Jean Marie's Balticon Schedule

The merry month of May is about to get a little merrier. That's right folks, it's time for Balticon!

This year's con will run from Friday, May 23, all the way until Memorial Day Monday, May 26, at the Hunt Valley Inn, Hunt Valley, Maryland. Brandon Sanderson is our writer guest of honor, but he's only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Unfortunately, as of Monday evening the con has neglected to post the rest of its guest list.  Or its final program.  (Insert headdesk here.)

But there will be lots of writers, artists, dances, parties, costume competitions and fun.  There will also be programming.  How do I know this when it's not on the web site?  Because they have posted a preliminary program! With parties! Here's my part in the festivities:

Friday

4 p.m.: Beyond Medieval History
A look at the challenges and possibilities of fantasy inspired by time periods other than medieval Europe. Jean Marie Ward (M), KT Bryski,Val Griswold-Ford, Tom Doyle and Joshua Palmatier (Chase)

6 p.m.: Writing the Economics of Magic
A discussion examining how to address economics when building a world in which magic is a major factor. Collin Earl, Brandon Sanderson, Jeffrey Lyman, Jean Marie Ward, Eric Hardenbrook (Salon C)

9-11 p.m.: Zombies Need Brains Launch Party
Celebrating the start of the new small press Zombies Need Brains and its first SF&F anthology Clockwork Universe: Steampunk vs. Aliens. Come join us for some snacks, meet some of the authors contributing to the first anthology, and learn all about ZNB and what it hopes to do in the future! Joshua Palmatier (M), Gail Z. Martin, Jason Palmatier, Jean Marie Ward (Parlor 1026)

11 p.m.: Developing a Sense of Propriety
Advice from SF/F Fandom on how to avoid creepy behavior; how to tell your friend that his/her behavior is totally Uncool, instead of watching in silent horror; what's harassment and what else--while not harassment--is still unacceptable public behavior. Debi Chowdhury (M), Leona Wisoker, Don Sakers, Jean Marie Ward, Mildred Cady

Saturday

2 p.m.: Flipping the SF Archetypes
Maybe humanity isn't the good guy on the intergalactic playing field. Maybe the mad scientist is just a jerk, not an evil genius. Maybe... Scott Roche (M), T Jackson King, James Daniel Ross, Jean Marie Ward, Steven H. Wilson (Salon B)

4 p.m.: Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading
A buffet of short reads from some of today's most exciting women authors. Jean Marie Ward (M), Reesa Herberth, Elektra Hammond, Gail Z Martin, Michelle Moore, Kelly Harmon (Pimlico Room)

Sunday

7-10 p.m.: Dark Quest Books Launch Party
Those Bad-Ass Faeries are back in Dark Quest Book's all-new volume, It's Elemental, along with plenty of other great new titles. Come help the authors, editors, and the publisher celebrate the their spring releases, including Baba Ali and the Clockwork Djinn by Danielle Ackley-McPhail and Day Al-Mohamed, In All Directions by David Sherman, Beginning a Beginning by Danny Birt, Trouble on the Water, Consigned to the Sea, Tales from Rugosa Coven by Sarah Avery, as well as the anthology Trust and Treachery, and a special guest appearance by Hellfire Lounge 4: Reflections of Evil. Join us for food, fun, and as always PRIZES! Danielle Ackley-Mcphail (M), N.R. Brown, Keith DeCandido, Mike Mcphail, CJ Henderson, Phoebe Wray, L. Jagi Lamplighter, Judi Fleming, Danny Birt, Peter Prellwitz, Lee C. Hillman, Jeffrey Lyman, Neal Levin, James Daniel Ross, Jean Marie Ward (Con Suite)

Friday evening, you'll also be able to find me at the first part of Gail Z. Martin's and Jon Sprunk's Reign of Ash/Blood and Iron launch party in Parlor 1026, from five until my six o'clock panel. Gotta support my roomie, don't you know.  :-)

Regarding the Zombies Need Brains and Dark Quest launch parties, aspiring writers take note: the editors and publishers will be there. In particular, I know Joshua Palmatier, ZNB's publisher, is starting to pull together his next anthology and recently posted what he looks for in a story at the Magical Words blog.

Like I said, there are lots of reasons to head to Balticon this weekend. And then there's MEEEEEEE!

Happy Memorial Day, however you choose to spend it!

Jean Marie Ward

Thursday Thirteen: Thirteen Reasons to Monkey Around for a Good Cause

May Day!  May Day!  May Day!

We have an emergency here. The clock is running down on an important Indiegogo campaign and opportunity to support one of American genre fiction's national treasures, CJ Henderson.

