of speculative fiction and Jewish themes. A LiveJournal Community for the same purpose is at jewishspecfic.

One of the panels I did at Readercon was on the Fermi Paradox. Roughly speaking, the Fermi Paradox is the question of where are the aliens? Enrico Fermi postulated that the age and size of the universe implied that extraterrestrial life ought to be common, which led him to wonder why there was no credible evidence of their having visited Earth. (Wikipedia has a fairly good write-up at Wikipedia: The Fermi Paradox.

One could argue that the paradox isn't really a paradox, of course, and there are a variety of solutions to the paradox. But the panel was about why there isn't more science fiction written about the paradox.

It turns out that a reporter for io9, Nivair H. Gabriel, was in the audience, and Gabriel reported on the panel today at IO9: Fermi Paradox: Why Aren't Aliens Talking to Us?. Had I known someone was taking notes and planning to list our recommendations for Fermi Paradox fiction, I would have made a point of mentioning my own Fermi Paradox story, "Decisions" (Analog, January/February 2004, Hugo Nominee 2005), which will soon be reprinted in I Remember the Future.

As it is, though, if you go to the io9 report, you'll find a list of worthwhile fiction to read, including one on the Internet for free – Terry Bisson's "hilarious and chilling" short-short, "They're Made Out of Meat." And I'm amused to see that io9 gave me the last word:

I'm sure you have even more recommendations for Fermi paradox stories, and I urge you to share them with io9 in the comments — but do it quickly. As panelist Michael A. Burstein pointed out, "Wouldn't it be funny if we got a signal from aliens tomorrow and this whole conversation was moot?"

Nomi and I went to Readercon this past weekend, and we saw a lot of friends and had a good time. I showed off the Advance Reading Copy of my book, and people seemed impressed. I myself am still trying to wrap my brain around it.

I was blown away by "The Dark Knight."

Josh and family have arrived safely in Eugene, Oregon, and I've got plenty more pictures in the gallery I devoted to their trip.

I'm very much enjoying my last two publishing classes. The best part of my class in book marketing and publicity is that it became an independent study, so the instructor is making my homework assignments practical. For example, my current assignment is to create the press kit for my own book. Given that I was going to need to do this anyway, I'm killing two birds with one stone, as the old saying has it.

I continue to enjoy working with Apex Publications. They're a breeze to work with, and have given me a bigger window into the process of publishing my collection than any other company would have.

I've gotten two blurbs for my book already, and I'm humbled and delighted by what Stanley Schmidt and Robert J. Sawyer have said about me and my work. I'll share them later.

I'm hoping to sell more pre-ordered copies of the hardcover, and would welcome any thoughts on how to encourage more sales.

My publishing classes are keeping me busy every night this week, and I suspect I'll be very busy over the weekend as well.

Sleep? I remember sleep. It would be nice to experience it again one day.

As Nomi has mentioned already in her journal, we're off to Readercon this weekend. And since they now feature Thursday night programming, our weekend is starting a day early.

I posted my programming schedule a few days ago, and I snuck in one particular listing. I'm surprised that no one commented on it. Either no one is reading my posts anymore unless they feature my younger brother driving across the country, or people skip convention schedules when they're not planning to be there.

So, let me post that one line once more time:

Friday 12:01 AM: “The Dark Knight” at the AMC Loews Burlington 10

That's right. For the first time in my life that I can recall, I'm going to a midnight movie.

We may be starting out the convention weekend exhausted, but it'll be worth it.

See you all on the flip side.

I'm having far too much fun working on the marketing for my book.

I'll have more to say about the marketing process later, but for now, I invite you to click on the link below and view a PDF of the flyer that I created to pass out at Readercon this weekend.

And if anyone out there feels like running off color copies of your own and leaving them at science fiction bookstores, or bringing them to conventions you'll be at, go right ahead.

(I particularly like the way the Apex Publications alien head logo makes a nice watermark.)

http://www.bursteinbooks.com/IRTF_Flyer.pdf

For those of you planning to be at Readercon this weekend, here’s my schedule. For convenience’s sake, I’m listing it twice. The clipped version is just the titles and participants of the panels I’m on, and behind the cut there’s more detail on what the panels are about.

I’d also like to make a request. For my final panel, I’m moderating a discussion of Arthur C. Clarke and the other writers we lost in the past year. If anyone has suggestions of writers they feel we ought to discuss, please do let me know.

