(On a warm day last week I took some snaps, including the above, which looks like some kind of weird microscopic close-up of a virus in action, even though it’s actually just a hibernating poison ivy vine. More photos to come.)

So.

Recently I saw two films in close proximity:

Justice League.

And —

Black Panther.

(Note: mild spoilers for both.)

Now, let’s just get this out of the way — Black Panther is the superior film, and it’s the superior film in the way that a high-five is superior to a punch to the neck. Justice League isn’t a bad movie, exactly, but the best I can really say for it is that it is a movie that exists. It is a more palatable filmgoing experience than Batman V. Superman, though it is a worse overall film — at least BvS had a point-of-view, dire and overlong as it was. I actively despised that movie, but despised it because I didn’t agree with it — I didn’t despise Justice League, I didn’t even dislike it, but I certainly didn’t like it. My feeling for it are equal to my feelings for saltine crackers or Swedish fish: I know they exist, and I can summon no opinion about them beyond that.

Justice League is a film with no point-of-view. It has literally nothing to say. It’s just — here are some costumed weirdos, and now here is a sludgy computer-generated menace, now let’s mash them together like a bunch of action figures, mash mash mash, fight fight fight, tap the X button, tap it, now the right trigger, now Y and B in a combo, aaaaaand, yay, it’s done, please to enjoy one more shot with Superman’s CGI mouth-bits, since apparently they had to digitally erase Henry Cavill’s mustache? I dunno.

Justice League is a film with a lot of whizz and bang but not a lot of reason for it. It’s got some humor, but no heart. It’s got some heroes, but no real heroism. It’s not thoughtful in any way, and it has nothing to tell us, and that comes down to the fact that the characters possess, by and large, character arcs that are shaped less like arcs and more like a garden hose laying haphazardly across a driveway. No one has changed fundamentally by the end, if at all. Batman growls, “I gotta gather the team,” and then he gathers them. Aquaman is the only holdout, and even he comes along about six minutes later, somehow, and then it’s a red-tinted digital punch-fest after that, a series of perfectly serviceable PS4 cutscenes. Then they win. There’s never really any danger. Nobody sacrifices anything. Nobody learns anything. It’s the worst kind of story — introduce problem, then beat the problem. “I wanted a sandwich, so I got one, the end,” is not a good shape, but that’s more or less what’s on display, here.

It has no beauty, it has no aesthetic.

It has no mind, it has no heart.

And then we come to Black Panther.

It is a film that is almost the polar opposite of JL, isn’t it?

It’s a solo film, not a team film, but even in that, T’Challa has a capable team — most of them being strong women, and strong women not just in the “I CAN KICK YOUR FACE” way, but in the “strongly-rendered, lushly-imagined characters-with-agency.” They are not merely support players but vital players on the stage. Okoye, Nakia, Shuri! They have beliefs and attitudes and they do not shove them aside just because T’Challa (or the plot) demands — they push on the plot more than it pushes on them. T’Challa, in fact, is shaped by them as much as they are shaped by him. And I can tell you more about most of the side characters in Black Panther than I can about any of the main heroes in Justice League.

It’s also a film with a great deal of beauty — the Marvel films have done a lot of good in making their worlds really pop, but none have popped quite as much as Wakanda — or hell, even the Busan sequence, which is one helluva sphincter-clenching action-and-then-chase sequence.

Best of all, it’s a film with both a heart and a mind — it’s a movie with a point of view, a thing to say, and the entire film serves as a discussion of those themes, themes that arise from questions of colonization and supremacy, that are bound up with what it means to have responsibility. There is no simple good versus evil struggle here — Erik Stevens (Killmonger) is an antagonist, but not so much a villain; he opposes the protagonist, T’Challa, but is himself the hero in his own story. Erik is a liberator and a conqueror, and intends to use Wakanda to restore his idea of justice and balance. He’s not — shit, what was the bad guy’s name in Justice League again? Steppenwolf? What the hell did that asshole want again? Just… badness, right? He just wanted global apocalyptic badness, and the reason he wanted it was… *whistles* *snaps fingers* *shuffles feet nervously* … because he’s evil? I dunno. I got nothing.