CJ is down for the count with a horrible cancer, and under treatment (we all know what that's like--horrible!) is in no condition to write or sell at cons, his sole source of income.  So some of the top writers in fantasy, science fiction and romance (why hello, Sheryl Nantus!) have come together in an anthology where all the proceeds except shipping and mailing go straight to CJ.  And those of you who know what a rigorous bitch I am know I don't make such claims lightly.

What's in it it for you? Let me count the thirteen ways.

1. At $10, the basic anthology includes some of fantasy and science fiction's biggest names: Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta, Maggie Allen, Jack Dann, Ed Greenwood, Joe Haldeman, Nancy and Belle Holder, Tanya Huff, Gail Z. Martin, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Jean Rabe, Mike Resnick, Hildy Silverman, Janine Spendlove, Michael A. Stackpole, Anton Strout, Kelly Swails, Robert E. Vardeman, Elizabeth A. Vaughan, Bryan Young, Jean Marie Ward (yeah, me--got a problem with that?), Gene Wolfe, Timothy Zahn, and of course, the man himself, CJ Henderson.

You do romance so you don't know who these people are?  No problem.  I got some video right here:

2. Joe Haldeman

3. Gail Z. Martin

I also got pixels on the page.

4. Kevin J. Anderson

5. Jack Dann

6. Tanya Huff

7. But that's just the start.  The more people fund, the more authors we add. People like Aaron Rosenberg, Alan M. Clark (who did our wonderful cover), Allan Gilbreath, Alma Alexander, Tera Fulbright, Cynthia Ward, Davey Beauchamp, Dylan Birtolo, James Chambers, Jeff Young, Jennifer Brozek, John Hartness, Maxwell Alexander Drake, John French, Jonathan Mayberry, Keith R.A. DeCandido, KT Pinto, Michael Ventrella, Misty Massey, Patrick Thomas, Pete Prellwitz, Sheryl Nantus (I did mention Sheryl, didn't I?), Stuart Jaffe, David B. Coe, Vicki Steger and Mike McPhail.

I've got some video of them, too:

8. David B. Coe (aka D.B. Jackson) 

9.  Keith R.A. DeCandido

10. Somebody who isn't in that list but who is most definitely in the table of contents (you heard it here first!): Jody Lynn Nye.  Yeah, I have video for her, too.

11. Videos of crazy people dancing like monkeys.

12. Stopping Danielle Ackley-McPhail from posting more creepy pictures of monkeys.  (They're worse than clowns...Well, maybe not today, but most of the time they're really, really creepy.)

13. The man himself, CJ Henderson.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  I'm hoping his video is worth more, for him and for all of us.

CJ Henderson

Please, fund.  The Indiegogo link is:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/monkeying-around-for-a-good-cause#home

Thank you.

Jean Marie Ward

Guest Blog: Through a Glass Darkly

Today we're thrilled to welcome Gail Z. Martin, bestselling author of the Chronicles of the Necromancer and the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga, as a guest blogger at Beyond the Veil. As you might guess, somebody who writes about necromancers has a lot to say about the ghosts that haunt a writer's work.

Through a Glass Darkly

By Gail Z. Martin

The idea of writing as therapy isn’t new, nor is the idea of writing as exorcism.  Writing is generally cheaper than hiring a therapist, easier than hiring a priest and doesn’t fill the house with the smell of incense (usually).  It’s all fun and games until someone’s head swivels around backwards.

My writing has helped to quiet the ghosts of the past in several ways.  After my mom had a devastating stroke, I wrote an as-yet unpublished novel about the experience, based on an off-handed comment a family member made that suggested an ideal—if illegal—solution to the quality of care issues she was encountering. I didn’t act on the suggestion, which was made tongue-in-cheek, but I did write about it, envisioning how things might have turned out differently.  I’m still debating what to do with that book, but I remember how quickly the book wrote, and how unusual it was to be typing as I cried (fortunately I’m a touch typist). That book may or may not make it to print, but it was cathartic for me to write it.  The novel didn’t have a happy ending, and neither did real life, but having written a version of what could have happened in advance; I was somewhat better prepared for what did happen. So it served its purpose.

My relationship with my dad was, shall we say, complicated.  It did not occur to me until this year that in all four of my series, the main character also has a complicated paternal relationship.  I swear I didn’t do that on purpose.  I wasn’t even aware that I had done it until I suddenly saw the pattern.  I am now working to consciously create different patterns for future characters.  I guess I have issues.

