Science fiction and fantasy authors stampede library!

Tuesday night, a herd of angry authors stampeded a local library and left only bricks and dust in their wake.

Well, okay, that's a tiny bit of an exaggeration.  Instead, in an event I mentioned last week, four of us sat behind a table on a small stage in a big room at the West Regional Library, talked about writing, and answered questions.

Practically the same thing.

Or not.

We were certainly a suspicious-looking bunch, a mob that seemed ready to turn surly at the smallest provocation. 

Click on an image to see a larger version.

As you can see here, going from left to right, Lisa is ready to throw down, Terry is carefully gauging the threat level of the audience, I'm (as usual) all smiles and unicorns, and Dave has zeroed in on the first person to go when the fighting commences.

Actually, we're all just listening to the next question, though my version of reality is way better.

I do have to wonder what was going through my mind when Gina took this photo.

That's not the smile I should ever flash a jury before answering, say, "What exactly are those bones we found under your house?"

I must note that we did not have to answer that question tonight.  Not that I would have trouble answering it.  Not that there are bones under my house, though it's always possible for a cheese-fry-stealing unicorn's corpse to be washed anywhere by the natural flow of groundwater.  I hope. 

To go back to the event, the audience actually outnumbered us by a rather significant margin, the conversations were pleasant, and it was great to get a chance to meet Terry Holt, a local writer I had not previously known.

I'm doing another of these next Tuesday, this time at the North Raleigh Library, so if you want to see that smile again, you might want to show up. 



Thanks to Gina for the photos.

Come see me Tuesday, October 1, at the Wake County West Regional Library

The redoubtable Dan Brooks is once again spearheading an SF/Fantasy author series for the Wake County Public Libraries.  Dan graciously invited me to take part in two of these events.  The first, which is also the first of the series, is this coming Tuesday, October 1, at 7:00 p.m. at the Wake County West Regional Library.

Click on an image to see a larger version.

As you can see, I'll be joining three other local writers--David Drake, Terence Holt, and Lisa Shearin--in this panel discussion. We'll be talking about genre fiction of various types, our writing processes, and so on.  We'll also field questions from the audience.

There may be unicorns.

Okay, no unicorns, but there will be other, similar panels during October, as you can see in this flyer.

If you expand the image and read carefully, you'll note that I'll also be taking part in a second panel a week later.  No need to remember that one right now; I'll remind you later.

Some of us may grab dinner nearby afterward.

After all, unicorns have huge appetites.

All rumors of unicorns are strictly that, rumors.  I don't know why we even mention them; they are notoriously unreliable, not to mention piggy eaters who won't let you finish a bacon cheeseburger unless they also have one.  Don't even get me started on them and cheese fries.  The pigs...I mean piggy eaters.  They hate being called pigs.  Hate it almost as much as not getting any cheese fries, though not quite that much of course.  Unicorns, they love them some cheese fries. 

Top 5 reasons to come to the Cameron Village Public Library tonight at 7:00 p.m

By "tonight," I mean, of course, Thursday, October 18, 2012.  As I wrote in an earlier blog entry, super librarian and generally awesome fellow Dan Brooks has organized a reading and panel discussion on dark and urban fantasy.  Local author Clay Griffith and I will be on that panel, with Dan moderating the discussion.

If that's not enough to entice you into coming, here are the top five reasons you should be there by 7:00 to see the show. 

5. Libraries are awesome, this one is particularly cool, and they need our support.  Come on, admit it:  you know they are.  Without our support, though, it's possible that in a generation or two, kids will grow up knowing less about libraries than they do now about 78 rpm records.

4. You never know what might come out of my mouth.  Hell, I don't, so why should you?  With the right questions, I might tell you more about the world of Diego Chan than I've ever revealed, or let you know just what my mom said before the ninth grade dance, or, well, say any damn thing. 

3. The party will continue into dinner afterward. I mentioned this one in the earlier post, but it bears repeating, because a hot biscuit on a cool autumn evening is a wonderful thing indeed, particularly if you're sharing it with friends, new and old. 

2. Clay Griffith will finally reveal his secret powers of flight.  On his own, I mean.  Of course.  Anyone can fly in a plane.  Okay, maybe Clay won't do that, but when we were on a panel together a few months ago, he seemed like a nice guy, so we should support him. 

And the number one reason you should not miss this event is...

