Diminisher of Peace
Always Becoming
A Corner Not Dipped In Styx
Nanowhere Chapt. 1
Right now, I'm here, not there. Just got a call from Chloe--my daughter--who tells me there's a box of books of Seaborn on the front porch. Seaborn won't be out on shelves for three weeks, but I have some now! There will be pictures and a post when I get home!
I just received an email from Paula at Juno Books, the subject was "Books!" Yes, she has Seaborn in print, and she's going to send me a box.
I'm totally wiped out, coming down with a cold. I slept horribly the whole time we were out there, and dragged through the days like a zombie. I did get some great pics though, which shows that even zombies can handle today's tech with little or no brain activity.
Before I get started: Alice, you made all this happen! We wouldn't have made it to Saratoga Springs without your perseverance, patience, low-sleep driving skills, scrupulous tile-bleaching, and tolerance of my bad behavior. Thank you.
World Fantasy 2007 was simply amazing. I didn't know what to expect. This is a professional and "serious reader" conference with editors and agents and authors running around, lunching, doing business in the halls. I hardly saw Paula Guran, had a five minute chat with her and Matt Cook (Blood Magic), and then she was gone, off presumably doing the things editors do at these kinds of get togethers. When I did see her later, she looked too busy to stop and talk.
I took my daughter Chloe along with me on this one, and we had a good time tracking down her favorite authors, Scott Westerfeld, Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, Garth Nix, (some of mine, too), and getting them to sign books--which all were happy to do.
We sat in on quite a few panels, but I think these were the best:
I'll stop here to point out that Delia Sherman is amazing, and Charlaine Harris is hilarious, but even Charlaine couldn't compete with the Aussies.
The Australian authors were the funniest group there, ranging all over the fantastic map with Australian themes for stories, poisonous insects and snakes, isolation as a fundamental influencer in Australian lit, and they even broke out in song with Garth Nix leading several lines of Waltzing Mathilda.
We hit the autograph session late Friday and got a few more pics. I met Maria Lima, and Chloe scouted out the authors she wanted sigs from.
Fantasy Worlds, Book Covers
Australian authors, YA Reading
The main reception area / me and Lois McMaster Bujold in front of the Prime Books table. (Wow!)
Jim Frenkel of Tor and Craig Shaw Gardner / Chloe with Sarah Beth Durst
Chloe getting (another) autograph from Bruce Coville, and then from Tamora Pierce.
Chloe with Holly Black, and a little later getting Cassandra Clare's autograph.
Chloe and Scott Westerfeld, and Garth Nix signing Sabriel for Chloe.
I am going to do my best to get to World Fantasy 2008 in Calgary. Hope to see you there.
See more of Tim Lantz's work at the gallery page at Juno Books.
I absolutely love it. What do you think?
See a little bit larger pic on Tim Lantz's dA page: http://archeon.deviantart.com/art/Seaborn-68259916
Seaborn by *archeon on deviantART
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This is from Adele Griffin, author of where I want to be (National Book Award Finalist):
"From the first page of Seaborn, you are immersed. Chris Howard navigates a wild ride through a brilliantly edgy and richly atmospheric alter-world. Here is a fresh, formidable spin on the fantasy genre, and Howard is a talent to watch out for. Seaborn will leave you spellbound." --Adele Griffin
Wow.
The readergirlz will host a live chat with Holly Black author of Tithe, Valiant, Ironside, the Spiderwick Chronicles. Cool cool stuff. I've read Tithe and Valiant, and ashamed to say I haven't picked up Ironside yet. Here's the time:
Thursday, August 23rd at 7 PM Pacific / 10 PM Eastern
The mass market paperback edition of my novel SEABORN will be out in July 2008 from Juno Books, an imprint that specializes in "a variety of fantasy featuring strong female characters." Juno Books is an imprint of Prime Books/Wildside Press.
I completed a YA fantasy SALTWATER WITCH in July, and it's with my agent.
Working like a whole hive of bees--super coordinated writing bees who like the sea--on The New Sirens, working title for the sequel to Seaborn.
Me and Alice and the kids went to see Stardust in Newington last night. Wonderful and funny. One of those movies that makes you say, "We must see that again" while you're walking out of the theater.