What’s fascinating is, at the core of it, save the world is one of the most boring problem/goal combinations you can have in a story, and yet, both JL and BP have it. JL has the version of it we’ve seen a hundred thousand times — oh no, big bad guy, he wants to blow up the world, let’s stop him, punch punch punch, yaaaaay. But BP has a way more nuanced version of it — Killmonger wants to destabilize the world and he wants to destroy the social order of it, and arguably he wants to do so for reasons we totally understand and can empathize with. And T’Challa decides to commit to Erik’s goal, but in a better, more heroic, more open way. He chooses not to destabilize the world but rather, to stabilize it — he helps to save a world that doesn’t even know it’s in danger. And the heart of it is Killmonger versus T’Challa.

In Damn Fine Story I talk about how some characters run parallel to each other, and others are perpendicular — they crash into one another, and that’s Killmonger and T’Challa. Two characters coming at roughly the same goal from two different, competing angles. Their intersection is not gentle, but calamitous. These are characters who are not shaped by the plot, but are the plot. They are not architecture, but rather, they are architects.

And they carry both the heart and the mind of the work.

Black Panther will make you think.

And it will make you feel.

Those are the storyteller’s goals.

Not amuse or entertain — those goals are secondary. A film can’t just be fireworks. A story has to be fireworks that like, kill your Dad, or that set fire to an old-growth forest; the fireworks can’t just be for the light and the sound, for the clamor and the flash, but the fireworks have to be fired into your fucking heart. The fireworks should pop and sizzle in the sky and spell out a message, a message that challenges the ways you think about things, that demands you investigate your own ideas. Which, needless to say, Black Panther does.

Justice League is… you know, like a kid in homeroom, it’s present? It’s raising its hand to let you know it’s there, and then it’s going to lay its head back down on its desk and go to sleep.

So there you go.

What else is going on?

Not much, really — just a reminder that, HEY, I’m off to Emerald City ComicCon this week. You can nab my schedule here, and a reminder that even if you’re not going to ECCC, you can catch me, Fonda Lee, and Alex Marshall doing a panel at Brick & Mortar books this Thursday from 6-7pm (details here). And Friday night at 7pm is the Worldbuilders Party — donate to charity, come play games with creative weirdos!

Hope to see you there.

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

Except you in the back.

You know what you did.

*stares*

An easy one. I’m giving you ten random titles chosen from various random generators about ye olde internet — pick one, let that be the title of your new story. Any genre will do, list at the bottom of the post.

Length: ~1000 words

Due by: Friday, March 2nd, 2018

Post at your online space, link back here.

(Note: I’ll be at ECCC next week, and so there won’t be a flash fic challenge.)

The Titles

1. The Laughing Man

2. Voyagers in Flame

3. The History of Courage

4. Blue Serpent

5. Smooth Silk

6. The Princess’ Game

7. Ten Circuses

8. The Frozen Rat’s Foot

9. Into the Raw

10. The Leviathan in the Fog

When the city is sick, everyone suffers.

Steven Hines listened to the city and the city spoke. Cleveport told him she was sick. With his unnatural connection to her, that meant Hines was sick too. But when his friend, Detective Abby Jones, comes to him for help investigating a series of deaths with no discernible cause, Hines can’t say no. Then strange fungal growths begin to appear in the streets, affecting anyone who gets too close, turning them into violent lunatics. As the mayhem escalates and officials start to seal Cleveport off from the rest of the world, Hines knows the trouble has only just begun.

The idea is not the story

Some of the things I’m going to relate here I seem to learn anew with every book. For example, for me a book comes together not from a single idea, but when two or more ideas clash in a kind of mental pile-up. I’ll have all these things swimming around my brain all the time, making me stare at walls and not hear my wife calling me. That’s just being a writer. But then something will happen. One idea about a character will stroll through my thinkmeat just as another idea about a cool scene is trying to make out with a third idea about “what if this was that”, then something greater than all those parts happens and boom! There’s a book. My brain is a strange place. HIDDEN CITY grew from just such a collision of cool ideas: parasitic fungus, magic out of control, a harmless drug turned deadly, a broken-down, grief-stricken citymage… But even then, once the idea collision had occurred and I saw a bigger picture in the shape of a novel, I still needed the story. This is the thing I learned again. The ideas were cool, but they’re not the story. As people wiser than me have said, plot is what happens, but story is why we care.

