Bradley P. Beaulieu

I got back from WisCon yesterday afternoon. It was a fun con, as usual, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. I didn't mind the heat at all. Things have been cold in WI all spring, so it was nice to have a small heat wave. At least it wasn't raining.

The con seemed sparse this year. Someone thought that it was down 100 or so people from its cap of around 1,000, but if I were a betting man I'd say it was a bit more. And in terms of industry presence it seemed like low attendance. Publishers are continually looking for places to cut, and it seems like the travel budget is one of the latest casualties these last few years.

I hung out with a number of my Starry Heaven and Clarion classmates. Shveta Thakrar and Chris Cevasco from Clarion. Jenn Reese, Sandra McDonald (see, I got it right, Sandra!), Jon Hansen, Bill Shunn, and Greg van Eekhout from Starry Heaven. Plus tons of others.

I went to a total of zero panels this year. Not because I didn't want to. It was just that other things came up. Starry Heaven is right around the corner, and I've been working hard to get my ms done so I can start reading the SH mss heavily. So my mornings were taken up with that–getting writing out of the way. And then there were people reading that I wanted to see. Shveta Thakrar and Amal El-Mohtar teamed up for a split-tongues reading, a reading from authors that have multilingual and multicultural upbringings. Shveta's story about her nani was great. And I adored Amal's reading of her Rhysling award-winning poem, A Song for an Ancient City. Amal read it in both English and Arabic, and I loved both. I've never really just sat an listened to Arabic, and I have to say it was beautiful to hear.

Bill Shunn gave a reading from his latest novel. That was cool to hear, since I'd read the same opening at Starry Heaven last year. And then on Sunday, just before I left, I went to a reading with five YA authors: Rae Carson read from her soon-to-be-released THE PRINCESS AND THE GODSTONE, Karen Healey read from GUARDIAN OF THE DEAD, Jenn Reese read ABOVE WORLD, Sarah Prineas read from THE MAGIC THIEF: FOUND, and Greg van Eekhout read KID VS. SQUID.

Among all the other hats he wears, John Joseph Adams has just started editing a brand new magazine called Lightspeed. Its first issue is due any day now, and four of the authors read stories from the first issue: Vylar Kaftan, Alice Sola Kim, Cat T. Rambo, and Genevieve Valentine. The stories and the readings were great, though Alice's attempt at sipping bourbon after every scene break was the most amusing thing in the session. Thankfully she abandoned the tactic after a shot or so.

I caught up with Mary Robinette Kowal on Saturday, which was really nice. We talked about her next project after her Shades of Milk and Honey, and it sounds fascinating. Terribly challenging, and most likely difficult to write, but fascinating. We went out to dinner with Chris Cevasco and Liza Trombi, the editor of Locus (I felt like such an insider).

There were the usual parties at night, though like I said, they were subdued this year, and they cleared out early. That was ok, though. I had to get to sleep so I could get up and write some more. I was sad on Sunday when I had to leave. It's always so much fun speaking with people in the same boat that you are, trying to navigate the same waters. But luckily Starry Heaven is right around the corner. Can't wait for Flagstaff!

Better late than never?

Last year at GenCon, Cathy Johnson, known to some as CathyBoy, gave each of the Writers Symposium writers a water color portrait. I really love how mine turned out. The rest of them are really cool, too. My favorite is probably Pat Rothfuss, the garden gnome. Thanks, Cathy!

I thought I’d pass along some information on the content of this year’s Writers Symposium at the GenCon Game Fair, which is held in August in Indianapolis, IN. GenCon is largely a gaming convention, but for the past decade or so they’ve had a steadily growing contingent of writing panels. As it stands now, there are two simultaneous tracks running all four days of the convention, with roughly one seminar/panel every hour. There are also readings, signings, and for those of you who’d like a little feedback on your writing, a read-and-critique session where a panel of authors listens to the first three pages of your ms and provides feedback.

Click on the link below to see the panels and the speakers (one of whom is, ahem, me!). To find out more about how to attend GenCon and how to sign up for events, visit GenCon Indy’s website. If anyone’s going this year, be sure to let me know!

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I mentioned in a recent post that I made a connection based on my affiliation with the GenCon Writers’ Symposium. I have neglected to mention this in more detail, and this post hopes to correct that glaring oversight.

The Writers’ Symposium is the writing track that appears at the GenCon Game Fair in Indianapolis every year. The panels are a bit different that typical writer’s conventions, which, probably justifiably, focus more on esoteric subjects than they do the business of writing. After all, many of those conventions are populated by people that have been in the business for a while. Many of them are not, let us say, cons for beginners. GenCon, on the other hand, has a strong fan-based cross-over and is attended by many people who have thought about writing or have begun to write and are interested in learning more. And so, the panels discuss how to write, how to edit, how to sell, and other nuts-and-bolts type subjects on the craft of writing.

