Category Archives: Conventions

Necon – This Year and Next

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I just got back from an utterly fantastic time at Necon, held this year in Goffstown, NH. I saw old friends and made new ones, did a panel with luminaries like S.A. Cosby and Clay McLeod Chapman, hung out with the remarkable Gabino Iglesias, ran the improvisational writing game show Write Club to thunderous approval, shared good scotch with good folks, sold a bunch of books and bought a few as well, got some fabulous advice on my writing, and generally had a wonderful time.

Also, I got named Toastmaster for Necon 43 next year!

See you there!

Upcoming Appearances

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The calendar has gotten quite full for the next few weeks. This past weekend was spent at the SAGA Writers Conference/ConGregate in Winston-Salem, which was a wonderful experience, but that’s just kicking things off.

This Thursday I head to New Hampshire to make my annual pilgrimage to Necon. This year, I’ll be on a panel with S.A. Cosby, Clay McLeod Chapman, Trish Wilson and Shannon Grant, moderated by the effervescent Michael Arruda, on how horror has changed since COVID. I’ll also be running a horror-themed variant on the ever-awesome Write Club – we will see if horror authors have what it takes to come up with the write stuff on the fly!

Two weeks later, I fly to Indianapolis for the magnificent chaos that is GenCon, where I will be participating in the Writers’ Symposium. As an added treat this year, I have a story in the Symposium’s anthology, Interdimensions, published by Atthis Arts!

Then the 13th of August, I join a lineup of local horror authors for Monsters In the Mead Hall, 7 PM at Moon Dog Meadery in Durham. It’s a showcase event for members of the North Carolina chapter of the HWA, and we will be bringing unseasonable chills and thrills to the heat of summer.

That Saturday is Pop!-Con down in Sanford. August 17th. I’ve never been to Sanford, but I’m looking forward to sharing my spooky stories with a new audience!

So it’s going to be a busy few weeks, but I’m looking forward to it. See you here, there and everywhere!

 

Carolina Fear Fest And More!

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Starting tomorrow evening, I will be vending at the 5th iteration of the Carolina Fear Fest, held at the State Fairgrounds in Raleigh. If you’re in the area, want to meet Heather Langenkamp or David Arquette,  or otherwise want to get spooked – the evil-clown-to-normal-human ratio is waaaaay off at this thing – come on down!

Also, June 29th I will be taking part in a group reading at Larema Coffee in Wilson, NC at 7 PM. Join us for an evening of spooky goodness. I’ll be reading a new story I just sold entitled “Last Supper”.

And come July, I will be a guest at ConGregate 10/SAGA Writing Workshop in Winston-Salem, NC. Come for the genre writing workshops, stay for the panels!

But wait, there’s more!

My first novel, Clan Novel: Lasombra for Vampire: The Masquerade is now available and back in print! The fine folks at Crossroad Press have resurrected the Clan Novels and much more, so if you missed the saga first time around, now is your chance….

And I’ve had the good fortune to sell not one, not two, but three stories of late, including a new tale of Reb Palache and a tale of a visit from Santa in South Philly gone horribly wrong. That one, believe it or not, is based on a true story….

Catch you soon….

 

Upcoming Goodness

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So a lot has happened recently, and there’s a lot coming up that I can’t give you all the details of. But here’s the basics:

1-I’m going to be doing 2 readings in March in North Carolina. The first one will be on March 7th in Rocky Mount. The second will be March 26th at Quail Ridge Bookstore at North Hills in Raleigh. More details on both as soon as I have them.
2-I will be in the dealer room at Ret-Con in Cary March 1-3, selling books and telling the hidden stories behind the stories to anyone who will stand still long enough to listen. Come on by – it’s a great small con!
3-Once again in March I will sojourn west to San Francisco for Game Developers Conference and the Game Narrative Summit. During the main conference I will be running 2 days of Narrative Round Tables for all and sundry at the conference to attend.
4-April 12-14, I will be heading back to Williamsburg. VA for AuthorCon III, where I will be sharing a table in the dealers’ room with the award-winning horror author PD Cacek. Check out her stuff – Leavings is my favorite of hers, with Sebastian close behind – and swing by!
5-The speakers at GenCon’s Writers Symposium have been announced, and I’m one of them. More details as we get closer to August.
6-I will also be attending Necon and StokerCon this year. Everything else is up in the air.
7-An astonishing writing opportunity has come my way, and I am energetically exploring it. It’s something completely new that I’ve always wanted to try, though my past attempts haven’t really gone anywhere. When the time is right, I will reveal all.

And that’s all for now.

Going to GenCon

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Later this week I’ll be headed northwest to attend GenCon in Indianapolis. I’ll be taking part in the GenCon Writers’ Symposium, where I’ll be sitting on panels on Shaping GM Experience Into A Career In Narrative Design, Getting Into Game Writing, Leading TTRPG Development, and Video Game Writer As Freelancer Vs. Employee. I’m also doing Write Club with the inimitable Alexander Bevier, doing a signing with the talented Sarah Hans, and taking part in the “meet the pros” session of the Symposium.  I haven’t been to GenCon since 2016, and I’m really looking forward to it. It’ll be great to see old friends and meet talented writers, and just generally soak in the game-y good times!

Busy Weekend

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This weekend I’ll be at the uber-spooky Carolina Fear Fest, selling books and hoping to get a glimpse of Tara Reid before the Sharknado descends upon her. You can find show info here, so if you’re in the Triangle area, come by and say hi!

And if that’s not enough, Sunday night I’ll be chatting with the lovely folks at The Thing In The Labyrinth about FIREFLY RAIN. Event details are here!

 

Up Next – ECGC

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GDC has come and gone. So, too, has Scares That Care Authorcon II, both of which were lovely and exciting experiences. Returning to GDC in person was wonderful. The Narrative Summit, which I sit on the advisory board for, was excellent. The student presenters who had won the competition I judge were superb and in one case, extremely moving. And my three round tables were full, with lively discussion and good back-and-forth from a wide range of attendees. I got to see too many friends there to recount, and made some new ones along the way.

AuthorCon II was a very different show, being devoted to (surprise) writers and all things writing. Again, saw a great many friends and was introduced to new ones there. I caught up with folks like Maurice Broaddus and Tim Lebbon, whom I hadn’t seen in seven and thirteen years respectively, as well as many others. I also ran a four hour workshop on writing for video games that had good attendance from sharp students who asked good questions. I went home tired but happy.

So with that done, time to rest, right? Wrong! Next week is East Coast Game Conference, for which I help wrangle narrative content. It’s a wonderful show – low pressure, high content, and very friendly – and I’m glad to be a part of it. If you can get to Raleigh next week and you have an interest in gamedev, check it out! I’ll see you there!

 

GDC Incoming!

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Next week is the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. I’m going, in part because I’m part of the advisory board for the Game Narrative Summit (which runs Monday and Tuesday) and in part because I’m running narrative round tables during the main show Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and in part because my employers at Crytek are kind and generous people.

Part of the Game Narrative Summit will be the presentation of the winning entries from the student narrative competition that I judge each year. I am honored to do the judging and happy to see what each year’s crop of up-and-coming game development students think about the narratives of their favorite games.

I’ve been going off and on, mostly on, since 2000. My first talk was about believability versus realism in Ghost Recon; since then I’ve spoken on various other topics and run my roundtables, and it’s always a pleasure and an honor.

GDC is also a wonderful opportunity to catch up with friends and professional peers. I’m looking forward to seeing folks I see maybe once a year, but whose voices are loud and clear in the narrative and design communities. And if we have a few drinks to celebrate each other, that’ll be fine, too.