Story is characters

And this leads to another thing that I seem to re-learn with every book. You’d think I’d know by now and start here, but my story-brain just doesn’t fire like that. It needs strange fuel at strange hours, often assisted by whisky. While plot is happening, you care because of the story, and the story is the characters. In the case of HIDDEN CITY, two primary characters drove the story together for me. One is the (fictional) city of Cleveport. In the noir style, place is always a character. In HIDDEN CITY, I take that to the max because Cleveport is a sentient city. Cities are all sentient, of course. You knew that, right? And most of them are assholes, but some are cool. Except Cleveport is more aware than most, which makes her dangerous. The other character to put this book into shape for me was Steven Hines, the aforementioned citymage. He has a kind of more-than-psychic connection to Cleveport. I’ll be honest, their relationship is fucking unhealthy, and Hines knows that, but it’s what he is, you know? What’s he gonna do? Then we throw in Hines’s best friend, Cleveport PD Detective Sergeant Abby Jones, and a spate of mysterious deaths, and now we have a story to care about because we care about these people. I hope.

Don’t worry what it is, just write the damn thing

I got a bit hung up at the start of HIDDEN CITY trying to figure out what it was. I felt like I should get a grip on the genre before I began. But I should have known better, from previous experience. Genre is what bookstores insist on, so they know where to shelve something. Readers tend to just want a good story. And you know what? I never met a genre I didn’t like, so I cram ’em all in to my books if I can. HIDDEN CITY is supernatural noir, it’s urban horror, it’s dark fantasy, it’s a crime thriller, it’s cosmic horror. Hell, you tell me what it is so I can let people know if they insist on shelving it.

The lifecycle of an invented parasitic fungus is tricky to get right.

I’ve got this notebook… well, I have dozens, it’s a common writer affliction, but I have this one in particular where I was working out how things happen in HIDDEN CITY. One of the primary drivers of events in the novel is the sudden appearance of a deadly fungal outburst throughout Cleveport. If people get too close they’re turned into violent psychopaths. They’re actually turned into something far worse, but I won’t spoil the story here. But to make this work, I needed to have a plausible lifecycle of this horrendous and virulent thing. So I started sketching in that notebook. I have these little drawings of fungal growths, then arrows and stick figures and notes. And it had to make sense. I mean, it’s horror and fantasy fiction, not real life, so it’s gotta make sense, you know? Turns out that’s a lot harder than I thought it would be, but I’m pleased with how it came together in the end.

Let it go, let it go, my darlings never bothered me anyway

Okay, so my son has recently discovered Frozen and that’s a special torture, but pity me and let’s move along. The point here is that I have amazing first readers (we read for each other so our agents and publishers don’t have to suffer our early drafts). There was one thread through HIDDEN CITY that I loved, I thought it was clever as fuck. One reader was all Meh about it, but another had a real problem with it. She used words like “shoehorned” and “distracting”. But I loved it! It was amazing, you know? Reader, it was not amazing. Sure it was a cool idea on its own, but not for this book. I finally accepted her words as Damned Good Advice, and I killed that darling, and HIDDEN CITY came together so much more tight and punchy. I would have been an idiot to ignore her. If you trust people to be first readers for you, learn to trust what they tell you too. It made HIDDEN CITY a much better book, and that’s all I ever want to do – put out the best book I can.

* * *

ALAN BAXTER is a multi-award-winning author of supernatural thrillers, dark fantasy, and horror. He lives on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia, with his wife, son, two dogs, and a cranky old cat.

Alan Baxter: Website

HIDDEN CITY: Excerpt | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | iBooks

I’m pretty sure Dan is a Kobold, and just isn’t telling us — I mean, it’s right there in his name. I keep asking, “Are you a kobold? and he keeps saying, “Stop asking me that, I’m a human being,” and then I wink at him because I know what he means. (Whisper: he’s a kobold.) Anyway! Here Dan is, offering up a bevy of lessons — nine, in fact — to match his nine years of penmonkeying around. Please to enjoy, fellow kobolds and non-kobolds.

* * *

When Chuck generously agreed to host another guest post from me on his blog, he suggested something other than a FIVE THINGS post. Which is fine with me. I’ve told you ten things about my books already, and I’d be hard-pressed to come up with more. Instead, as I wrap up my series with Harper Voyager, I thought I’d share some of the lessons I’ve learned since I started writing fiction.

In other words, these are the lessons from my nine years as a penmonkey. Nine years, nine lessons. Let’s do this.

1. Write the damn book.

Most people fancy the idea of writing a book. I have a few friends and relatives – people I’ve known for years – who are pretty fired up about it. They come up with great new ideas for stories on a regular basis. They buy special pens and notebooks (or a Macbook Air). They try new outline formulas and write-or-die apps. But they fail to do the single most important thing for someone who wants to become an author, which is to write the damn book.

