I am generally not a survey taker. If the phone rings, and Caller ID shows me that Nielsen is on the line, I don’t answer. If the number looks like someone I know, and when I answer, someone with a survey has slipped through, I end the call politely but firmly. And if I don’t recognize the number at all, I simply don’t answer.

However, when no human is involved, and the survey is on Twitter, for some reason …

… I’m intrigued.

That doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll take the survey. But I’ll at least check it out. Perhaps because it’s easier to click away a browser tab than it is to hang up the phone. All of which means that when a survey invitation popped up on my Twitter feed a short while ago, I clicked through. And for the first time ever, discovered a book-related survey.

Sort of. (more…)

Whenever I attend a convention panel or reading these days, I tend to use my Flip mini camcorder to capture the event, because I hate for the wisdom of our field to effervesce. And whatever video I record—assuming I obtain consent from the parties involved—I then toss up on my YouTube channel.

Which is what I did for Readercon, from which I returned late Sunday night. Some videos I was able to get live during the con itself, honoring Edelman’s First Rule of Convention Reporting, while others had to wait until I got back home, because I was having too much fun with the likes of David Kyle (below) to spend much time online. (Except for Twitter, that is, which is too addictive to stay away from even in the midst of the Readercon whirlwind.)

Now that I’ve uploaded all 10 panels and 3 readings totaling 526 minutes and 27 seconds, though, I’ve gathered them together here so you can experience what I experienced there … minus the time I spent schmoozing in the bar, lobby, and con suite.

So here, in chronological order, is as much of Readercon as I was able to capture last weekend. (more…)

I learned an interesting data point about the new paperback edition of my short story collection These Words Are Haunted from Fantastic Books publisher Ian Randal Strock, who was selling copies of same at Readercon as well as my science fiction collection What We Still Talk About.

According to Ian, people walking by his table would be attracted to the cover of These Words Are Haunted and pause to pick it up—those monstrous green letters really pop, don’t they?—only to then put it down again and instead buy a copy of What We Still Talk About. By the time the con was over, he’d sold only a single copy of the former, but he’d sold out of the latter!

This does not totally disappoint me. The cover did its job, getting copies of the book into the hands of potential readers. That this time around, those potential readers were more interested in science fiction than horror doesn’t mean it wasn’t a success. A sale is a sale. At a different sort of convention, those figures will likely be reversed.

Coincidentally, while I was at Readercon, I received a photo from the artist who’d provided the zombie font which appeared on the cover of the book as part of Chris Kalb’s final design—Memo Angeles.

Memo lives in Veracruz, Mexico, and I worried that the copy I’d sent him might not survive the vagaries of international mail, but as you can see, it did. Noting Memo’s expression as he holds the book, however, I’m not entire sure he did!

My favorite photo from Readercon (my favorite of all conventions) was taken during my final moments of the con, almost immediately before I began my trip home. I’d paused on the way out to visit a lobby bathroom (as one does before a long drive) opposite the hotel restaurant. After I’d taken care of business, I noticed that on the other side of the glass wall separating the hallway from the restaurant was a large circular table of other attendees which included K. Tempest Bradford, who sat with her back toward me.

I tapped on the glass while pointing at Tempest until someone else at the table gestured that she should turn around. Once I’d caught her eye, I placed my hand against the glass, hoping she would raise her hand to mine.

And she did!

So as soon as our fingers were separated by only a pane of glass, I slowly intoned, with a voice I tried to make sound hoarse and weary …

“I have been … ”

And the table roared, for all recognized (1982 spoiler alert!) Spock’s dying words to Kirk from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. (more…)

Henry David Thoreau admonished us to “beware of all enterprises that require new clothes” … but what about enterprises that require new cooking equipment? I suspect he would have dissed those as well.

But as I was determined to bake Paul Fehribach’s Jelly Roll Cake recipe in The Big Jones Cookbook (from the pages of which I’d previously cooked chicken and dumplings, circa 1920) for the annual 4th of July bash thrown by John Pomeranz and Kathi Overton, and had never before made a jelly roll, I was forced to buy a new pan and send Thoreau spinning in his grave.

And so, armed with a jelly roll pan, I got started. (more…)

Yes, it’s that time again. June is no longer busting out all over, so it’s time to let all the Twitter dreams of that month rub up against each other to see whether that causes them to make more sense.

