I attended Derwin Mak’s reading on the final day of Ad Astra 2011 intending to record it all, but sadly, the battery on my Flip camcorder died 10 minutes in. When I told this to Derwin, feeling sheepish about it, he said he didn’t mind if I went ahead and posted the clip of his reading anyway.

So I have.

Apologies to all for the way this cuts off in the middle of a sentence … but a little Derwin Mak is better than no Derwin Mak at all.

On April 10 at Ad Astra 2011, I read my short story “The Only Wish Ever to Come True,” which had originally been published in Talebones magazine. I shared the hour with Matthew Johnson, seen sitting next to me, waiting his turn to read. I’ll upload his performance in a separate video.

I chose that story because Matthew had indicated that he’d be reading a fantasy, so I thought I should, too, so that the flavors would blend together well for any audience. Also, I’d only read “The Only Wish Ever to Come True” once before, at a Readercon, and it was unlikely anyone attending Ad Astra would have heard it before. Don’t want to be repetitive!

Anyway, I recorded the hour so that what happens in Toronto doesn’t have to stay in Toronto.

(Please note that for some reason I’ve yet to figure out, the first few seconds of the last couple of videos I’ve uploaded are wonky, but that clears up quickly before the story begins. But if anyone has any suggestions as to why this is happening, please let me know!)

Sunday morning at Ad Astra started off with me writing here about my Saturday at Ad Astra, after which I quickly checked out of my room and headed to my panel on “Why Professionalism Matters,” which was tangentially related to my Friday panel on “Using Conventions to Your Advantage.” Both were primarily concerned with not doing shooting yourself in the foot during faanish and professional interactions.

Something said by one of the co-panelists, Howard Tayler, creator of Schlock Mercenary, sparked an anecdote that hadn’t even occurred to me until he started talking about comics, and that is—professionalism matters because it allows not-quite-that-talented, yet professionally behaving creators to find work out of the disasters created by the far-more-talented, yet not as reliable creators. And I shared how I got to pick up such crumbs, getting to write issues of Master of Kung Fu and Omega the Unknown not because I was supremely qualified to do so, but because the editors knew I would deliver on time and cause fewer headaches.

Next up for me was my shared reading with Matthew Johnson. He read “Holdfast,” which had been published in Fantasy magazine, and I read “The Only Wish Ever to Come True,” which had appeared in Talebones. I’ll share videos of those two readings with you soon.

There wasn’t much time between my reading and the next event I wanted to see, an hour shared between Derwin Mak and Robert Shearman. Since I’d been warned by Glenn Grant that the lobby restaurant was slow, I headed to the basement buffet so I could grab something quick. I found Derwin there, and we ate together, catching up until it was time for his reading. (BTW, I was very pleased to learn from him that there’ll be lots of Chinese restaurants within walking distance of the World Fantasy 2012 hotel.)

Then it was off to the shared reading. I recorded Derwin with my Flip, only to have the battery give out halfway through his performance. It was only when Robert Shearman readied himself that I remembered I could also record with my iPhone. I wasn’t happy with how my iPhone had performed when recording a panel,= during the Australia Worldcon, but I thought it might work for a single speaker. And it did.

I absolutely adored Robert’s story, “One Last Love Song.” How much did I love it? So much that I’m sharing it with you even before I’m sharing video of my OWN reading! The story is from his collection Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical, and I’m sure that after you hear him read, you’ll want to buy it. (For some reason, something strange happened to first few seconds of the clip, but don’t worry—that passes before the actual story begins.)

Once the reading ended, I bought a copy of Robert’s book (as you will also do now, of course), and chatted with him as long as I could spare until it was time to get my luggage from the concierge and head to the airport with Eric Flint. Along the way, Eric and I discussed our encounters with the elder gods of science fiction, and I remembered the early conventions at which I got autographs from Arthur C. Clarke and Ted Sturgeon and Poul Anderson and Gordie Dickson—and others—all on the same day.

My final Ad Astra encounter of the day turned out to come in an unexpected place—at the border. When I explained why I’d been in the country, and mentioned science fiction, my customs agent told me all about the closing of Silver Snail Comics. I’d found a fellow fan of sorts, which helped me pass through a little more smoothly.

And that was that for Ad Astra. Which means I can now start thinking about the World Horror Convention, only 2 1/2 weeks away!

On April 10 at Ad Astra 2011, I read my short story “The Only Wish Ever to Come True,” which had originally been published in Talebones magazine. I shared the hour with Matthew Johnson, seen sitting next to me, waiting his turn to read.

Yesterday began here in Toronto with scavenging breakfast in the well-appointed Ad Astra Green Room. Who doesn’t want to start the day with homemade scones? Then, after schmoozing for awhile with the usual gang of idiots friends, it was off to my first program item of the day—my shared Guest of Honor interview with Kathryn Cramer.

Kathryn had been a Guest of Honor in 1996, and I’d been one in 2000, and since there were so many of us there—this being the 30th Ad Astra, the committee attempted to get as many possible previous GOHs to return as possible—we were paired up in twos and threes and asked to interview each other. Kathryn and I have known each other for so long I no longer remember how long, so it was a pleasant hour chatting.

I recorded the full hour, and may someday, when I’m not living on con brain, post longer selections from it, but meanwhile, here’s a taste—a few minutes during which I explain why I chose to pursue writing over acting, when at one time I was equally involved in both.