1. Dan Brooks and I will fight to the death in the library's MMA cage if every chair isn't full. You can't want that to happen.  I would miss Dan, and the library would have to pay a special crew to clean up its octagon.

Seriously, come on down.  It'll be fun.

Come on down to the library to talk urban fantasy

On Thursday, October 18, I'll join another local author, Clay Griffith, at the lovely Cameron Village Regional Library for a panel on dark and urban fantasy.  The event is part of the library's October Haunted Happenings series, as you can see in this poster.  (Click on it for a larger image.)

Librarian (and friend) Dan Brooks is organizing the event, so when he asked if I'd join, I of course said, yes.  Clay and I will each read a bit of fiction, answer some questions from Dan, and then throw it open to the audience.  Afterward, anyone who wants to join me is welcome to head somewhere nearby for a bit of dinner.  The Flying Biscuit comes to mind, but minds do change. 

If you're not doing anything that night, come on by, support the library, and talk writing and urban fantasy. 

In praise of Dan Brooks

I've mentioned Dan before. He's a librarian at the Cary Public Library. He organized the library's SF writers event that I attended last October, and he also chaired the book club meeting that I visited Tuesday night and discussed in yesterday's blog entry. Dan's a quiet guy, at least in my experience, and he's an earnest one. He cares about books and reading and science fiction. He buys a box of cookies for the book club from his own pocket because the library has no food budget. (I know nothing about his salary, but in my experience librarians are not exactly overpaid or rolling in dough.)

Dan and I aren't really friends. We don't hang out. I've seen him at these events and nowhere else. All I know about him is what I've experienced in those few contacts. (I know enough from just them, however, to guess that he'll probably be embarrassed that I'm writing this about him.)

My world, though, is better for Dan being in it. So are the worlds of the book-club members, and those of the many folks who attended the events he helped organize.

Airlines sometimes hand out comment cards so you can send something nice to their headquarters about particularly helpful staffers. Maybe libraries do the same, but if so, I didn't spot such a card as I left the Cary library last night. So, this blog entry will have to do.

Cary Public Library officials, if you're listening, here's one man's vote that you should be damn proud to have Dan Brooks on your team. Whatever you're paying him, it's not enough.

Sorry, Dan, for embarrassing you.

Visiting a book club

Last night, I drove to the Cary Public Library to be the guest speaker at the Strangers in a Strange Book Club meeting. The good folks there had chosen to read One Jump Ahead and had planned to discuss it. When Dan Brooks, a librarian there and a member of the club, emailed me about that choice, I was so tickled that I offered to come and chat with them after the meeting, if they were interested in having me. As it turned out, they invited me to attend the entire meeting.

I had a swell time. I can't speak for them, of course, but they seemed to have a good time, too. All dozen or so (I didn't count, because we started talking the moment I sat) members had read the book (or in a few cases were well into it). Dan kicked off the meeting with a question, and from there the conversation ran fast and furious for almost twenty minutes longer than the scheduled hour. We discussed everything from details of the book (and other books of mine) to my writing process to where the rest of the series would take us. Their questions and comments were always intelligent and thoughtful, and they had clearly considered many aspects of the novel.

I answered every question except those on the series' future. Though the members offered many good guesses and ideas about what would happen in the books to come, as is my policy I never answered anything about any work still in progress. I know that can be annoying, but everyone took my refusal in good spirits and returned to the many questions I would answer.

After the meeting ended, I signed a few books, chatted with a several more folks, and then took off. I find libraries to be comforting places, and it's even more comforting to know that people all over the place are reading books and getting together to discuss them. That the book was one of mine was icing on the cake.

Library Boy

Last night, the Cary Public Library had an SF in NC event that featured three local writers: David Drake, John Kessel, and me. Dan Brooks organized the event and led the discussion, which took place in the tiered reading place for kids' books. We got to sit under a small cover with a nice curtain; I had to fight the urge to throw a play.

Check it out:


Over two dozen people turned up, which was a nice surprise--even though quite a few were folks we knew. Dan asked several questions, which we took turns answering, and then we fielded questions from the audience. We discussed what drew us to science fiction, our earliest writing experiences, our writing processes, and other related topics.

The show ran almost fifteen minutes long, but no one seemed to mind, and several folks stayed afterward and chatted.

My thanks to Dan for organizing such a nice event, and to Dave and John for being swell fellow panelists.