If you want to be an author, you have to write (and finish) an entire book. Until you do that, you can’t query agents, pitch editors, or ask celebrities for blurbs. You have nothing to offer these people until you have a completed manuscript. And yet, so many people can’t seem to do that. Sometimes, it’s because they’re trying to get everything perfect. Perfect characters, perfect setting, perfect storyline. But perfect is the enemy of done, my friends. If you want to get anywhere, you need to be done.

Another reason many people don’t write the book is simply that writing is hard. There are lots of reasons not to do it. You work a lot. You have kids. You need to go to the gym. You can’t find your laptop’s power cord. These are all perfectly legitimate reasons not to write. If one of them works for you and you’re happy not writing, you shouldn’t. God bless. This game isn’t for everyone.

People generally fall into one of two categories when it comes to writing a book: those who talk about it, and those who do it. Over time, I can usually figure out which category someone’s in, and it rarely changes.

I can’t make you write a book. Only you can do that.

2. Double your eyeballs.

When I first dabbled in fiction in 2008, I considered myself a competent writer. I’d been writing nonfiction for several years for my day job, and I was a voracious reader. I thought I’d be good, or at least decent, when I switched to fiction.

Nope. I was pretty bad. Even worse, I didn’t know it yet. Luckily, I was in an “Introduction to Fiction Writing” class that included peer critique. My classmates gently helped me realize how terrible my writing was. Their feedback told me some of the things that I could improve.

Like most writers, I have blinders on when it comes to my own writing. We need more eyeballs on it to ferret out the weak points. Not our mom’s eyeballs, either, but the eyeballs of someone who reads in your genre. Or better yet, writes in your genre. (Always ask before using someone’s eyeballs). I refer you to my recent guest post on the NaNoWriMo blog, How and Why to Use Critique Partners.

3. The Zombie Gauntlet of Rejection

A nice side benefit of peer critique is that it helps prepare you for the pain associated with the publishing journey. As you progress in your career, criticism and rejection will be constant companions.

Think of it as trying to get past a gauntlet of rejection-zombies to the safety of your home. When you begin querying, each rejection is like an undead hand slapping you in the face. It stings, but you keep moving. When your manuscript goes on submission to editors, the rejections have more weight to them. Each one is like a punch to the guts. Sometimes, it’ll knock the wind right out of you. It helps to have an agent and writer friends who will pick you up from the dirt so you can keep going.

If you manage to get past the editor zombies, you’ve reached the door. But the acquisitions board has locked it from the other side. Many author dreams die on this threshold. Maybe you do better, and kick down that door to get published. That’s why they call it breaking in.

Even after you break in, your problems aren’t over. You simply trade them for a set of new ones. If you want to survive, you have to be mentally tough enough to take these knocks and keep going. And you need a support network of good friends to help you stay sane.

4. Luck versus persistence.

Luck matters a lot more than it should in this game. You can write a fantastic book that lands a great agent. The agent knows the perfect editor for it. Maybe that editor loves it and makes you a great offer. Or, maybe that editor signed a similar book last month, so the answer is no. Your fate, hanging in the balance, and it all comes down to luck. Nothing you can do about it.

But there’s another factor at play. Persistence. This is something you DO control, and it’s also what separates published authors from failed ones. If an agent rejects your query, send it to five more. If your first book doesn’t get a book deal, write a second one (but not a sequel). If your first novel doesn’t garner the sales or reviews or awards that you’d like, try again.

You can’t control luck, but you can be stubbornly persistent. Most successful authors are.

5. Publishing is dead! Long live publishing!

Bloggers and podcasters love to discuss the state of the publishing industry. Depending on whom you ask, it’s either stronger than ever or plunging toward certain death. Generally it’s the latter, because bad/shocking news gets more attention. That’s why you hear more about teenagers dying in car crashes than elderly people going in their sleep. When I was a new author trying to break in, I gave these “publishing pundits” too much stock. I was genuinely concerned that by the time my debut was published, physical bookstores would no longer exist.

The truth lies somewhere between the two extremes. Yes, the publishing industry has undergone some major changes, especially in the past two decades. Major publishers have been consolidated into five big entities. More recently, the introduction of e-readers like the Kindle fueled the rapid growth of e-books. Brick-and-mortar booksellers like Barnes & Noble are struggling to adapt to a world in which more and more consumers shop online. So are most physical retailers, by the way. Google “holiday sales 2017” if you need convincing.