My dad was a hoarder, and my husband and I had to deal with his collections when dad went into a nursing home.  Some stuff was valuable and some was not; sorting through the mountain of stuff to determine what to keep and what to pitch took over a year.  Not surprisingly, a fair number of the more unusual pieces and some of the settings made their way into my Deadly Curiosities series of short stories (and the upcoming novel).  My husband is my first editor and beta reader.  He read the drafts and shook his head and said, “I see you’re still working through it.”

When my dad passed away, I was the executor, so handling his estate and the remaining collections fell to me, on top of publishing deadlines and other work.  Writing the books and short stories became my little port of sanity in a stormy ocean of legalities and paperwork. It’s taken most of a year to resolve everything, during which writing has become my rabbit hole where I can escape.

There are probably other ghosts that either haunt my writing unacknowledged or that have been exorcised, but if so, they’ve agreed not to break the dishes and I’ve agreed not to call the exorcist (or Ghostbusters).  I suspect that most writers’ brains could keep a good paranormal investigation team busy for a long time. Coincidentally, I’ve never met a successful writer, artist, comedian or musician who had an idyllic childhood, and I suspect the two are inversely related.  Dysfunctional families are the gift that keeps on giving.

Come check out all the free excerpts, book giveaways and other goodies that are part of my Days of the Dead blog tour!   Trick-or-Treat you way through more than 30 partner sites where you'll find brand new interviews, freebies and more--details at www.AscendantKingdoms.com.

Ice Forged will be a Kindle Daily Deal with a special one-day price of just $1.99 only on October 31!  Get it here.

Reign of Ash, book two in the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga launches in April, 2014 from Orbit Books.  My new urban fantasy, Deadly Curiosities, comes out in July, 2014 from Solaris Books. I bring out two series of ebook short stories with a new story every month for just .99 on Kindle, Kobo and Nook—check out the Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures or the Deadly Curiosities Adventures.

About the author: Gail Z. Martin is the author of Ice Forged in The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga and the upcoming Reign of Ash (Orbit Books, 2014), plus The Chronicles of The Necromancer series (The Summoner, The Blood King, Dark Haven & Dark Lady’s Chosen ) from Solaris Books and The Fallen Kings Cycle (The Sworn  and The Dread) from Orbit Books.  In 2014, Gail launches a new urban fantasy novel, Deadly Curiosities, from Solaris Books. She is also the author of two series of ebook short stories: The Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures and the Deadly Curiosities Adventures.  Find her at www.ChroniclesOfTheNecromancer.com, on Twitter @GailZMartin, on Facebook.com/WinterKingdoms, at DisquietingVisions.com blog and GhostInTheMachinePodcast.com.

Ghoulies and Ghosties and Hard-Frosted Chocolate and Notes that Go Bump in the Night

Given this month's theme, “Digging up Bones: Releasing our Ghosts through Writing,” I bet you expected me to write something scary.  The thing is, most ghosts aren’t.  Half the time we don’t even know they’re there.  We might not even recognize them as ghosts at all, yet they haunt us just the same.

Long-time readers have heard about the horror that was my mom’s cooking. Long story short: terrific mother, terrifying cook. She imploded turkeys and vaporized whole rib racks.  So you can imagine the panic which overtook me the first time my first grade teacher Sister Mary Josephine sent me home with a note demanding Mom propitiate the God of Bake Sales with a homemade offering. 

“No commercial substitutes.  No making it on your own and passing it off as your mother’s, either.”  Sister Mary Josephine’s gimlet gaze drilled through me like something out of the Black and Decker catalogue.  “HE will know—and so.  Will.  I.”

With the greatest misgivings, I gave the note to Mom.  In response, she produced what many consider her (ahem) masterpiece: an entire lunar landscape composed of chocolate cake product.  It’s a pity the camera broke when I tried to take a picture.  I’m pretty sure it was a scale model of the Sea of Tranquility, down to the chalky ridges, cracks and impact craters, but lacking a photo I have no proof. 

Then she frosted it.  Sort of.  She called it “a glaze”.  I think she invented a new kind of polymer, because it proved impervious to any and all knives available to the nuns and their bake sale customers.  Bullets would've bounced off that thing. 

But not off me.

Sister Mary Josephine went after me with a ruler.  She called me a liar and a cheat, and wrote an outraged note to my parents about my heinous deceit—a note which caused no end of confusion back home, because my dad had driven me to school that day and personally witnessed the hand-off to Sister Mary Josephine. 

Ultimately, though, my parents shrugged off the incident, ascribing it to the arcane mental processes of people who dress in wimples and kirtles for a living.  They expected me to do likewise.  I didn’t have that luxury.  We’d been warned to expect a bake sale every quarter, and the days to the next one were growing short.