Last month, I dreamt of Jon Stewart, George R. R. Martin, Neil Patrick Harris, Sol Brodsky, and more …

June 2015

I dreamt I was in an episode of Game of Thrones which devolved into a table reading with a full orchestra nearby performing the soundtrack. Jun 30

I dreamt I gave my iPhone — with its front-facing camera activated — to a chimpanzee and watched him joyfully study himself for hours. Jun 29

I dreamt I ripped the covers off paperback books, taping them to other coverless paperback books. Why I was doing this … I have no idea. Jun 28

I dreamt I carried a HUGE sheet cake to a party, and it crumbled as I cradled it in my arms, turning into ammunition for a — FOOD FIGHT! Jun 28

I dreamt I made fruit salad with @Gachatz, which we then fed to a baby, who pulled pieces of fruit directly from our forks with tiny hands. Jun 27

I dreamt I arrived at a gaming venue but couldn’t find any other players, until after searching, found them getting stoned with Jon Stewart. Jun 27

I dreamt I dining at @NextRestaurant, and though I don’t remember the cuisine, dessert was the greatest Girl Scout Thin Mint cookie EVER. Jun 26

I dreamt my wife and I, wandering a small town, discovered a comics shop set to close the next day, filled with never-before-seen wonders. Jun 25

I dreamt I was in Australia, and while there, ran into an editor who suggested I apply for their newspaper’s open position as a food critic. Jun 25

I dreamt I was on a NYC train, my hands cupped and filled with many pounds of crispy bacon, on which the other passengers looked longingly. Jun 25 (more…)

As you may know, last month during the Nebula Awards banquet, I accepted the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation on behalf of Guardians of the Galaxy. And in doing so, I used only three words.

Though I was allowed to hang on to the beautiful (and extremely heavy) trophy during the evening to pose for post-ceremony photos, I eventually had to relinquish the thing so it could be sent on to the folks who’d actually created the film. Which is a shame, because it’s one of more beautiful trophies I’ve had the privilege to accept on behalf of others.

Which is why, when I saw director James Gunn announce yesterday that he’d received the award from SFWA, I couldn’t resist cobbling together this …

Sometimes, being Groot just has to be its own reward …

I haven’t lived in Brooklyn for decades, but during the 30 years I did live there, I never once ventured into the neighborhood known as Red Hook. Never wanted to. Why? I blame Thomas Wolfe.

I encountered his short story “Only the Dead Know Brooklyn” at an early age, and Red Hook was depicted as a place in which a teenager most definitely would not want to wander. (Well, this teenager anyway.)

I’m sure the area had changed between the 1936 publication of the story in The New Yorker and the time I first read it in the early ’70s, but still … I had no plans to go there. And so never did. Until Tuesday, when I was brought there by BBQ.

Hometown Bar-B-Que, to be precise. (more…)

Readercon—which has been my favorite convention for more than a quarter of a century—is right around the corner, running from July 9 through 12 in Burlington, Massachusetts. Here’s the programming where you’ll be able to find me.

Thursday, July 10, 9:00 p.m.
What Don’t We Read—and Why?
If all of the signals—the reviews, the blurbs, the cover, the author, the publisher—suggest you’d hate a particular book, is that sufficient reason to pass on it? Have you ever tried to read something you thought you’d despise and realized that you loved it? Do you give every book a certain number of pages to win you over, or feel obligated to finish any book you start? If a certain critic praises something, does that make you want to run the other way? We’ll discuss these and many other ways not to read a book.
with Stacey Friedberg, Natalie Luhrs, Sarah Smith (leader), and Patty Templeton.

Friday July 11, 4:00 p.m.
Reading
I’ll be reading my unpublished short story “The Pillow of Disappointment and What Was Found Beneath It.”

Friday July 11, 8:00 p.m.
Dealing with Discouragement
As writers, we learn very early on to handle rejection, but how do you handle it when a story you’re sure is good is rejected by 20 different publications? Or when your carefully crafted novel is shrugged off by five different agents? Or your self-published novella is bought by only 25 people, all of them friends and relatives? Or your fantasy novel disappears from public view after a couple of weeks? We’ll explore personal strategies to deal with disappointments, rejection, and other setbacks.
with Susan Bigelow, Michael J. Daley, Barbara Krasnoff (leader), and Shariann Lewitt.

And if you don’t catch me there, you can always find me hanging out in the halls or in the bar chatting non-stop. When I’m not in the audience watching the other programming, that is.

If you’d like to join me, it’s not too late. You can find more information here.

Hope to see you in two weeks!

For years, as part of advising writers to hold on to what makes them unique, I’ve been paraphrasing something I once heard Tony Bennett say long ago. The quote goes something like—

What when I was young and just getting started critics considered my flaws, now that I’m old and successful they consider my style.

You’ll just have to take my word for that, though. I’ve been unable to track down either the exact wording or original source for his words. But it doesn’t make them any less powerful. (If your search skills are better than mine, have at it.)

Meanwhile, as I caught up today with back episodes of Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac, I heard something similar. It was part of the May 10, 2015 episode (yes, I’m that way behind), this time coming from Fred Astaire.

The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it’s considered to be your style.

So keep making the “mistakes” that only you can make once you’re confident they’re saying what you want them to say. Because those are what someday you may end up being celebrated for … if you can believe Bennett and Astaire. (I do.)

And while you’re at it, don’t forget what Gertrude Stein and Bruce Sterling had to say about being yourself either!