While at the World Fantasy Convention this year, I managed to hit all three restaurants visited by Adam Richman during the Columbus episode of Man v. Food. (You know that’s the show I watch while on the treadmill, right?)

Yesterday, I shared a list of the conventions I’ll be traveling to next year. And it occurred to me I should probably check–will there be any overlap between cons and food in 2011?

Yes!

First up, Man v. Food‘s Austin episode. Check it out to see where I’ll be dragging some of you during World Horror in April. (And I’ve already been to the Salt Lick, which is definitely worth the trip.)

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With 2010 winding down, I figured I’d better take a look ahead to where you’ll be able to find me in 2011, if for no better reason than to keep track of where I’ll be able to find me in 2011!

And just in case you’re wondering as you look at the list below, no, I haven’t been to a Philcon since it moved from Philadelphia, and I haven’t been to a Lunacon since it left Manhattan. (Making my last Lunacon a loooong time ago!)

See you on the road!

April 8-10
Ad Astra
Toronto, Canada

April 28-May 1
World Horror Convention
Austin, Texas

May 19-22
Nebula Awards Weekend
Washington, D.C.

May 27-30
Balticon
Hunt Valley, Maryland

June 16-19
Horror Writers Association Stoker Awards Weekend
Uniondale, New York (Long Island)

July 14-17
Readercon
Burlington, Massachusetts

July 21-24
Comic-Con International
San Diego, California

August 17-21
Renovation: the 2011 World Science Fiction Convention
Reno, Nevada

October 14-16
Capclave
Rockville, Maryland

October 27-October 30
World Fantasy Convention
San Diego, California

That 1932 seeing-eye/shamrock/swastika/Star of David coin I told you about a couple of weeks ago wasn’t the only intriguing item we found among my mother-in-law‘s possessions. I also came across this even older coin commemorating Chicago’s Haymarket Massacre, a token I would not want a curious TSA agent to find mixed in with my change as I went through security.

Oh, the front of the coin, which was apparently struck in 1887 on the one-year anniversary of the event, seems innocent enough.

The reverse, on the other hand, might raise a few eyebrows. (more…)

Another month has gone by, which means I’ve dreamed another mess o’ dreams, so I’ve gathered them in one place because they somehow seem more meaningful when they rub up against each other like this. And more surreal, too.

Special guest stars this month include Bob Newhart, Bob Silverberg, Fred Pohl, Cybill Shepherd, Don Draper, the Queen—and who knows, maybe even you.

I dreamt I was scripting a new issue of a comic about a hero I’d never seen before, flipping through pencil art bound together like a book. 30 Nov

I dreamt I was giving my opening talk to a new class of Clarion students. Inexplicably, on the wall behind me were huge drawings of the JLA. 30 Nov

I dreamt I was explaining the allure of San Diego Comic-Con to Adam Richman of Man v. Food. He seemed amused, but not convinced. 30 Nov

I dreamt I discussed my past life working for the company that imported St. Paul Girl with Barry Longyear, who said he’d worked for Beck’s. 30 Nov

I dreamt Lt. Dangle wasted his bullets firing his gun into the air rather than at the armed gang approaching, then looked at me sheepishly. 29 Nov

I dreamt I was at the bottom of a flight of stairs staring up at my son and sister-in-law across a pile of hundreds of empty VHS tape boxes. 29 Nov

I dreamt I rolled out huge squares of dough on a glass table and topped them with jam, but woke before I was able to cook or eat the result. 29 Nov

I dreamt I waited outside a Giant supermarket for it to close, after which I scavenged discarded onions, grapes and purple and white lilies. 28 Nov

I dreamt a man was telling me the tale of how my mother-in-law saved his family business from going under by buying out the store one day. 28 Nov

I dreamt I had trouble juggling (pointlessly using my glow-in-the-dark pins during the day) because everything kept trying to float off. 28 Nov (more…)

Yesterday was quite busy. Irene and I headed into D.C. for a matinee of Henry VIII at the Folger Theatre, taking off early enough to first visit the Smithsonian American Art Museum for an exhibit of Norman Rockwell paintings owned by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. (And leaving time for lunch in Chinatown, too, of course.)

In the evening, we swooped down on Rockville and had dinner with our son, after which we hung around in Maryland poring over family memorabilia. One particularly fascinating item was a coin which we assumed had belonged to my late mother-in-law’s father, John Aloysius Brown. The coin, celebrating the end of the depression, had been produced in 1932 by Stewart-Warner, a company that in its earliest incarnation had produced the speedometers that were used in the Ford Model T.

On one side, we’re exhorted to “Stop Crying, Start Buying,” a sentiment I could imagine our government urging us to embrace today.

