Balticon’s coming up next weekend, and it’s not just any Balticon—it’s the 50th Balticon. And this year the committee has gathered together as many former Guests of Honor as possible from previous incarnations of the convention.

Who else will be there?

Me!

If you’ll be there, too, here’s where to find me.

Gimungous Autograph Session
Saturday 2:00-3:15 p.m. (Kent)

The Fine Art of Rejection
Saturday 5:00-15:50 p.m. (Parlor 9059)
Editors answer the hard questions. What are your deal-breakers? How do you winnow that mountain down into the select few choices? What makes your task harder? How do you decide when a story deserves more than a form rejection?

Readings: Christiana Ellis, Scott Edelman, Christopher Rose, Don Sakers
Saturday 16:00-16:50 (Parlor 9059)

How to Give and Get Critiques
Monday 11:00-11:50 a.m. (Parlor)
What goes into being a good critiquer. How to listen to others’ critiques of your work. Where to find critique partners, online and in person.

What’s Hot in Short Fiction?
Monday 12:00-12:50 p.m. (Parlor 8029)

See you there!

Remember when I told you I’d been honored with a sixth Stoker Award nomination, and that whatever ended up happening, win or lose, I’d win?

Well, I did win Saturday.

No, not that way. The other way.

The trophy for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction was taken home by co-finalist Mercedes Yardley, with whom I got into a brawl when I’d spotted her inside a candy store earlier that afternoon. (more…)

I got together with Lynne Hansen and Jeff Strand for lunch earlier today at the Carnegie Deli inside The Mirage for the first of what I hope will be five episodes of Eating the Fantastic recorded during the inaugural StokerCon in Las Vegas.

Lynne is a horror novelist turned filmmaker whose recent short, Chomp, received 21 nominations at a variety of film festivals, winning 7 times, including the Fright Meter Awards Best Short Horror Film of 2015, and Jeff Strand is not only the author of the wonderfully titled horror novels I Have a Bad Feeling About This and The Greatest Zombie Movie Ever (and many others)—he’ll also be the emcee Saturday for the Stoker Awards banquet.

Over sandwiches which were —unexpectedly for a deli like the Carnegie—not quite as big as a baby, we chatted about how the horror supercouple came together after the 1995 World Horror Convention, why she’s moved on from novels to movies while he’s gone in exactly the opposite direction, what writers must keep in mind when creating YA horror, how she’s turning one of his novellas into a full-length movie titled Cold Dead Hands, and much more.

Here’s how you can have a seat at the table with us— (more…)

Three years ago, I started using a Fitbit Flex, and on my first and second anniversaries I let you know how I was doing. Now that another anniversary is here—on Star Wars day, as usual—how’d I do during that third year?

Not as well as I’d hoped.

Thanks to a fall I took midway through the year that banged up my left leg plus a bout of severe toothaches late in the year that made it hurt to walk (both of which I’ve recovered from by the way), I only took 3,900,704 steps over the past 12 months, versus 4,078,838 steps the first year and 4,107,515 steps the second.

Still, 12,087,057 steps —which works out to 6,017.93 miles—over 36 months is far better than anything I was doing prior to buying the device.

But I still broke a record thanks to my greatest single day ever—October 17, 2015, on which I took 35,294 steps, walking 17.57 miles through Brooklyn and Manhattan, breaking the first and second-year records of 28,398 steps (14.15 miles) and 35,283 steps (17.56 miles) respectively.

As for step badges, here’s how many I’ve earned in total, plus the breakdown for each year. (more…)

Whenever I get to feeling maybe I shouldn’t bother continuing to share my dreams over on Twitter, that no one could possible care about them, someone surprises me by … well … caring. I’m always amazed when someone asks, “Is anything wrong? You haven’t posted many dreams lately!”

So for them, if not for you, I’ve gathered my dreams tweets from April below, which feature guest appearances by Nichelle Nichols, Vincent D’Onofrio, Rick Moranis, David Letterman and more.

And so … I dream on.

April 2016


I dreamt I tried to show @mojaveb a jacket I’d bought—it was Michael Jackson’s from Thriller—but it kept turning into the wrong one! Apr 30


I dreamt I was at David Letterman’s house, ignoring all of his no-so-subtle hints I should leave. Instead, I kept trying to make him laugh. Apr 30

I dreamt I worked with Don Draper, who wanted me to head out to a party. But I insisted I’d rather be home with my wife. (He was not happy.) Apr 30


I dreamt I wandered a romance convention trying to find my wife … and instead found Nichelle Nichols! Never found my wife, though. Apr 29


I dreamt I was President Obama, in a theater introducing a special performance of Hamilton to an appreciative kids-only audience. Apr 28


I dreamt I visited Marie Severin’s mausoleum with my parents—which is doubly strange, because IRL she’s still around while they’re not! Apr 28


Lost a dream because all I can read of my night note is “ME & [TWO ILLEGIBLE WORDS] ALIEN INVASION.” So my memory catalyst has failed me! Apr 24


I dreamt I wandered with a toddler through an obstacle-filled city, and as I went over and around them, he went under and through. A lesson? Apr 24


There is no dream so sad as the one in which you buy a pie, begin to eat that pie, and from which you wake to discover—THERE IS NO PIE. Apr 21


I dreamt I was on a flight home from Moscow, but for some reason we were being forbidden to enter U.S. airspace, and so had to turn back. Apr 19 (more…)

Last night, I attended a screening of experimental films at The Arts Centre in Martinsburg, hosted by Don Diego Ramirez, director of the award-winning documentary Trailer Trash. He showed us the works of Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, Stan VanDerBeek and others, plus one of his own student films. Equally interesting was the display of camera equipment, as well as books and magazines related to independent filmmaking.