As soon as our talk ended, I rushed off to my noon panel on the TV series The Walking Dead, which proved to be livelier than expected, as the panelists had extremely different reactions to the show. For example, our moderator, Colleen Hillerup, hates zombies but loves the show anyway because of the people and the series’ soap opera aspects, while co-panelist Mandy Slater loves zombies (she’d better, considering we’re in the book Zombie Apocalypse together), but is irritated by the people, and jokingly calls the show The Talking Dead because there’s more yammering than zombies. Meanwhile, Ian Keeling and I occupied the middle ground and stayed in less controversial territory. (more…)

I bought and started using a new iPhone app 15 days ago—Everyday, which prompts you to take a picture of yourself each day at a pre-set time, then assembles them into a video that comes off as a time-lapsed movie of your face. I saw it recommended somewhere, maybe Gizmodo, and it sounded like a fun idea for $1.99.

Here are those first 15 days.

I realized two things watching this.

First, it speeds by pretty quickly, and probably won’t really be interesting until many months of pics have been shot. Though if 15 days runs less than two seconds, that means even a year will be under a minute.

Second, even that’s probably isn’t enough, and to make this really interesting I’d need to do something dramatic, something that would make the changing pics come more alive. Like … grow a beard. Which I just might do once I return from World Horror in Austin, so I can see how it looks.

And actually, I realized three things while watching this. Probably the only one interested in watching pics of me speed by is … me. So instead of this being a post pushing my face in your face, think of it more as an recommendation for the app so you can buy it and do it with your OWN face.

Back in 2009, I was once again asked to participate in what I’ve grown to think of as the “speed dating” style of workshopping—three beginning writers and three (supposedly) advanced writers locked together in a room for a couple of hours so the beginners could have their work critiqued.

I always used to do it when asked, but had become disenchanted with it for a couple of reasons, the primary one being that knowing how to calmly accept criticism, even when you disagree with it, is something that (for many) isn’t innate. It has to be learned. And unlike with lengthier workshop situations such as Clarion or Odyssey during which there’s time for trust to be earned, in these quickie critique sessions the writer often doesn’t yet know how to hear, or respond to, the message.

As I explained to Oz Whiston why I was going to pass, I added that I didn’t think anyone who wanted to submit manuscripts should be allowed to take part in the WorldCon critique process until he or she sat through a panel on “How to Respond to a Critique of Your Writing.” I said it half in jest, but as soon as the words came out of my mouth, I realized … “Uh-oh.”

That’s right. Oz asked me to go ahead and give that presentation at Anticipation, the 67th World Science Fiction Convention. Which I agreed to do. The room was packed, and the advice seemed well-received, with many audience members tracking me down later during the con to thank me. And that was that.

But lately, I’ve been thinking that some of the info in the presentation might be useful to some beginning writers who weren’t at WorldCon that year. And so I turned my slideshow into an annotated YouTube video.

I’m not entirely sure how something created to be presented to a specific small group of writers who likely hadn’t been professionally critiqued before will play with a wider audience, but since I believe there’s some valuable info here that might be helpful to more than just the people who were in Montreal, here’s a re-creation of that talk.

Though I’ve used every slide, not every spoken tangential aside is in here—after all, I talked for about 45 minutes at WorldCon, whereas in the clip you’re getting a distilled 15 minutes—but I think there’s still enough meat here that I get my point across.

Speaking of points … my wife, in her wisdom, mentioned that rather that creating this clip as a stand-alone presentation on how writers should react to criticism, I’ve instead created a historical document about a presentation I gave previously, and that perhaps it should be reconfigured and couched as, “I’ve been on both sides of this thing for years, and here are some tips on how to cope with rejection” (that is, something valuable for any writing audience) vs. “I gave a presentation a couple of years ago, and for those who missed it, here’s what I said.”

You know … she has a point. And someday, when I have the time, I may revise, expand, and perfect this presentation so it does just that. But for now, I think I’ll let it stand as is. I hope someone out there gets something out of it.

Because one taste of Steve Gerber isn’t enough—at least, not for his true fans, of which I suspect there are many of you out there—here’s an additional chunk of my 1975 interview with him which had somehow gotten separated from the first part.

This section is entirely about his plans for Crazy magazine, which he had just taken over as editor. The sound quality on this section isn’t the best, but if you love Steve you’ll be willing to put up with it.

Those of you who do struggle through will hear him discuss how his (then) year and a half of therapy qualified him to edit the humor magazine, why he got the gig in the first place, how he once thought he might go into television until he realized he was too ugly, and more.

And near the end, you’ll also get to hear a few (insulting) words from Don McGregor.

In 1975, I interviewed Steve Gerber, as I’d interviewed so many of Marvel’s writers when I worked there and (among other things) edited FOOM, the company’s fan magazine. I’d decided that rather than have a standard news section on oncoming comics, I’d print edited transcripts of the writers talking about what was around the corner, so readers would get a taste of creator personalities as well.

So here’s Steve talking about Crazy magazine as well as his work on Man-Thing and The Defenders in the only surviving tape from those years. Parts of this interview appeared transcribed in FOOM #9, the March 1975 issue.

And once more I ask myself—Did I really sound like that? I am forced to admit that I did. How did those of you who knew me then ever put up with me?

Back in 1975, while on staff at Marvel Comics, I edited the company’s official fan magazine, FOOM. One of the things I did as editor was to change the format of the news section. Rather than just running unadorned information, I decided I’d print interviews with the various writers and editors about what was upcoming on their titles. That way the fans would not only get facts, but also an insight into Bullpen personalities.

Some of those interviews were more successful than others.

As you’ll hear in the clip below—if you can even make out what I’m asking through the thick Brooklyn accent I had back then—my inability to get anything useful out of Archie could just as easily have been the fault of my goofy questions as anything else.

Keep listening for a special guest star—because the brief clip includes an even briefer cameo by Marv Wolfman.

And if you happen to remember why I would have made a joke back then about out-of-work police officers, please let me know—because I remember nothing!

(Thanks to Alan Light for the use of the photo I married to my audio. It’s a 1982 pic with a 1975 voice, but I hope you won’t find it too jarring.)