At Last – Part One: The Well-Behaved Women – Awakening audiobook, narrated by Darci Cole, is now on sale! You can get it now on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes!

At Last – Part Two: Arisia 2019 news! I have my table assignment AND my draft panel schedule! You can find me at table 46 in the dealers room, which occupies the Georgian, Arlington, Berkley, and Clarendon rooms (the last one is for adult fare, FYI).

As things stand now I will be sitting on the following panels:

• Over-the-Counter Culture: Kevin Smith and Clerks – Whittier, Friday, 5:30 PM: Twenty-five years ago, the no-budget B&W indie comedy Clerks was released theatrically and immediately catapulted writer/director Kevin Smith to the pantheon of Gen X icons. Hailed as an important new voice, Smith spent the next quarter century building and catering to a rabid fanbase. He’s still held up by the media as a nerd king, but some look at him today and see wasted potential. We’ll revisit the man and his work, figuring out why Clerks in particular inspired so many.
• Creating Cover Art – Cabot, Saturday, 2:30 PM: We’re all told not to judge a book by its cover, but in reality, a cover’s artwork plays an important role in attracting new readers. Learn what goes into the design of these covers, including how artists are chosen and what they are given to work with so that they can design artwork that attracts interest, even though it is partially obscured.
• Writing Fights That Matter – Newbury, Sunday, 1 PM: Fight scenes take many forms in speculative fiction–space battles with improbable physics, wizard duels, and your classic bar scene dust-up, but at heart, a fight is an argument fought without words. This panel will focus on convincing readers that no matter what form your battle takes, the stakes are clear, enormous, and compelling. How can a writer make every fight not just plausible, but memorable?
• The Best Villains: Creating Satisfying Baddies – Beacon Hill, Sunday, 8:30 PM: Abhor Sauron? Loathe Joffrey? Detest Fred? Speculative literature is filled with antagonists, villains, and scoundrels. How do writers create villains with understandable motivations without romanticizing their terrible deeds? Panelists will use examples from literature to discuss the techniques and challenges of writing memorable evil-doers.
• Bad Movie Night – Franklin, Sunday, 10 PM: Sometimes the most fun you can have with a movie is to laugh at it. It’s a longstanding tradition for many to spend a long evening enjoying the work of such production companies as Troma, Full Moon, and The Asylum. Online commentators like Allison Pregler and the folks at RedLetterMedia have made careers out of celebrating the experience of picking apart (while still being entertained by) substandard films. We’ll talk about our favorites, and what makes a movie ideal for this sort of treatment?

WRITING PROJECTS

Well-Behaved Women: The latest draft of book two is complete, draft three of book three is in-progress.

The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – Scratching a Lich: Audiobook in production.

The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – book four: First draft in progress.

Action Figures – Issue Eight: Crawling from the Wreckage: Final draft in process. Tentatively scheduled for a February/March 2019 release.

Action Figures – Issue Nine: Hell Hath No Fury: First draft in progress.

Action Figures – Issue One: Secret Origins (audiobook): Review completed, final editing in progress.

APPEARANCES & EVENTS

• Arisia 2019 – The event has relocated to the Boston Park Plaza Hotel for 2019, but now people signed up for the dealers room are waiting to hear if their space has been downsized or eliminated altogether, because apparently the space for the room is much smaller. Some panels might also get cut.

MISC.

The Final Summons is on pre-sale now through all major book retailers! Get your copy now and then go to TheFinalSummons.com to collect your free swag, including laptop wallpapers and a collection of short stories by the New England Speculative Writers group.

The New England Speculative Writers group if offering not one but two free books to new newsletter subscribers. Simply click on this link and sign up for the newsletter, and you’ll receive e-book versions of the two collections pictured here, featuring novel samples from NESW members. The fantasy collection includes the first two chapters of The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – Scratching a Lich.

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