By the time I got that second bake sale order, I knew I couldn’t be the honest, truthful, upstanding daughter my parents tried to raise.  I had to save myself.  So I hid the note and told Mom I volunteered to bake a birthday cake for a friend in class.  Mom was a little surprised Sister Mary Josephine would indulge in something as ordinary as a classmate’s birthday.  But Dad sometimes bought cake for the office, so she didn’t question me too closely.

I got out the cake mix, followed the instructions, allowed Mom (under strict supervision) to place it into the oven and retrieve it at the designated time.  Then I watched the clock until I could turn it out of the pan and apply the frosting I’d likewise made from a box with instructions on the side.

Sister Mary Josephine’s reaction?  “Isn’t it so much better when you do what you’re told and don’t lie?”

The truth?  I consider it a miracle I ever do anything I’m told and tell the truth more often than not. 

That’s probably my parents’ influence.  Eighteen years (fourteen, actually—I started cooking early in self-defense) of intermittent food poisoning is a small price to pay for parents who always played fair.  I’d hate to disappoint them, even now.

But that incident haunts me.  I learned that day that people see and believe what they expect.  Too often, they’re not interested in the truth.  That goes double for truths which challenge their world view—“truths” like all women cook and all men are good with tools. 

Yeah.  Right.  My dad, albeit a great father and stand-up military officer, was to home repair what my mother was to cooking: an apocalypse on legs.  He once broke a wall trying to hang a picture.  He called the base quartermaster (the military officer in charge of base housing, furnishings and supplies) to change the light bulb on his desk lamp—and the quartermaster sent someone immediately!  Everybody agreed it was safer that way.  The toaster meltdowns and deep fryer incident were not to be spoken of in polite company.

The other eye opener was that nobody has any special gifts with respect to any truth.  Sister Mary Josephine thought she had a direct line to a higher power, but that didn’t mean squat when it came to perceiving reality on the material plane.  I also realized age was no guarantee of understanding.  None of the grown-ups in this tale had a clue about what was really happening on either side of the bake sale divide.

I’m convinced that’s why I ultimately made my way to a career in public relations.  Thanks to two very different homemade cakes, I learned at age six that it’s all about the spin.

That knowledge permeates everything I write.  You can see it in the way I present my facts in my nonfiction.  In my fiction, nothing is ever exactly as it seems.  Power and agency are fluid, and the person who appears the most inconsequential is probably the one you need to worry about.  It’s all about masks, disguises, veils, shrouds, secret identities and sleight of hand.  Still waters may run deep, but you’ve got to watch out for what’s under the rapids, too.

It’s a very noir sensibility, which probably explains why some editors consider my fiction dark.  To me it isn’t dark without severed body parts.  But hey, if it earns me a place in Akashic Books’ “Mondays Are Murder” showcase, I’ll take it.  And it did.  My flash fiction, “District Confidential”, will be published some Monday early next year.

There’s no baking involved.  But there is a lime, a knife, and the people who think they know what’s going on don’t.  That’s my thing.

Thank you, Sister Mary Josephine.

Speaking of haunts, later this month Beyond the Veil will have a treat for you.  Gail Z. Martin, bestselling author of the Chronicles of the Necromancer and Ascendant Kingdoms, will be giving you her take on writing haunts on October 29.  You want to mark your calendars.  You really do.  See you then!

 

Jean Marie Ward

Thursday Thirteen: Thirteen Pictures of RavenCon 2013

If a picture's really worth a thousand words, I just might be able to make up for being such a bad blogger this year.  Besides, you'd much rather see the faces and costumes of RavenCon than hear me blather.  So, without further ado, thirteen photos from RavenCon 2013

 

Author Laurel Anne Hill shows off a steampunk style perfectly suited to her story in the anthology Shanghai Steam.

 

 

Fan Guest of Honor Carla Brindle and Writing Guest of Honor Kevin J. Anderson frame one of Carla's amazing cakes.  Since RavenCon flaunts Richmond's Edgar Allan Poe vibe, Carla baked a fully functional chest containing a beating cake heart. The book leaning next to it was edible, too.  And I can personally attest that it tasted great.

 

Sarah Black and Braxton Ballew of Valentine Wolfe perform their first concert of the weekend.

 

With Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta as the con's Writer Guests of Honor, the costumes were guaranteed to glory in Steampunk.

 

But Star Wars was well represented by the 501st Legion and this fierce Tusken Raider.  Star Trek sent Klingons...and a jail!  But you have to go to my Flickr page to see that. 

 

There were Steampunk writers, too. From left to right: Emilie Bush, David Lee and a guy I really think I ought to recognize...

 

Comics artist Monica Marier gleefully admitted she crafted her shiny SF costume to draw potential customers' eyes.

