Lois H. Gresh's Blog, page 7

Eeriecon 2013 Mini-Report

This year’s Eeriecon was on Grand Island instead of its longtime location in Niagara Falls. Everyone was excited to see what the new venue would be like, and I’m happy to report that the con suite rocked (one of the key attributes of Eeriecon in past years).

My first panel was the Free-for-All with Jim Gardner and Carl Frederick, one of this year’s  esteemed guests of honor. Shortly after, Jim interviewed all of the writing guests on his annual Late Night Talk Show, and David Clink guffawed appropriately as the sidekick. Friday evening was a blur between the con suite and Sal Monaco’s Dr. Who party, which was incredibly well stocked! Come to think of it, so was the con suite…with whiskey offerings far beyond last year’s amazing array. Last year, we discovered Glayva at Eeriecon. This year, we discovered Fireball whiskey. Arie drank a small amount and instantly fell asleep.

Lynna Merill was kind enough to swap reading times with me, so I started Saturday morning with a rousing 10 am reading slot. I read one of my new dark stories, then joined Carl, Lynna, guest of honor Jack McDevitt, and John Price on a panel called, It’s OK to be Wrong. Hmmm. It took us about half an hour to determine what the panel title implied in terms of discussion. I bet we were all wrong.

Next up, Carl, Jim, Stephen Pearl, and I were on the panel, Romance in SFF vs SFF in Romance. Tongue twister!

Because I was on the tongue twister panel, I sadly missed Dave DeGraff’s annual science talk, which I always enjoy. I heard from Arie that it was interesting, a pop look at Life on Mars. Because I was running the Writer’s Workshop with Jim, I also missed Is a PhD Just a Piece of Paper?, which I would have enjoyed attending.

Speaking of,  the Writer’s Workshop was a lot of fun – great questions, a lively group, and thoroughly enjoyable. I was sitting in for Anne Bishop this year.

Arie’s particle physics talk went well, and then it was time for…

What Line’s Mine? Amy Kauderer definitely outdid herself this year. As with most Eeriecon guests of honor, Jack had a hard time identifying his own lines from way back when. I sat next to Carl, and he also had a rough time identifying his lines from long ago, but midway into the session, he figured out how to chea… I mean, learn from those around him. On my other side, Carolyn Clink did her usual stellar job at chea… I mean, analyzing the lines with her poet’s mind and pinpointing the authors with amazing accuracy. Fun fun fun, as always!

After our annual dinner at the Red Coach Inn (Niagara Falls), it was time for us to head home. Sadly, the hotel didn’t have any available rooms for Saturday night. Note to myself: get the room early for next year’s Eeriecon.

Finally, no Eeriecon report can be complete with mention of Josepha Sherman. She is always missed at Eeriecon. Always.

My thanks to the entire con committee for another fabulous event – you guys rock!

Russian edition of Sherlock Holmes Mysteries

I just received the Russian edition of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries book in the mail. There are some interesting drawings in this edition. Full report here:

http://www.loisgresh.com/?p=831

I just received the Russian edition of the Sherlock Holme...

I just received the Russian edition of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries book in the mail. There are some interesting drawings in this edition. If I owned a working scanner, I’d slap a few of the drawings up here because they remind me so much of the original Holmes drawings. They’re very well done. Here’s the cover:

Russian edition of Sherlock Holmes Mysteries

I just received the Russian edition of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries book in the mail. There are some interesting drawings in this edition. If I owned a working scanner, I’d slap a few of the drawings up here because they remind me so much of the original Holmes drawings. They’re very well done. Here’s the cover:

April 2013 News

April, 2013:

New website launches – you are here!

I’m slowly copying blog posts from loisgresh.blogspot.com. Moving forward, I’ll post news in both locations throughout 2013.

I’m pleased to report that I’ve sold another book to St. Martin’s Press. My deadline is November 15, 2013, so it’s going to be another busy year.

French rights to THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS COMPANION sold this month – always nice news.

I just joined the 2013 HWA Novel Jury.

I’m also on BookViewCafe’s social media team.

Roc-Con 2012 Guest of Honor Report

Roc-Con 2012 was even bigger and better than Roc-Con 2011. In the midst of the Fringe Festival, Rochester’s anime, horror, and science fiction fandom was out in full force Friday-Sunday at the Main Street Armory.

Huge applause goes to the remarkable Alicia Lurye for another great  Roc-Con! Alicia’s a fireball of energy and good vibes.

Thanks to the Rochester Fantasy Fans (in particular, the fantastic Wayne Brown), two Daleks roamed the Armory all weekend, threatening to “Exterminate!” everyone in sight. I was almost Exterminated at least twice. (If I happened to be wearing an evening dress – not that I own such a garment – you might think I’m giving away a Dalek prize in the above left photo.)

As Guest of Honor Writer, I had a book table next to comic legend Steve Skeates (photo, below) again this year. I also enjoyed the company of my other tablemates Robert O’Reilly and Klingon makeup pro John Paladin.

You might  remember Steve from last year’s Roc-Con report, where I gushed about Aquaman. For lots of great Skeates comic photos, make sure to check out on last year’s report.

This year, we had two Klingons at Roc-Con: J.G. Hertzler aka General Martok and Robert O’Reilly aka Chancellor Gowron. These guys are a laugh a minute. If they could speak more quickly, they’d be a laugh a second. On Sunday morning at the table next to mine, they burst out singing rowdy bar tunes. And of course, they performed in full Klingon costume on Saturday, much to the delight of fans, who flocked to their table for photos.

When not formally posing for photos, they COULD get dangerous, of course. I mean, they ARE Klingons, after all. (See below – Gowron and Martok attack me in a remote corner of the Armory when fans aren’t looking.)