The publishing industry is not dying. It is evolving. People still buy books. They just do it online because you don’t need pants to shop online. People still visit libraries, but now they can use their library cards to borrow e-books and audiobooks. People still read, but they do it on their phones.

Change is the way of the world. Smart authors, agents, and publishers adapt and survive. Those who don’t adapt will eventually fade away. It’s that simple.

6. Obscurity is the enemy

This is not to say that the success of any author (or book) is guaranteed. There has never been more competition for readers or attention, especially because consolidation has happened on the retail side as well. Thanks to e-books, most titles will never go out of print, at least digitally. The challenge is ensuring that they continue to reach new readers.

There is a form of peculiar, unknowable black magic called Sales Rank. No one truly understands the meaning of this number, but its job is to make you feel the sting of obscurity. It will spike. It will fade. It will do little dances that make authors begin to question their sanity. Ignore this dark sorcery, and you’ll be much happier.

There are two powerful weapons that aid authors in the fight against obscurity. The first is your own personal hustle: your ability to hand-sell your book to a co-worker or con-goer or the guy next to you on an airplane. This is a subtle art that takes time and practice, but ultimately can keep your book selling. The fact that you’ve written and published a book is no small achievement. Many people will read it just because of that.

The other powerful weapon is your membership in the guild of penmonkeys. You didn’t know there was a guild? Well, welcome aboard. Please send your membership fees to Chuck. Acceptable forms of payment include beaver skins, undead souls, and bees.

The guild means that you, as an author, have great power to support the work of other penmonkeys. Hand-sell their books. Review their books. Give them a voice on your platform. Others will do the same for you when it’s your turn.

7. There’s a lot you can’t change

There are many things that affect an author’s career (for better or worse) that we simply can’t change. Some of the things authors don’t control include:

• The economy
• Market trends and forces
• Reviews
• Awards
• Any company they don’t own, such as Twitter

It’s frustrating, because as humans we like the idea that our fate is on our own hands. In many cases, it’s not. The sooner you accept that – and worry about the things that you CAN control – the happier you’ll be.

8. Comparison is the thief of joy

One of the easiest ways to become unhappy is to compare yourself to others. There will always be authors who write faster than you, get bigger advances, sell more books, and win more awards than you. You might think that some of those authors aren’t as good as you, and maybe you’re right. It doesn’t matter. Pointing it out, complaining about it, or letting the unfairness of the world bother you will not accomplish anything.

Comparison will steal your joy away. Don’t let it. Grab onto your joy, squeeze it tightly, and hit anyone who tries to take it with an axe. If you accomplish anything as a writer in these difficult times, you should celebrate. You’ll be much happier if you do.

9. Don’t be a dick

I recently joined a private discussion forum for authors where there’s one rule: don’t be a dick. Basically, that means don’t criticize when it’s not your place. Don’t marginalize or insult people because of their gender, race, orientation, or appearance. Don’t be rude. Don’t take advantage of people. It’s a simple rule for life, but some people still have trouble with it.

No one likes it when you’re a dick. YOU might feel better, but that feeling will dissipate rather quickly. However, the people who have seen you be a dick, or worse, been the target of your dick-ness, will remember it for a long time. Probably forever.

If you don’t believe in karma or doing the right thing, let me appeal to your sense of ambition. It’s a small world and an even smaller industry. When you’re a dick, word gets around. Sometimes it gets around very publicly. Odds are, you will offend someone who (either now or someday) can influence your career. Maybe they’re a book reviewer. Maybe they read slush for a magazine. Maybe they sit on an acquisitions board for a publisher that’s considering your next book. If you’re a dick to people, it will come back to bite you. Guaranteed.

You might not even know that it’s come back to bite you. No editor will end a rejection e-mail with “I was ready to buy this, until I remembered that you’re a dick.” No convention will tell you that you have not been selected as a guest of honor due to your history of dick behavior. Instead, these things just won’t happen for you. They will happen for other authors who follow the golden rule. Don’t be a dick.

* * *

Dan Koboldt is a genetics researcher and fantasy/science fiction author from the Midwest. He is the author of the Gateway to Alissia series (Harper Voyager) about a Las Vegas magician who infiltrates a medieval world. He is currently editing Putting the Science in Fiction, (Writers Digest), a reference for writers slated for release in Fall 2018.

By day, Dan is a genetics researcher at a major children’s hospital. He has co-authored more than 70 publications in Nature, Science, The New England Journal of Medicine, and other scientific journals. He lives with his wife, daughter, and twin boys in Ohio.

