Life brings a steady stream of news, good and ill, and so today I bring you a fistful of each — which to open first? I suppose a spoonful of sugar, and all that.
Wait, do I have a spoonful in the fistful? I think I’m mixing metaphors. WHATEVER.
The good news: this weekend I’ll be at both the Morristown Book Festival and the Bucks County Book Fest. At Morristown tomorrow, I’m doing a Star Wars panel with Jason Fry at 12 noon, and then I and Rob Hart will be chatting about Wanderers and The Warehouse respectively, and that is at 3PM. (Full Morristown schedule here.) We’ll be signing after, I believe? I assume? Yeah. And at Bucks, I’m appearing on Sunday, at a 3pm sci-fi panel with Josiah Bancroft and Mike Slater. Signing after.
The bad news is —
Hey, remember how I was going to the Surrey Writer’s Conference outside of Vancouver at the end of the month? Given everything with my mother’s passing and the move, it became just too untenable, and there’s too much going on, so I woefully had to back out. I know! I know. It’s such a great festival and I was going to hang with pals like Delilah Dawson and Eric Smith, but it unfortunately it’s just *gestures chaotically* right now. (Extra bummer for me, I was heading up there to check out the UBC Heirloom Apple festival so that’s a small gut punch to miss it.) This also ruins my curious pattern of going to Canada every dang October. I HAVE BROKEN THE PROPHECY AND NOW I DO NOT KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.
So, if you were heading there to see me — well, I won’t be there. But again, to boomerang back some good news, it is an absolutely amazing conference which you surely already know and so the lack of me won’t impact your experience at all — you’ll get so much out of it by the end you’ll wonder why you even cared about me at all.
(Answer: my luxurious, well-unguented beard. That’s why.)
Anyway, updates will at some point get more regular here as grief and chaos abate.
I’m also nesting on some cool news like a patient hen, and at some point these eggs will hatch.
Onward, we go.
Lindsay says:
I wish I had a luxurious, well-unguented beard.
October 11, 2019 — 8:52 AM
Nicole Evelina says:
To quote Pretty Woman, “take care of you.” I’m so sorry about your mom. Take all the time you need to grieve and heal. We will all be here when you are ready to get back to a normal schedule.
October 11, 2019 — 9:34 AM
Janet Smith says:
HI Chuck – so sorry to hear you won’t be at Surrey but I was thinking this might happen when I heard about your mom. So sorry, by the way. Catch you next time. Janet K Smith
October 11, 2019 — 11:00 AM
May Q. Wong says:
Great plug for British Columbia’s Surrey International Writers’ Conference. Wonderful access to authors, agents, editors, and publishers. It was at SWIC where I met an agent who gave me the confidence to continue writing. In the end, she thought the story was too “Canadian” for a US agency. I am proud it was published in Canada.
Again, condolences for the loss of your mother.
October 11, 2019 — 11:57 AM
J says:
Please take care of yourself! I am so, sorry to hear about your loss. Please take care of you and your family
October 11, 2019 — 1:44 PM
Terry Hickman says:
Condolences on the death of your mom, Chuck. That’s so hard. You need to take care of yourself and your family. I’m sure there’ll be another Surrey Writer’s Conference you will be able to attend.
October 11, 2019 — 2:38 PM
Nina Angela McKissock says:
Hi Chuck. I just caught up on my author site and read that your mom died. My mom died a few months ago and it’s disorienting. I just keep thinking about how I’m supposed to be thinking. Her picadillos and preferences are super-sized now and I find myself blurting them out to anyone and no one.
But all I truly want to do is inhale her scent.
I can’t.
That’s over.
The only thing that gives me comfort is to do something in her honor every day. Yesterday it was pulling weeds at Race Street Pier. She reminded me that Life is like a garden: you have to pull the weeds, rearrange the plantings when the surrounding plants grow too big and blocked the sunlight.
With love,
Nina
October 14, 2019 — 7:40 AM