This past GenCon in August, my friend Paul Genesse spearheaded an effort to create an ezine meant to promote the symposium and its authors. The first issue came out last month, and you can view it here. The members are, in no particular order, the following:

Jean Rabe – www.jeanrabe.com
Paul Genesse – www.paulgenesse.com
Don Bingle – www.orphyte.com/donaldjbingle
Brad Beaulieu – www.quillings.com
Anton Strout – www.antonstrout.com
John Helfers
Pat Rothfuss – www.patrickrothfuss.com
Luke Johnson – www.lukejohnson.com
Kelly Swails – www.kellyswails.blogspot.com
Tim Waggoner – www.timwaggoner.com
Elizabeth Vaughan – www.eavwrites.com
Marc Tassin – www.marctassin.com
Richard Lee Byers – www.stonehill.org/rlb
Steve Schend – brainstormfront.livejournal.com
Janet Deaver-Pack – www.janetpack.com
Daniel “Doc” Myers – www.medievalcookery.com
Sabrina Klein
Kerrie Hughes
Linda Baker
Chris Pierson

Also, if you’d like to receive future ezines via email, you can send a note to Paul at writerssymposium(at)paulgenesse.com to be added to the list. Please pass this information along to anyone you think might be interested.

Four fun-filled days in Saratoga Springs… I went this year largely to just hang out. I didn’t push for any readings or panels, though I did plan to participate in the mass signing on Friday night since I have a few print anthologies out now. I started the con by hitting S. C. Butler‘s reading. It was, in fact, the first reading of the convention. Sam read from his second book, Queen Ferris, which just recently hit the shelves. It was a good selection, enhanced by Sam’s excellent reading voice. I was quite impressed, and I made a few mental notes on how to improve my own readings.

Early-ish that first night, I stopped by a party hosted by John Eccker for the Roundtable Writers. It was fun to meet up again with the group. I talked mostly to Kelly Harmon about kids, and I missed speaking with Markus, but I caught up with him a few days later. Later that night, Sam and Joshua Palmatier (along with a few other folks) hosted a party entitled: Zombies Need Brains. It was a splendid affair. I met a few new folks (hi to Nayad and Rhona) and caught up with quite a few others (Paul and Pat and John and Jeremy and Kelly and Ken and, well, you get the idea).

Friday was a fun day. I caught George Martin’s reading. He was a great reader, and it was fun hearing the prologue to A Dance With Dragons, the next book in the Song of Ice and Fire series. Great stuff, and I’m really looking forward to the day it comes out. That night, I went to the mass autograph signing. It was a lot of fun sitting and talking with people who wandered by, mostly friends, but a few folks I hadn’t met before. I sold and signed a couple of books, too, which was a nice surprise.

On Saturday, I had planned on going to the Codex breakfast (there were 30 of them all trampling down to the hotel’s restaurant, so I’m sure I wasn’t missed), but my wife was coming in and our plan of her taking a shuttle to the hotel were submarined when we found out that there was no shuttle. Rachel Klees-Anderson and her sister, Carol, kindly took me in their rental to get my stranded wife. It was great to have Joanne around so she could meet everyone I’d been talking about over the years. Well, she didn’t meet everyone, but she met quite a few. I stopped by a DAW party for Kristen Britain and Julie Czerneda, who had new books coming out. DAW had brought boxes of their first books as SWAG for all the party-goers. I picked up both and got them signed. Sweet!

Later that night, we (Joanne and I, Paul Genesse, Patrick Tracy, and Ken and Kelly Swails) all went out to Hattie’s restaurant, a place in town that had beat Bobby Flay in a fried chicken throwdown. Needless to say, I had the fried chicken, if only to taste the stuff that brought Bobby down. It was very good. 9 out of 10, I’d say. The soup, a curried sweet potato soup, was also excellent. Next, for desert, we hit Ravenous. I know, I’m talking about it like it was a club. It was not. What it was was a kick-ass crepe restaurant. Joanne and I shared a Blueberry Zeppelin crepe. It was excellent. Not too sweet, very flavorful. I could definitely taste the orange oil, which worked quite well with the blueberries. 9.5 points.

And then came Sunday. Departure day. I packed up, spent some time with my agent, Linn Prentis, and then pretty much it was time to leave. Sam Butler and Susan were kind enough to ferry Joanne and I down to the City. I’ll write up another post on the city trip in a day or so.