Okay, I'm a pretty low-key guy, but I just sent off the final manuscript of Seaborn to the publisher, and, well...I have the urge to run screaming into the backyard to do cartwheels across the grass. Maybe after that, I'll sing in Italian and climb out on the roof to shout the whole first book the Iliad to the rest of the neighborhood.
SING GODDESS, THE WRATH OF PELEUS' SON ACHILLES!
…in Homer's own words...
μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος!
My dad and I spent an hour Saturday morning walking up the hill from the Crown Center in Kansas City to the Liberty Memorial, a big neo-classical structure with a 217 foot tower. There's a wonderful World War One museum inside, full of stories and uniforms, land and sea weapons, interactive touch boards that explain political events, how machine guns work, and a lot more. If you're ever in the area, I definitely recommend taking the time to walk through the museum.
http://www.libertymemorialmuseum.org/
Google Map
...that someone called my name and I had to get up on this stage in front of a bunch of brilliant SF writers and industry luminaries and aerospace pioneers and Heinlein fans, and say thank you. Of course, I couldn't see a thing with all the lights, but I knew they were out there, you know, Frederik Pohl, Ben Bova, David Gerrold, John Scalzi, James Gunn, Allen Steele, Eleanor Wood, Robert Charles Wilson, Spider Robinson and countless more.
I'm walking back to my seat, gripping my framed certificate, and one of the writing contest judges calls my name, I turn, stunned--deer in the headlights sort of stunned. He shakes my hand, and says something really nice like "Great job. Keep writing" and I say something lame like "okay!" or "I plan to."
And then...
Oh, wait, that was Saturday night in Kansas City.
The Heinlein Centennial was a blast, with great panels, and a tremendous gala dinner and ceremony. Arthur C. Clarke up on the big screen with some personal Heinlein stories, and Peter Diamandis passionately telling us to get off planet, explore the wide worlds out there--and make money.
My dad flew out from California, met me at KCI on Friday. We took in Peter's full preso and hour before the dinner, and he stepped through the history of the Ansari X Prize, and some of the cool projects he's rolled out, like Zero G--zero gravity experience on a Boeing 727--how cool is that?
The gala reception ended beautifully with a raised glass from LTC Chuck Coffin, "2107 in Luna City. See you there!"
Susan Satterfield, author, teacher, organizer extraordinaire, and contest coordinator, handed out the writing contest awards.
Of course, there was a blood drive, and I gave a big bag of it--and got my pin.
Note: I had no trouble bringing the framed--with glass--award through security at the airports. I showed it to them, and a few were Heinlein fans, we chatted and they thought the whole thing was cool.
Links:
http://www.heinleincentennial.com
http://www.gozerog.com/history.htm
http://www.scalzi.com/whatever
http://www.frederikpohl.com
http://www.benbova.net
http://www.gerrold.com
http://www.allensteele.com
http://www.spectrumliteraryagency.com
http://www.robertcharleswilson.com
http://www.spiderrobinson.com
I just received an email from the coordinator for the committee of fiction judges at the Robert A. Heinlein Centennial. It looks like I have won the Amateur Category of the Heinlein Centennial Short Fiction Contest with my 6500 word story, "Hammers and Snails."
Crazy. They're sending me $175 and a cool certificate! There's the big event out in Kansas City in July. Some highlights I ripped out of the program:
David Gerrold, John Scalzi, Buzz Aldrin, the Campbell Conference & Campbell Award will hold their 2007 annual event under the Heinlein Centennial's roof. And how can you pass up "Sir Arthur C. Clarke to address the Heinlein Centennial" via satellite from Sri Lanka.
http://www.heinleincentennial.com/
BTW, this is not what I was celebrating a week back. That's still being finalized. More on that when I know more. That said, I'm not turning down another chance to celebrate!
A Moleskine harddrive! Nice: The Geekster Moleskine - a photoset on Flickr.
Spresent, the free Flash web-based presentation app. I signed up and played with it for a while. Very cool, glass boxes, animation, clip art, easy to use, easy to build some very creative presentations.
Here's what it looks like (Click image).
It's a brace thing. Chloe got her braces put on today, and the shiny silver mouthful of metal days are gone. It's all colors, pink bands and purple ones. Crazy. Here's a pic.
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