 

You knew there had to be at least one panel shot, didn't you?  Here (from left to right) Jim Bernheimer, Gail Z. Martin, Ron Garner and John Betancourt discuss professional self-publishing.

 

There were two book launch parties, but I only took still shots of Leona Wisoker's event. Here Leona (center in black) discusses the role of coffee in the party and in her new novel Fires of the Desert.

 

More Steampunk-y goodness. From some overheard conversation (in the bar, naturally) I understand this group later won the Masquerade. Alas, I didn't catch their names, but I do recall that it was the gentleman's first costume competition.

 

Don't tell anyone, but I can't identify these costumes--and I know I should! Sob.

 

Masquerade Masters of Ceremony Billy Flynn (left in scarf) and Rich Sigfrit (to Billy's right) introduce the Ghostbusters of RavenCon.

 

There were belly dancers, too.  And much, much more.  If you'd like a bigger taste, please, check out the rest of my pictures or follow the links from the RavenCon Facebook page.  It's not too early to sign up for 2014, after all.

 

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Jean Marie Ward

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday Thirteen: A Month in Thirteen Pictures

I'm a bad blogger. I missed my Saturday blog. But if a picture's really worth a thousand words, here's thirteen pictures I hope will make up for my delay.


Buzzy Multimedia recently asked me to shift from print to video interviews. Not being entirely sure of myself I decided to start with a friend, fantasy and mystery writer Carole Nelson Douglas, who happened to be this year's guest of honor at our local mystery convention, Malice Domestic. The video is posted on the Buzzy blog.



I'd barely finished editing Carole's interview when I learned the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) were holding the 2011 Nebula Awards Weekend a few Metro stops away on May 20-22. So I hauled my trusty camera to Dupont Circle and taped five interviews: Chris Claremont (of Marvel Comics fame), Mary Robinette Kowal, Joe Haldeman, John Scalzi and this year's Nebula Award winner for best novel, Connie Willis (above). I may be mistaken, but I think this year's win makes Connie the all-time Nebula champion, which tickles me no end, since I totally love her fiction. Who says women can't write REAL science fiction?



One of the more interesting aspects of the filming was discovering things I never knew about the interview subjects. For example, I knew Joe Haldeman was an accomplished poet. In fact, he published his first poem (in The Washington Post, no less) before he was ten. But I didn't know he was an amazing artist. The photo above gives you just one example of his work. There will be more in the video. I promise.



One thing I missed was Mary Robinette Kowal's presentation at the Awards Banquet...in a Regency dress she stitched entirely by hand. (I couldn't make it because I was helping out with a Civil War celebration in Alexandria.) But she was kind enough to show me the dress and accessories when I interviewed her the following day.



But I didn't have much time work on all those lovely videos. The very next Friday, May 27, I was off to Balticon 45. As always, the Memorial Day weekend con was a whirl of panels, friends and parties. The Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading was all three. This year's readers were (from left to right) Gail Z. Martin, Vonnie Winslow Crist, Roberta Rogow, yours truly, Phoebe Wray and fellow Samhain writer D. Renee Bagby. The party came courtesy of Vonnie, who brought the most amazing cupcakes from her book launch The Greener Forest, which took place the hour before the RFR. You can see them (but alas, not taste them) in the bottom of the shot.



Balticon also offered great interview opportunities, including romantic fantasy and young adult writer Maria V. Snyder (left). As befits a party con, Maria and I caught up with each other in the bar, where she was relaxing with her friend and fellow writer Judi Fleming (right). My other Balticon interviews included Michael Swanwick and Paolo Bacigalupi.



This year's Balticon boasted an amazing number of book launches including the launch of one of my most anticipated books of 2011, The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences: Phoenix Rising by Philippa Ballantine and Tee Morris (shown here at right). As befits a book described as a Steampunk Avengers (as in the old TV show), the launch was a Victorian tea, complete with ginger biscuits and a raffle with prizes drawn by a fetching member of the audience in full 19th century dress.



Steampunk was everywhere at Balticon 45, and it really upped the ante on Masquerade costumes, as evidenced by this year's League of Extraordinary Family. Check out the young Captain Nemo's pet Kraken.



But the prize for Best in Show went to writer J.F. Bibeau's The Cat from Red Dwarf. Speaking of steam, I missed seeing his iron. No, not that kind of iron! The kind of steam presser Cat used to for wardrobe emergencies. Really!



A week later I was reveling in a special tour of what I consider the most beautiful building in all of Washington, D.C.--the Library of Congress. And I'm not just saying that because I'm a writer and I love books. Take a look at the Grand Hall. All that white marble, the bronze statues and the paintings peeking through the columns are just a taste of its splendor.



