StokerCon kicks off tomorrow in Stamford, Connecticut, and — what’s this? I’m one of the Guests of Honor?

How did that happen?

If you’ll also be attending, here’s where you’ll be able to find me —

Horror Podcasts: Conversations That Feed the Genre
Friday June 13, 2025 9:00 a.m. – 9:45 a.m. Aspen 1
Join Guest of Horror Scott Edelman, host of Eating the Fantastic, and fellow panelists for a conversation on the power of podcasting to build community, preserve genre history, and spark meaningful dialogue. From one-on-one interviews to roundtable discussions and narrative formats, panelists will share their experiences creating and appearing on podcasts that deepen connections between horror creators and fans.
with Alex Hofelich, Tamika Thompson, David Cummings, and Stephanie Gagnon

The Myth of Making It
Friday June 13, 2025 10:00 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. Grove 2
Surviving life as a creative. How we make ends meet. What we sacrifice and what we gain. Join our group of panelists as we talk day jobs, work/life balance, career shifts, and the many unconventional paths we walk as writers. The audience will have a look behind the curtain at some of their favorite writers while being invited to share their own experiences, as we collectively dispel the myth of making it, in a casual and candid conversation with lots of back-and-forth.
with Jamie Flanagan, Denise Tapscott, Meg Ripley, Mercedes M. Yardley, and Matthew Bartlett

What Horror Means to Me
Friday June 13, 2025 1:00 p.m. – 1:50 p.m. Grand Ballroom 1
Join StokerCon 2025’s Guests of Honor for a lively discussion about why readers of all ages enjoy a good scare, from fictional frights to all-too-true terrors.
with Lila Denning, Tim Waggoner, Gaby Triana, Adam Nevill, and Paula Guran

Perspectives in the Writing Life: From Rookie to Veteran
Saturday June 14, 2025 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. Grove 2
This panel brings together StokerCon’s Guests of Honor—writers at different stages of their careers—to explore how the writing life evolves over time. From first publications to award wins, from chasing deadlines to mentoring the next generation, panelists will reflect on how their creative process, career goals, and relationship to the industry have changed over the years. How has the horror genre shifted? What challenges remain the same? What advice would they give to their younger selves—and to those just starting out today? Whether you’re a new writer looking for inspiration or a seasoned author reflecting on your journey, this conversation offers candid insights from those who’ve seen the industry grow and transform.
with John Langan, Joyce Carol Oates,Tim Waggoner, Gaby Triana, Adam Nevill, and Paula Guran

Chilling Comics
Saturday June 14, 2025 4:00 p.m. – 4:45 p.m. Grove 2
A discussion of horror comics, what makes them special and influential, how to break into comics writing, historical highlights of horror comics, and why some stories can only be told in the comics medium. This will look at key horror comics through history from the EC Comics of the 1950s to the Marvel horror comics of the 1970s, the Vertigo comics of the 1980s and 90s, to current horror manga by Junji Ito and Gou Tanabe. The emphasis will be on the unique storytelling aspects of the comic book format.
with Shawn Hainsworth, Alys Arden, Raymonde Chira, and Justina Ireland

You’ll also be able find me at the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, the Breakfast with the Guests of Honor event … as well as in the dealers room and simply wandering the halls schmoozing.

If you do, please say hi!

Last month’s Balticon was one of the best I’ve ever experienced, due to a combination of good programming, good friends, good food (including visits to two spectacular bakeries which were new to me), and what’s most important as far as you’re concerned — good podcast guests. Kemi Ashing-Giwa, an author and scientist-in-training based in Palo Alto, is the first of three on whom you’ll get to eavesdrop.

Her work includes the USA Today bestselling, Compton Crook Award-winning novel The Splinter in the Sky, the novella This World Is Not Yours, and the forthcoming novel The King Must Die, due out in November. Her short fiction, which has been nominated for an Ignyte Award and featured on the Locus Recommended Reading List, has been reprinted in The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction Volume 3, Some of the Best from Tor.com: 15th Anniversary Edition and 2024, and The Year’s Top Tales of Space and Time 3. She studied organismic and evolutionary biology with a secondary in astrophysics at Harvard, and is now pursuing a PhD in the Earth & Planetary Sciences department at Stanford.

We discussed her conscious decision to not take any creative writing courses in college, the eight never-to-be published novels she wrote on her way to The Splinter in the Sky, how COVID-19 led her to take a deep dive into tea (and how tea then inspired her debut novel), her evolution from pantser to plotter, her outreach to 200 agents before she found the right one, how to craft compelling opening sentences, her tips for writing successful fight scenes, why she was able to handle attending Harvard and writing a novel at the same time, how best to deal with editorial revision suggestions, her love of reading debut novels, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us for lunch at Baltimore’s Thames Street Oyster House — (more…)

Join me and Neil Ottenstein for a rambling panel about Howard the Duck in which I share the Marvel Comics chaos which caused me to be hired there in 1974, my regrets over having written an issue of Omega the Unknown, my ethical queasiness about owning original art, what it means when I say I knew Stan Lee before he had hair, my terrifying Bullpen encounters with “Jumbo” John Verpoorten, why Howard the Duck was the Silver Surfer of the ’70s, my Times Square street theater with Steve Gerber, the time Howard the Duck had to be hatched instead of laid, how immaturity cost me Captain Marvel, the only time I ever saw Stan Lee get flustered, and more.

You can eavesdrop on all those memories via the embed below or download them at the site of your choice.

Here are several images relating to some of the topics I touched on during the episode —

The Omega the Unknown panels I regret writing

How the Comics Code Authority censored my Omega the Unknown panel
with more info here

(more…)