As Inigo Montoya said, “Let me explain… No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”
After my last post, I drove to Los Angeles, stopping in Cedar City overnight. In L.A., I went to a round table of people working in Hollywood, run by Marc Zicree (whom I met at the Nebulas a week earlier). I got some good advice from the people there. I also went to a seminar on networking within the industry, taught by actor/writer/producer Isa Totah, who had some great tips.
While I was out there, I met up with my fellow Writers of the Future winner Jason Stoddard for lunch, and it was great catching up with him.
I arrived back in utah in time for CONduit, Salt Lake’s major science fiction and fantasy convention. I was on several panels, which I hope were interesting to the audience. The highlight was getting to spend time with many of my friends in the science fiction and fantasy community, most of whom I rarely see except at cons: L.E. Modesitt, Jr., (who has recently joined the blogging community), Howard Tayler and his wife Sandra (who had the fantastic art for a children’s book she wrote), Robert J. Defendi, Dan Willis, James Dashner, Julie Wright, James Van Pelt, Eric Swedin, Jessica Day George, Brandon Sanderson, Janci Patterson, and others to whom I apologize for forgetting.
The guest of honor at CONduit this year was David Weber, author of my favorite book series, the Honor Harrington series. It was great to hear him speak on several topics, and I was very grateful that Howard, Bob, and Dan invited me along when they took David and his wife Sharon out to dinner on the last night of the convention.
But my stay in Utah was not destined to be long. The folks at Galaxy Press (who publish the Writers of the Future anthology) were kind enough to get me in to BookExpo America, in New York. So I was on the road again Tuesday, heading for the Big Apple. Along the way, I stopped to have dinner with Codex writer Matthew S. Rotundo and his wife in Omaha.
BEA was exhausting. The convention is huge, and I walked around it a lot. But I’m glad I went. I didn’t know until after I got there that David Weber was going to be on a panel there, but that gave me a chance to see him again. I also met author Mark L. Van Name, and when he found out I had a story coming out in Jim Baen’s Universe next year, he was kind enough to introduce me to Toni Weisskopf, the Baen publisher. He also invited me to a Baen reception that evening.
At the reception, I got a chance to talk to David Weber for quite a while, which was great. I also ran into Joshua Bilmes, Brandon Sanderson’s agent, whom I’ve met several time. He introduced me to Martin H. Greenberg, one of the premier anthology editors in the genre. Joshua also told me about an event being put on by Solaris Books (who happen to be publishing Bitterwood, a great novel by my friend James Maxey.)
So Joshua and I went to the Solaris event, which consisted of readings by two of their authors, Chris Roberson and Gail Martin. I got a chance to chat with George Man, one of the Solaris editors, and Vincent Rospond, their sales manager. (What a great writer James Maxey is was one of the major topics of conversation.) After the Solaris event, Joshua offered to buy me dinner, so we went to a Thai restaurant and he gave me quite a bit of insight into the publishing industry.
While in New York, I stayed with my cousin Davey and his wife Erica, who were kind enough to help me avoid a horrendous hotel bill. it was great to spend some time with them
I’m currently in Paoli, Pennsylvania, staying with my Uncle Dave and Aunt Michelle, and my cousins Laura and Jamie. I actually lived with them for a year shortly after I moved back to Utah, so it’s been fun catching up with them.
Next weekend, I head off to New Hampshire to spend six weeks at the Odyssey Writing Workshop.
OK, so that was a pretty long sum-up. But I left a lot out.