The Library is the nation's great temple of learning, so it's only fitting it has a resident goddess: the Minerva of Peace, a mosaic by Elihu Vedder. Like this depiction of Minerva, the Library celebrates all the arts. In addition to books, it boasts one of the world's great collections of musical instruments, maps and movies.



The library also celebrates all kinds of literature. Although Sappho is the only woman writer celebrated by name in its murals (sorry Jane Austen, Marie de France and George Sand), the branches of literature are all depicted as classical muses, including Romance and (ta da!) Erotica.



But I think my favorite part of the Library is its whimsy. Where else would you find a mosaic of late 19th century football?

That about covers it, for now. But if these photos have only whetted your appetite, please, check out the relevant galleries:

Nebula Awards Weekend 2011

Balticon 45

Library of Congress

'Til next month!

All This & Glitter Too

Author and mad make-up genius Stephanie Burke applies (what else) more glitter
to Gina Marie Monti's Legendary Triple Launch make-up.

Sorry I’m late, but I only just washed off the glitter. Navigating Balticon 44, held May 28-31 at the Marriott Hunt Valley outside Baltimore, Maryland, was a lot like walking through showers of pixie dust. You didn’t quite wind up where you expected, but the trip sure was fun.

Forget panels not my own, dancing, the Masquerade, the invitation only single malt party. I set out for all of them, but as befits the “Escher Marriott” where “You can’t get there from here” is a fact of life, I instead wandered into conversations and situations that sent me in different directions entirely.


Turn any corner in the "Escher Marriott" and you might find something wonderful, like an accomplished pianist working through the opening bars of the score to Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

It started innocently enough with roomie Gail Z. Martin and Laura Anne Gilman in the bar eating lunch and drinking wine. Just one each, I swear. Gail and I were perfectly sober for her reading and my first panel of the con, “Are You Sure You Want to Go There?” where bloggers and podcasters Allison Duncan, Andrea Jennifer, Chris Lester, moderator Tee Morris and I talked about work arising from the darkest places in our nature. After that there was a party calling my name. But I was a good girl (I heard that snicker!), picking up my share of the cookies for the Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading and changing into my steampunk outfit.

The crowd at this year’s RFR, hosted by Roxanne Bland, was twice the size of last year’s. And they liked us, they really liked us. Gail read from “Steer a Pale Course”, the story from Valerie Griswold-Ford’s anthology Rum and Runestones. Gail claims it was her first short story, but it sure didn’t sound like it. Danielle Ackley-McPhail’s reading also boasted a nautical theme. Elaine Corvidae shifted the emphasis toward the fae. Filker Roberta Rogow and newcomer Heather Kantz added their efforts. I followed up with a reading from “Syren Bridge”, my novella in progress, and reveled in an audience that laughed in all the right places. Then Kelly A. Harmon took the reader’s and gave me the nicest compliment of the con: “It’s really hard having to read after you.”


Rose of Night Shade Industries models one of her lovely steampunk
frocks. Yes, all the cogs on her corset are fully operational. And
Rose herself packs a mean flask of rum.

After that, I planned to head for Dancing in the Gears, Balticon’s fabulous steampunk ball. But Gail, Roxanne and I wound up in the bar, in the same exact booth Gail and I had occupied before. Judicious amounts of alcohol ensued. Alas, not of the single malt variety.

Saturday morning (morning—arrrrgh!) I shared a panel on “The Many Faces of Fantasy” with Misty Massey, Darrell Schweitzer, moderator Elwin Cotman and one of my all time favorite fantasy authors, Writer Guest of Honor Tanya Huff. I don’t think I babbled too much, at least Tanya kindly agreed to be interviewed for a nonfiction project I’m working on.


Balticon Writer Guest of Honor Tanya Huff.

I had an entire list of panels lined up for the afternoon, but then I met fellow Red Rose authors Stephanie “Flash” Burke and Anthony Stevens. Flash was looking for a place to change for the Masquerade, so we wound up…

In the bar of course, where we met up with Rose of the amazing geared corset, her husband Dion, Stephanie’s husband Dennis and two gleeful refugees from Heroes and Villains, the Balticon Live Action Role Playing game. Stephanie and I stuck with tea of the non-alcoholic variety and five or six hours later we made it to our evening goals.


Heroes and Villains LARPers in the Marriott bar.

