A News Dart To The Neck

AHOY-HOY, WORD-NERDS.

I got sidelined with some excess travel this week — was supposed to come home on Monday from California, but “weather” in Atlanta kept me in California until Tuesday, instead. As such, I didn’t get around to tallying the winners to the Mystery Macro Monday contest. I’ll announce those winners this Monday, but here’s what the photos actually were, for the record:

1. dead leaf

2. dirty icicle

3. dish draining / drying rack for kids

4. the lip of a Chemex

5. decrepit baseball

6. tip of whipped cream can

7. metal handle of umbrella (with rain on it)

8. little cairns of baby powder

9. ice crystals on chocolate ice cream

10. raspberry sauce dripping from fork tines

11. this was a hard one — back engines of Transformer toy, Jetfire

12. wine sediment and stain at bottom of wine glass

13. wet shower scrubby

14. ice and frost on car windshield

15. waterdrop on blueberry

Winners announced this coming Monday.

LET’S SEE, WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON.

Celebrate Good Times, C’mon

In a week, I leave for my first Star Wars Celebration — holy crap, I’m slathered in nerd-froth over that one. (Also slathered in nerd-froth: the Great Ewok Defense of 2017, FYI.) I don’t believe they’ve released proper schedules yet (to my surprise), but when it pops, it’ll pop up here at the blog and at the Celebration website. Hope to see you there!

(Actually, looking at the site, it looks like some panels are up, just not curated under the guest names as yet. So, here’s a rough accounting of where I’ll be –)

Thursday, 4/13:

1:00 – 2:00 PM: Signing in B&N Booth #2022

2:30 – 3:30 PM: I’ll Take Droids for $500, Obi-Wan — a trivia game show with me and Timothy Zahn and one lucky audience guest member. Hosted by awesome narrator Marc Thompson! Location: W304, 3rd floor.

5:00 – 6:00 PM: Star Wars University: “A Small Group Of Characters Can Change The Whole Galaxy,” a character-writing panel taught by me. Location: W300, 3rd floor.

Friday, 4/14: 

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Signing, Del Rey Booth, #2522 — posters!

3:00 – 4:00 PM: Signing, B&N Booth #2022

Saturday, 4/15:

1:00 – 2:00 PM: Del Rey Books, Behind the Scenes, hosted by Amy Ratcliff, featuring me, Elizabeth Schaefer, Delilah S. Dawson, Christie Golden, Timothy Zahn — discussing present and future projects. Loc: W304, 3rd floor.

4:30 – 5:30 PM: Signing, B&N Booth #2022

Sunday, 4/16:

10:30 – 11:30 AM: Signing, Del Rey Booth #2522 — signing with Christie Golden and Delilah S. Dawson — bonus posters!

The Shriek of the Thunderbird

I’m over at B&N talking about the new Miriam Black book in an interview: “Breaking Hearts and Cheating Death with Miriam Black.”

Also, there’s a new excerpt of the book over at Daily Dead. Warning: contains vultures.

To those who have read the book, haha, ahem, sorry about that ending.

Also, if you’ve read it, I could use a review somewhere if you so choose. Honestly, I fear the book coming out just one wee little week after Empire’s End was not great for it, and I strongly suspect it got more than a little lost in the Star Wars shuffle. If you are free to check it out and leave a review of the novel somewhere, I will love you forever. And by forever, I mean roughly one week, but that one week will feel like forever, because my love is just that powerful. Or scary. Powerful and/or scary. Whatever, shut up.

Wondercon Wrap-Up

I didn’t know what I was going to get with Wondercon.

I honestly feared it was going to be more like SDCC — just a sweaty steamy throng of geek miasma as everyone packs in, elbow-to-elbow, slowly shuffling like the damned and dying through an exhibition hall.

But it was pretty fucking awesome.

Okay, the plus and the minus is that there’s almost no significant publishing presence there, not in terms of novels. Comics, yes! Not publishing proper, though. So, very little infrastructure and not a high volume of novelists attending — but but but, that also lets you stand out as a writer, and I had some of the best fan interactions at this con. And the panels were pretty packed. It was great. Bonus: it’s in California, and even though Anaheim is kind of like what would happen if Disney had a baby with a shopping mall and turned it into a town, it’s still warm and laden with palm-trees, so. All in all, a big, throbbing thumbs-up to Wondercon.

Thanks for having me there, everyone.