So far, that makes this an interesting curiosity, but nothing that verges on OMG or WTF territory. No, for that, you’d have to turn the coin over. (more…)

Thanks to all of you who took part in the first two auctions of Irene’s artwork meant to help fund a trip sometime next year to Machu Picchu. (One pleasant surprise—who knew how much love there was out there for Doom Patrol artist Bruno Premiani?) A third auction of items from Irene’s collection started last weekend, and runs until 11:00 p.m. this Sunday, but life’s been so busy this is the first moment I’ve had to let you know about it.

Only four items this time, and two of them are quite unusual. First up, an unpublished X-Men page by Werner Roth and Sam Grainger that was meant to appear in issue #48 back in 1968, but never did. It was part of the back-up story “Metoxo the Lava Man,” starring Iceman and the Beast, which was promoted at the end of issue #47, but didn’t see print. The page features both Hank McCoy and Bobby Drake in civvies.

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I’ll be heading over to Maryland shortly to help prepare for tomorrow’s memorial service for my mother-in-law, but first, a mercenary message. My wife is selling more Silver Age comic book artwork through Heritage, and the latest five pieces went up late last Sunday night in an auction that will last until this Sunday night.

So if you like 1960s’ DC artwork by Bruno Premiani, Ross Andru, Mike Esposito, Gil Kane, Sid Greene, Dick Dillin and others, read on, and click through the links if you’d care to bid.

Bruno Premiani Doom Patrol #93 page 18 (DC, 1965)

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I’ve been somewhat silent on social media this week, because my mother-in-law of 36 years, Margaret E. Vartanoff, passed away Saturday morning, the day before her 96th birthday. So my mood has been glum, and there hasn’t been much I’ve felt like sharing. But I thought I should pop up to share this.

Here’s how she appeared in yesterday’s Washington Post, with information on Saturday’s Requiem Mass, should any care to attend.

Here’s the full photo from which that image was cropped. It’s her formal portrait taken at Christmas in 1931. (more…)

My recent posts have been rather self-serving, what with suggestions you take part in the auctions selling my wife’s and my sister-in-law’s comic book art. So I figured I’d better make a post that could help others, if for no other reason than to balance out the karma.

Luckily, this also actually happens to be for a good cause—the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund. Check out the press release below, which I should have shared with you days ago, except for life being too, too busy.

I plan on buying some tickets … and I hope you will, too.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 3, 2010
CONTACTS: Special Events – Jenn Brissett and K. Tempest Bradford

EREADER FUNDRAISER LIVE NOVEMBER 5

The Carl Brandon Society announces a prize drawing to support the The Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund.

The Carl Brandon Society, an organization dedicated to racial and ethnic diversity in speculative fiction, will hold a prize drawing of five eReaders to benefit the Butler Scholarship, a fund that sends two emerging writers of color to the Clarion writers workshops annually.

In keeping with the Society’s support of literature from and about people of color, the prizes include five eReaders: two Barnes & Noble Nooks, two Kobo Readers, and one Alex eReader from Spring Design. Each eReader will come pre-loaded with books, short stories and essays by writers of color from the speculative fiction field. Writers include: N. K. Jemisin, Nisi Shawl, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Terence Taylor, Ted Chiang, Shweta Narayan, Chesya Burke, Moondancer Drake, Saladin Ahmed, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz and more. (more…)

Another month has come and gone, and you know what that means—it’s time to harvest the October dreams from my Twitter feed.

Making guest appearances in my dreamworld this month were Nalo Hopkinson, Len Wein, Harlan Ellison, Madonna, Paul Levitz, Adam Baldwin, and many others. (Including—who knows?—maybe you!)

I dreamt I was being chased by a high school gang drawn like Archie characters, and I was only saved due to the intervention of Miss Grundy. 30 Oct

I dreamt that as I wandered the hallways of a strange hotel, hundreds of people dressed like Alice in Wonderland characters passed by. 29 Oct

I dreamt I bumped into an ex-Syfy employee in a parking lot, then another, and another, until it was a noisy, crowded backslapping reunion. 28 Oct

I dreamt I was trying to retrieve a package of art–including a George McManus Bringing Up Father–that had been misdelivered to Rose Fox. 27 Oct

I dreamt that I woke from a dream and wrote it down, so when I actually woke I didn’t think I needed to write it down. So it’s lost. 26 Oct

I wrote this down to help me remember a dream come morning: “punch commission guy arrested carried away.” But the words mean nothing now. 26 Oct

I dreamt I went to the bank, and my loan officer turned out to be an actress from Gatz, a bit sheepish to be recognized at her day job. 25 Oct

I dreamt I ran into one of my Clarion students, who grew upset when I told him I didn’t understand the ending to his latest story in F&SF. 25 Oct

I dreamt I threw a rent party in my decrepit NYC apartment. But by 3:00 a.m. on Monday morning, I tried (and failed) to shut it down. 25 Oct

I dreamt I attended Worldcon and watched Mike Willmoth furiously complete the program grid for the _following_ year’s con on a whiteboard. 25 Oct (more…)