A new portrait, done by Nan Kaufman, who, with her husband Peter Fuss, hosted us for a marvelous weekend of rustic peace and quiet—plus driving all over the place between Alta and Placerville.
Category: blog
On The Road…And Back
Few things satisfy me more than going on a trip with Donna. In the last three decades we’ve taken some fine vacations and she is the best traveling companion I’ve found.
This one, however, contained extra pleasure.
On the Fourth of July we flew to Sacramento, CA, to attend Westercon 66. I’d forgotten (if I ever really knew) that Westercon in years past had been a Big Deal. Major regional SF convention. It had fallen into decline, though, and this one was the first in an intended recovery. I hope they manage it because this one was truly fine. Even if it hadn’t been, though, it would have been great because two of our best friends, Nicola Griffith and Kelley Eskridge, were co guests of honor. …
It Was Many Years Ago…
Twenty-five years ago I arrived on the campus of Michigan State University to begin the six weeks of the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop. Donna had driven me up, along with a friend (because I didn’t want her driving back alone—which led to a small bit of confusion because while Donna was catching a nap in my dorm room, everyone else met Drea and then when Donna picked me up, there was some, as I say, confusion…) and then left me there for six weeks of the best pressure cooker experience I’d ever had. I’ve written about it here and here.…
On The Extraction of Feet From Mouths
I’ve been thinking deeply about the recent eruption of controversy in SFWA over sexism. Seems just about anywhere we look in the last several years there are examples of men behaving stupidly toward and about women. While this is nothing new, where it has been cropping up seems surprising.
There have been several incidents, both online and out in the world, within the skeptical community. The boys came out to try to tell the girls to get their own clubhouse and stop invading what for some reason these males had regarded as somehow the province of people with testicles. Prominent women—skeptics, humanists, atheists, scientists—have been treated to high school-level chauvinism by males intent on…
On what?…
Jack Vance: 1916 – 2013
Jack Vance has died. Â Not one of my favorite authors, he nevertheless exerted tremendous influence, even on me, and is more than worthy of our remembrance. Â I have written an appreciation over at the Proximal Eye, here.…
Two More Tomorrow
Two more shots of The Men of Tomorrow, courtesy Jarek Steele of Left Bank Books.
Might use this last one for some kind of avatar somewhere.
…
The Men of Tomorrow
So, the other night, the 22nd to be exact, I committed Public Performance. I had help. Two brave musicians, both of whom are better at their respective instruments than I am at mine, joined me to play jazz-like music at the Mad Art Gallery where Left Bank Books and other St. Louis Independent bookstores celebrated World Book Night. I mentioned this in a previous post.
The main event of the evening was an on-stage interview conducted by author Curtis Sittenfeld of author J.R. Moehringer.
Here we see Left Bank’s Shane Mullen introducing them:
The interview was great. Lively, informative, and Moehringer is very entertaining. …
Afterimage
I finished the first draft of the new (old) novel, a rewrite of a rather pathetic bit of crime fiction that I just could not give up on. The chapters are being reviewed as I write this. I’m taking some time off. I put in some long days on this and it still isn’t ready for prime time.
Meantime, something somewhat disturbing to keep the reader wondering, “Just where did he go that weekend and who—or what—was he with?”
To tell you the truth, I’m not sure myself. I woke up in my own bed, but the room looked too normal. …
New Mars
Yeah, I was goofing off this morning, trying to find a way into a rewrite, and needing to distract myself from overthinking it. So I redid my header (see above). It’s the same NASA image I had up before…only different. I did some Photoshopping and added color and such.
The framing tool for WordPress, though, forces some heavy crops, so here is the full image as reworked:
As cool as the original was, it was also kinda monochromatic. So I played around, did something more…Barsoom-ish. Anyway, having once known how to add color to an image and then forgot the method, I have now rediscovered it and will use it a bit more often.…
New Me
I haven’t done any serious new shots of myself for a while. A few opportunistic snapshots here and there, but nothing suitable for framing, so to speak. Comic Con is coming up and I’ll be there and I was asked for a photo, so this morning Donna (patiently) indulged me and we did some new ones. This one isn’t going out for a head shot, but I rather like it:
She wanted one with the orchids and I don’t usually do profiles, so…
I had something in mind more like this, though, since I’ve been feeling a bit more physically…well, the way I’d like to feel…
Sort of a catalogue feel, if you know what I mean. …