Thursday 9:00 PM, Salon G: Panel
Snape, Gollum and Other Moral Linchpins. Michael A. Burstein (L), Elizabeth Hand, Yves Meynard, Cecilia Tan, Ann Tonsor Zeddies

Friday 12:01 AM: “The Dark Knight” at the AMC Loews Burlington 10

Friday 11:00 AM, ME/ CT: Talk / Discussion (60 min.)
Science Fiction as a Mirror for Reality. Robert J. Sawyer with discussion by Paolo Bacigalupi, Michael A. Burstein, Lancer Kind, Hildy Silverman, et. al.

Friday 2:30 PM, NH / MA: Reading (30 min.)
Reads a selection from his story "Empty Spaces."

Friday 10:30 PM: Meet the Pros(e) Party

Sunday 11:00 AM, ME/ CT: Panel
The Fermi Paradox Paradox. Michael A. Burstein, Jeff Hecht (L), Steven Popkes, Robert J. Sawyer, Ian Randal Strock

Sunday 12:00 Noon, Salon G: Panel
Remembering Arthur C. Clarke (and Others We've Lost This Year). Michael A. Burstein (L), Shira Daemon, Walter H. Hunt, Rosemary Kirstein, Allen Steele



( For more detail on the panels, click here )

Three years ago, I mentioned that my younger brother and his family had moved to Richmond, Virginia so that my brother could take a new job as the Associate Dean for Career Services at the University of Richmond School of Law. (See Meet My Younger Brother, but note that the first link no longer works.)

It was a big move for Josh and a milestone for all of us. For the few years before, Josh and his wife and family had been living in New York City, so I always knew that when we went to visit Mom we'd be able to see Josh as well. After he and his family moved to Richmond, it seemed unlikely that I'd get to see him as frequently as I had before.

Indeed, that turned out to be true. Nomi and I made it down to Richmond only once in the past few years, and that was primarily to attend RavenCon in 2006. (My RavenCon 2006 reports can be found here, here, and here.) As I reported, Josh picked us up from the hotel after the convention ended and took us to spend Sunday night in the house. It was the one and only time I visited him in Richmond.

And now he's moving on.

Today, Joshua, Rachel, and their three kids are beginning a ten-day drive across the country. What with Mom having died last year and other life issues, they've decided they want to be closer to Rachel's mother, who is their children's last surviving grandparent. So, in a few weeks, they'll arrive in Eugene, Oregon, where Josh will take on the role of Assistant Dean and Director of Career Services Office at the University of Oregon School of Law.

Josh, knowing me as I do, keeps pointing out that Eugene is a center for science fiction and fantasy writing. Maybe with him there, that'll finally give me the impetus to check out the Pacific Northwest.

I just hope that with the time difference we'll still be able to keep up our habit of talking on the phone a few times each week.

Jason Sizemore (LJ: jasonbsizemore), who is the publisher of Apex Books, has a very funny short story appearing online in a contest run by the die, monday! blog. I didn't know much about the blog or the contest, but I read the story and enjoyed it immensely. Jason explains what the contest is all about in his post Rallying the troops: Unwarranted Serendipity. Essentially, "die, monday!" is a humor blog for people needing levity in their workday, and the contest was for work-related stories. The ten best stories are currently appearing on the blog, and readers are being asked to vote for their favorite.

Jason's entry, Unwarranted Serendipity, is a fictionalized (I hope) account of his first convention experience. Anyone who's ever been to a science fiction, fantasy, or horror convention will find a lot of familiar humor in his story. And if you haven't been, it's an...interesting introduction.

If I was asked for a tag line for the story, it would be, "See the wacky hi-jinks ensue when a brand new horror publisher attends his first convention!" Or something like that.

Anyway, I highly recommend it. It'll take a few minutes to read, and it'll give you a good laugh. And if you like it, you can vote for it.

And if you're interested in the rest of the stories, the list of the top ten stories can be found at die, monday!: Top 10 Stories! for the Best Story Contest.

(Disclosure: Apex Books is the publisher bringing out I Remember the Future this fall.)

1. Letter in The Brookline TAB supporting the re-election of Gil Hoy to the Board of Selectmen

2. A comic strip by Seanan (LJ: cadhla)

Guess which one is more amusing. Go ahead, guess.