GenCon, Zer0es, Aftermath, And More

*loads shotgun, fires a hot load of NEWS-SHOT into your gut*

So, first up, I’m going to be at GenCon next week in support of the Writer’s Symposium.

And maybe you’re gonna be there too. (Are you? Say hi!)

As such, my schedule, should you so require it:

Thursday, 11AM: Writer’s Craft, Eliciting Emotional Responses, with a pack of COOL HUMANS like Aaron Rosenberg, Elizabeth Bear, Gregory A. Wilson.

Thursday, 4PM: Business of Writing: Recovering from Controversy, with Jaym Gates, James Minz, James L. Sutter, and now I’m weirded out because I don’t have a James-flavored name.

Thursday, 6PM: Storium LIVE! A live Storium game with Sam Sykes, Stephen Blackmoore, and Delilah S. Dawson — three of my favorite people gathering with me for charity!

Friday, 1PM: Writer’s Life 101 with a glorious bunch of miscreants: Gwenda Bond, Christopher Rowe, Anton Strout.

Friday, 2PM: Q&A with… well, me. Come! Query me and I will answer you.

Saturday, 1PM: Writer’s Craft: Sustaining the Tension in Novels, with a passel of bad-asses named Lauren Roy, Matt Forbeck, and John Hornor Jacobs.

Saturday, 5PM: Character Craft: Supporting Cast — Real People Vs. Plot Devices, starring holy shit Terry Brooks, and Maxwell Alexander Drake, and Geoffrey Girard.

Holy shit, I’m gonna be busy! Good stuff.

(Bonus: download the entire symposium schedule here.)

What Else?

• Blackbirds remains $1.99 for Kindle, but only for one more week.

• You read the Star Wars: Aftermath excerpt at Entertainment Weekly? If you want a signed copy, there will be a signed, limited edition of the book — pre-order now at B&N or Books-A-Million. You will apparently receive a book that I have defaced and devalued with my autograph.

• One month till Zer0es, holy shit-wicker. I actually got a couple of early hardcovers, and they look freaking cool. (I always love the books where you touch the cover and it has texture and it’s shiny and you then get naked and rub it on your body wait what). You can pre-order now from a variety of favored book locations. Indie bookstores through Indiebound, for instance. Or Amazon. Or B&N. (For some reason it’s at a pretty deep discount at Amazon.) There will exist a pre-order bonus, too, which is that you’ll receive the first couple chapters of my next Harper Voyager novel, Myrmidon. (It counts if you pre-order now, by the way, no need to wait — I’ll post a link next week to a site that allows you to enter in pre-order details to Harper, and Harper will send you the two chapters of Myrmidon in August.)

• Hey, Kirkus reviewed Blackbirds! Full review here, but a glimpse: “The first in a series, this delightfully vicious and bloody urban horror novel provides a perversely entertaining introduction to a dangerous fugitive with a little something special up her sleeves.”

• Two scheduling additions: first, I’ll be at the 92Y in NYC on August 25th, helping to kickoff the launch of Libba Bray’s newest: Lair of Dreams.  Then, I’ll be at Doylestown Bookshop on September 2nd helping Fran Wilde launch her debut novel, Updraft!

• One woeful scheduling subtraction: I will no longer be attending the Central Coast Writer’s Conference in Cuesta College due to some family things. I may still attend in spirit (er, Skype!), and may be able to attend next year, but we’re all kinda working that out, still. Apologies in advance, but I have to make room for life stuff, sadly.

• You really need to read Paul Tremblay’s Head Full of Ghosts because holy fuck.