A certain copy of Super 8 Filmaker caught my eye. Take a look and I’m sure you’ll understand why.

Seeing Spider-Man on the cover of an October 1974 magazine—which based on magazine cover dates and publishing schedules could have gone on sale just a few weeks after I started working at Marvel Comics—stirred some memories. And flipping to the Table of Contents to see who wrote that cover story stirred a few more … (more…)

The latest episode of Eating the Fantastic was recorded 15 years before Eating the Fantastic began.

How is that possible?

Well, when it comes to Chip Delany, all things are possible.

On June 18, 2001, while Chip was in the middle of a book tour supporting the 25th anniversary republication of Dhalgren, I interviewed him at Bistro Bis in the Hotel George. The recording I made that day wasn’t created to be heard, but was merely a tool so it could be transcribed and run as text in Science Fiction Weekly, a site I edited during my 13 years at the Syfy Channel.

It had been awhile since I’d thought of that interview, but once I got the first half dozen episodes of Eating the Fantastic live—all of which you can download from iTunes—I dug deep into the vault and found the tapes of that meal. And when I asked Chip if he’d mind me sharing that audio with you, he was gracious enough to say—go for it!

We took no photos that day— of either the food or each other—so this pic of us together during the 2014 Nebula Awards weekend will have to suffice. Knock off a decade or so of age and you’ll get the idea.

And now it’s time to time travel back to 2001 for lunch with Chip as we discuss the 25th anniversary edition of his magnum opus Dhalgren, the “sheer madness” of trying to write such a book in the first place, the state of the science fiction field during the mid-‘70s, the joys he receives from teaching, and much more.

Here’s how to pull up a chair at the table— (more…)

As some of you may know, I wrote a biography of Joanie Laurer a.k.a. Chyna that was published in 2000. Because it was unauthorized, I never interviewed her, and so assembled the book based on the facts I already knew from editing a pro wrestling magazine plus what I could pick up through research, which I combined to tell the arc of her life up until then.

On hearing of her death, I went back and skimmed what I’d written, which led me to the following paragraphs near the end of the book—

When Joanie Laurer transformed herself from an uncertain teenager into Chyna, the Ninth Wonder of the World, she became many things, not all of them expected. If life went as she had planned and hoped from the beginning, she knew that she would have money and fame without limit. But it is doubtful she could have foreseen that she would not only become a celebrity, but she would also be taken up as a role model and a feminist icon. We expect wrestling to be entertaining, not inspirational. How refreshing that Joanie Laurer was able to surprise us all by doing both.

The corporate world has its infamous glass ceiling, and though this woman warrior went in for the Federation instead of the corporation, Joanie Laurer has burst all expectations in her own way, by ripping through wrestling’s canvas ceiling.

Hyperbolic much? Yes. But hey, why shouldn’t writing about pro wrestling be hyperbolic?

In any case, however purple the prose, I stand by those feelings, which remain sincere.

I liked her before I was contracted to write Warrior Queen, and in the writing of it, came to like her even more. I’d hoped she’d live into her 90s, like Mae Young, but alas, she only made it half as far.

R.I.P. to the Ninth Wonder of the World.

Back in February, I revealed the title of a story of mine which was to appear in the next issue of Postscripts. It’s my second-longest title ever, falling one word short of my longest—”How Amraphel, the Assistant to Dream, Became a Thief, Lost His Job, and Found His Way.”

Well, the issue containing “The Man Without the Blue Balloon and the Woman Who Had Smiles Only for Him” is now available from PS Publishing, and here’s the cover, which eerily captures the volume’s subtitle, “The Dragons of the Night.”

For the full Table of Contents, check out my earlier post, or take a look at this full cover spread, which includes the authors and story titles on the inside front cover flap.

The marks my fifth short story publication in Postscripts. Pete Crowther and Nick Gevers have been good to me. I hope that when you read “The Man Without the Blue Balloon and the Woman Who Had Smiles Only for Him,” you’ll feel that confidence has been justified.

Andy Duncan and I got together Wednesday at the Princess Cafe—where Harry and Bess Truman had lunch one Father’s Day more than 60 years ago—and recorded the sixth episode of Eating the Fantastic while seated in the same booth they’d once occupied.

Andy’s an award-winning writer many times over, having won a Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, a Nebula Award, and three World Fantasy Awards. Plus he’s also been nominated for the Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Awards. His collections include Beluthahatchie and Other Stories (which came out in 2000) and The Pottawatomie Giant and Other Stories (published in 2011).

We discussed the profound influence of Richard Pryor on his writing, why he loves playing with real-world historical characters and events in his stories, what it was like to collaborate with Ellen Klages on their award-winning novella “Wakulla Springs,” what, if anything, writing teachers can teach, and more.

Here’s how you can join us— (more…)