Stephanie went off to win Best-in-Show in the Masquerade’s Journeyman category for “Dem Boots”, which were largely created from a dismembered sofa. (No, I don’t make these things up—even if I didn’t get to record it on film. Check out Anthony’s photos, if you don’t believe me.) There was pixie dust involved in that, too. Stephanie and her costume were dusted in so much glitter, the shiny cloud settled on Masquerade MC and veteran vampire Marty Gear. He told her she was taking him to the cleaners. Literally. For the first time in...centuries, he needed to send his white tie and cape to a dry cleaner because, in his words, “There’s no such thing as a sparkly vampire.”


Jacalyn Stanley in her prizewinning Alexia Tarabotti/Soulless gown.

Oddly enough, it turned out I knew the other Journeyman winner, too. Jacalyn Stanley, who’s often graced Richmond’s RavenCon with her lovely costumes, won the Most Beautiful ribbon for her interpretation of Alexia Tarabotti from Soulless, the first novel of another Balticon attendee, Gail Carriger.

I meant to cover the Masquerade. I really did. The Baltimore Science Fiction Society has ties to some of the best costumers in Maryland, and even the non-competing walk-ons are fabulous. (If you don’t believe me, click here to see the awesomeness that was 2009’s Steampunk Star Wars.) But first I wanted to drop in at the Book Pushers Launch Party. There was wine, four great authors launching four wonderful books (Hard Magic by Laura Anne Gilman, Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready, Well of Sorrows by Joshua Palmatier writing as Benjamin Tate and Machinery of Light by David Williams), another fabulous author (Patricia Bray) staffing the bar, and a new item for the folklore database I like to carry in my head.


(From left to right) David Williams, Laura Anne Gilman, Jeri Smith-Ready and Joshua Palmatier (w/a Benjamin Tate) display the Cake of Four Covers at Saturday night's Book Pushers Launch Party.

Laura Anne wouldn’t let anyone cut the cake until she carefully smeared the authors’ names on their frosted covers. “It’s bad luck to cut through a name,” she said. The lady knows her food lore. Now you know, too. (Don’t say I never share.)

I exited once to help someone who needed to get to the other side of the hotel, and found myself in the middle of an impromptu concert in the Ladies Room. Four members of the a cappella group Sassafrass were rehearsing for their Sunday evening performance…of songs about magic Vikings and Norse mythology.


Four of the five members of Sassafrass rehearsing in the lobby Ladies Room.

Naturally, I had to bring back proof to the party, then somebody started talking book smack and I was lost. The room was still rocking when they came to kick us out at midnight. At least my Sunday panels had the decency to wait until 6 p.m.

But the prep did not. Stephanie was kind enough to give me the benefit of her mad costume and make-up skills. The Legendary Triple Launch, celebrating three new anthologies edited by Danielle (Bad-Ass Faeries 3: In All Their Glory, Dragon’s Lure and New Blood) was scheduled to start directly after my 6 p.m. panel. Since I was scheduled to read “Lord Bai’s Discovery”, my contribution to Dragon’s Lure, I felt I ought to fit into the fantasy of the occasion. I couldn’t manage a dragon, but thanks to Stephanie, I did pull off a rather extreme fox fairy. (Alas, pixels at dusk couldn’t capture the true purplage of the outfit, which was gloriously lurid.)


My first time as a fox fairy was also my first time wearing false
eyelashes. They had rhinestones. "Flash" truly outdid herself.

I also managed to catch Sassafrass killing off Baldur in song. It was every bit as splendid as promised in the rehearsal. I would’ve liked to hang around to hear the filk program which followed, but I was afraid I’d miss the Books & Braun reading by Tee and his fellow Dragon Moon author Philippa Ballantine. Tee had been making broad hints over the last few weeks that something momentous was in the offing, and I promised him I wouldn’t miss the big reveal. Besides, Jana Oliver (another Dragon Moon author who couldn’t make it to the con) threatened dire things if I didn’t keep her in the loop.

True to this con’s interesting rehearsal karma, I discovered Tee and Pip rehearsing their reading in one of the hotel’s two “piano nooks”. Even coming into the middle of the rehearsal, I was transfixed.


Philippa Ballantine and Tee Morris rehearsing their Books & Braun reading. No
piano playing involved--just the music of the words. It was more than enough.

There are times when the words in a story sing to you. It’s the truest kind of magic I know. Some inner sense tells you that this story or this novel will take off and fly. It’s never wrong, either. Most recently, I heard the music in the beta copy of Jana’s 2011 release, The Demon Trapper’s Daughter, I read a couple days before hitting the road for Balticon.

I heard it again in Books & Braun. Think a steampunk version of the 1960s Avengers with Patrick McNee and Dame Diana Rigg, with a little bit of The Librarian and a lot of New Zealand suffragettes (with ray-guns, naturally) thrown in. The fact that both Tee and Pip have wonderful voices and great chemistry didn’t hurt either. But the stop-start-shift nature of rehearsal negates much of the readers’ magic and throws it back on the words. Which were splendid.