Dan Koboldt: Website | Twitter

The World Awakening: Books2Read

PSST.

So, John August — screenwriter extraordinaire and also novelist behind the middle grade book, Arlo Finch in the Valley of Fire — has a shiny new podcast called Launch, which is about, well, launching a book, and it’s a snazzy snout-to-tail examination of the many processes behind writing and publishing a book. Well, John invited me onto the most recent podcast — have I mentioned that I am a fortunate soul? — to answer some of his listener questions about those many processes. So go right now and give a listen.

Thanks to John for having me!

Go listen, or I will stare at you very crossly.

*stares*

*waits*

*stares harder*

We had a very nice snow this weekend, in that it dropped six inches on the ground, two on paved surfaces, was good for snowballs and snowmen, and hot chocolate and sledding, and then the day got warm and a lot of it went away.

I took a shot of a snowflake, seen above — it looked like a tiny little person hanging for dear life. I snapped the shot, and then my breath melted the icy tether holding it to the larger snowclump, and the little snowflake tumbled to the earth, where it was eaten by sharks.

Ice sharks.

Okay, I don’t know if there were ice sharks down there, I didn’t look.

WHATEVER.

Don’t @ me.

Anyway! What else is up.

I have a cold. So that’s nice. I mean, almost literally, it’s nice, because I guess it could’ve been the flu? I suspect I caught it from my six-year-old, who during dinner a few nights ago basically coughed on my food. He’s usually pretty good about controlling his aerosolized illness, but I dunno if the cough was a surprise or he was just like, “Fuck it, I’m sick, so you’re sick, *hackptoo*” but here we are, and now I’m sick.

So, to remind you, I’ll be at EMERALD CITY COMICCON starting next week. And that means it is time to reveal my schedule!

*pulls back curtain*

*blood and locusts*

Ha ha wrong curtain hold on

*pulls back different curtain*

*schedule is revealed!*

You can find a schedule for me here, but I don’t think it’s complete.

Here is a much better, more intimate look at my schedule.

*bats eyelashes*

*plays sex jazz*

Thursday, March 1

3:00 PM – 4:00 PM

SIGNING

Location: PRH Booth #1610 (Level 4)

6:00 PM – 7:00? PM

OFF-SITE — signing and panel at Brick & Mortar Books in Redmond, WA, with Fonda Lee and Alex Marshall

Location: Brick & Mortar Books, 7430 164th Ave NE suite B105, Redmond, WA

Friday, March 2

12:15 PM – 1:15 PM

PANEL: Pop Culture Throwdown

Me! Marko Kloos! Kevin Hearne! Cherie Priest! Mia Garcia! Django Wexler! Amy Bartol!

Location: WSCC 603

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM

SIGNING

Location: Writers Block – Autographing Table?

5:15 PM – 6:15 PM

PANEL: The Universe of Star Wars

Me! Delilah S. Dawson! Amanda Cherry! EK Johnston! Kevin J. Anderson! And more.

Location: WSCC 611

7:00 PM – 11:00 PM

WorldBuilders Party

Location: WSCC Room 3AB

(You should totally come to this! Pay in to charity, play games with a bunch of authors and creators. I’ll be running a game of Balderdash, baby. Old-school liary liar-faced game! Also because I’m way way behind on playing any modern board games! Shut up!)

Saturday, March 3

4:00 PM – 5:00 PM

PANEL: Star Wars Books

Me! Delilah Dawson! John Jackson Miller!

Location: WSCC 611

5:15 PM – 6:00 PM

POST-PANEL SIGNING

Location: Writers Block – Autographing Table?

Sunday March 4

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM

SIGNING

Location: PRH Booth #1610 (Level 4)

1:15 PM – 2:15 PM

PANEL: Writing the Future

Me! Jason Hough! Annalee Newitz! AdriAnne Strickland! Sylvain Neuvel! Michael Miller!

Location: WSCC 603

2:30 PM – 3:45 PM

POST-PANEL SIGNING

Location: Writers Block – Autographing Table?

So, there you go. That’s my schedule.

After that’s over, I will be running a writing workshop for the Austin Romance Writers of America (ARWA!) on Saturday, the 24th.

Then it’s Raven Con and PHX Comic Fest and, you know, some other fun stuff.

See you on the flipswitch, booty-scooters. Is that the hip lingo? Are the kids saying that to one another? No? Shit.