It came as no surprise that Tee and Pip’s big news was a two-book contract. The book went to auction. Harper Collins SF/fantasy imprint EOS Books emerged the winner, and plans to release the book next summer, roughly one month after Spectre, Pip’s second solo book for Ace. Tee and Pip had been sitting on the news until they finished their 11 p.m. reading, and it had been driving them crazy. By the time they popped the champagne, they were the ones practically fizzing.


Tee Morris and Philippa Ballantine toast the sale fo Books & Braun to Harper
Collins EOS Books. If you want to see the follow-up kiss, you'll need to check out
my Flickr gallery.

Everyone in the packed room was right there with them, too. There’s not much better in the worlds of writing and fandom than watching people who’ve worked hard and paid their dues for years finally come into their own.

There was just one downside. By the time we finished cheering and toasting, the bar had closed. It was wrong and terrible, but part of me understands.

There was so much pixie dust flying around, they would've had to send the whole place to the cleaners.

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For more Balticon photos and notes--including shots of the two Gails (Martin and Carriger), Keith R. A. DeCandido, Misty Massey, the Legendary Triple Launch and much, much more, please, check out my Balticon 2010 gallery on Flickr. Enjoy!

T13: RavenCon 2008

Vampires, time-travelers and Poe--oh my! RavenCon 2008 was all that and more.



Since my first panel wasn’t until 6 p.m. Friday evening, I headed for downtown Richmond and the historical canals surveyed by George Washington. Originally, the canals were all business, but these days they’re all about history and wild life. Here, turtle sun themselves on a “turtle tree” and eye the newly hatched goslings on the opposite bank.



The Poe Museum is the oldest building in Richmond. It hosted Lafayette and survived “The Great Conflagration” of 1865, but Edgar Allen Poe never lived here. However, given its history, there probably isn’t a safer location for the relics of Poe’s life.



Back at the hotel, roomie Jana Oliver shows the cover flat for her third Time Rovers novel, Madman’s Dance, slated for an October release. Her partners in crime for the “Writing Full Time” panel are (left to right) C.J. Henderson, Dennis Danvers and David B. Coe.



Con Chair Michael Pederson at the podium) amazed his audience by personally greeting over fifty of RavenCon’s guests, including Fan Guest of Honor “Filthy Pierre” (writer and filker Erwin S. Straus, shown here in the in the white shirt) and Artist Guest of Honor Stephen Hickman (in the baseball cap).



Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show editor Edmund Schubert (standing) looks impressed with Pederson’s performance. But notice the woman not looking at the stage? That’s writer Gail Z. Martin, who’s probably scoping out her next target--er, interview. Gail’s video blogs of the con are linked to her regular blog, or you can go direct to her coverage of the Wicked Game launch party by clicking here. You might even recognize some folks.




You can’t have a great con without great costumes. This wonderful gown was the height of European women’s fashion in 1537.



The con’s Saturday night parties opened with “Livers for Boobies”, a drinking contest to raise money for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. The competition pitted writer Davey Beauchamp (in white, seated on the lap of artist Bryan Prindiville) against writer/editor Valerie Griswold-Ford (far right). We never did get to find out who could drink the most. Davey forfeited when he ducked out to the Wicked Game launch party once too often.



Jana photographs Jeri cutting the cake for the Wicked Game launch party. The logo on the cake was developed for WVMP, the radio station featured in the book. Wicked Game will be released May 13.



With the cake cut, the party ramped into high gear. I was sorely tempted to steal the WVMP t-shirt draped over the picture, but I was good.



Lee Gilliland, queen of the RavenCon con suite and wife of Hugo award-winning author Alexis Gilliland, goes for the gold. I didn’t even need a flash for this shot.



Whose panel is it anyway? Well, the panelists were (left to right) broadcaster Jon Stallard, writer Stuart Jaffe, Robot Battles co-creator Kelly Lockhart, Writer Guest of Honor C.S. Friedman and writer/editor Danielle Ackley-McPhail. But the audience set the topics under discussion.



Between one commitment and another, I didn’t get to attend any of fantasy icon Katherine Kurtz’s panels so I sat in on her Koffeeklatch, an informal one-on-one session held in the Crowne Plaza’s restaurant. The conversation touched on her husband, Scott, but I never twigged onto the fact her Scott was Scott Macmillan, the author and screen-writer who was also featured on my last panel of the day, “The popularity of the paranormal in both nonfiction and fiction”. Afterwards, both Scott (left) and Katherine (center) joined me for a photograph. It was the nicest possible cap to a wonderful con.

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