By Sunday, the Klingons had calmed down again. J.G. and Rob had them under control.

I don’t know how they do that: unleash those rowdy beasts, then instantly, chain them back down.

It was a lot of fun!

Also in the Star Trek actors’ row was Tim McCormack, who has extensive credits as Ensign Bennett in TNG. Somehow, every time I was wandering around taking photos, Tim was off signing autographs. So you’ll have to make do with his official TNG photo (below).

Vic Mignogna, incredibly famous anime voiceover actor – his credits are much too long to list here but include Full Metal Alchemist and DBZ – was a huge hit at this year’s Roc-Con. Also on hand were Robert Kohr of Nickelodeon and Eric Stuart, another well-known voiceover actor whose credits include Pokemon and many others.

Below is wrestler pro and Borderhounds comic book hero, Brimstone.

Below are Genozziere Productions’ Laurence Genovese and Lou Carrozziere. Check out some of their horror movie heads – wowzee, I like that red-headed guy!

Roc-Con 2012 logo winner Andrew Blanda was at the table behind me.

Here’s the lovely Marilyn Ghigliotti, who starred in the cult classic film, Clerks. And here she is with the Klingons, too, but they’re not attacking her!

I shot this totally random photo from my book table:

No con is complete without a journey into the subterranean basements, right? Some of you remember our adventures at Contradiction many years ago. So I checked out the Armory’s dungeon-like basement, where we had the “VIP” food room.

Over and out from The Dungeon, and until next time…

From Lois’ Trivia Box

Every now and then, I dig through my Trivia Box (yes, I actually have one) and post photos of some of the writing-related items I’ve accumulated over the years.

I have a bunch of SFWA membership cards ranging back to 1993, when I first qualified as a supposed professional.

My father would have been thrilled. A science fiction addict, he went to the library every week and stocked the house with science fiction and current affairs books. Growing up, I had little interest in current affairs aka politics, but oh, did I love those SF novels!

Also in the photo is an H.P. Lovecraft card from the Mythos game. My son and I enjoyed countless hours playing Mythos, and along with the “Insane Mother” card, which my son particularly enjoyed — gee, I wonder why? — this card was a favorite.

I have to note here that we got almost all of our cards from Bob Weinberg. Apparently, Bob had many cartons of Mythos cards in his “book business warehouse.” He told me that the game wasn’t particularly popular, so he was stuck with a lot of cards and I was welcome to them.

In the 90s, writers were into buttons and often passed them out at conventions. Most of these buttons were along the lines of “I’m an Author, please feed my creditors” and “Writers deserve royalties.” I collected quite a few and tossed them all into the Trivia Box back home.

Other than “starving author” buttons, I also ended up with more interesting momentoes, such as “Cthulhu in ’96″ and “House of Blues – French Quarter” from the World Fantasy Convention in New Orleans.

Oh yes, and the rubber finger in the photo: Adam-Troy Castro gave this to me at a convention in the 90s.

Which brings me to the rubber teeth, shown below, that Leslie What sent to me as a gift. These are refrigerator magnets. I’ve had them since the mid-90s. I’m not sure why this photo includes an old penny. Perhaps I found it as a convention – ? Yeah, probably.

New York State Balloon Festival

I didn’t know what to expect when attending the New York State Balloon Festival for the first time. I figured hot air balloons would be part of the Festival, but I had no idea how many to expect or what they might look like.

Approximately two dozen balloons were on the ground, ready to fill and billow into the sky. Some never made it off the ground, and sadly, my favorite – a purple dinosaur balloon – was in that category. Balloons filled, tottered for fifteen minutes, then collapsed. Others filled and simply rose. In the end, almost twenty balloons filled the sky – all at once!

Aside from the purple dinosaur, these two balloons were my next favorites:

The sun was right behind the launch field, so it was tough to take clear photos.

As the day bled into evening, a translucent green balloon passed over the sun, creating a beautiful eclipse effect.

Here are a few photos of the balloons on the ground.

And here are a few more of them in the sky.

Now Write! Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror

I’m slowly getting around to posting news about various books. Sometime in 2013, grab a copy of

Now Write! Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror 

from the folks who bring you the fantastic Now Write! series.

I contributed a chapter for the book some time ago.  I was thrilled when Laurie Lamson asked me to be part of this amazing series. Why? Because her other contributors include major talents such as Piers Anthony, Ramsey Campbell, Ursula K. LeGuin, Steven Barnes, Kealan Patrick Burke, John Skipp, and Lisa Morton.

Wow, what a line up!  For anyone who wants to learn how to write fantasy, horror, and/or science fiction, this is the book to get. Tarcher/Penguin is the publisher.

I’ll keep you posted as I hear more about the book’s release.

 

MORTAL INSTRUMENTS COMPANION – cover

The cover of The Mortal Instruments Companion just popped up, along with the book description, on Amazon.

 

Isn’t this a fantastic book cover?

 

Here’s the official book description:

The Mortal Instruments Companion, a must-read guide to the wildly popular Mortal Instruments series, is a terrific gift for the millions of fans both young and old—especially with the Sony Pictures film version of City of Bones, the first book in the series, hitting theaters in August 2013.

Written by the New York Times bestselling author of The Twilight Companion and The Hunger Games Companion, the book takes fans deeper into the world of the Shadowhunters created by Cassandra Clare—a gritty urban fantasy world full of demon hunters into which Clary Fray, a Brooklynite previously unaware of the magical world, is suddenly and inexplicably pulled.

The Mortal Instruments Companion includes fascinating background facts about the action in all seven books, a revealing biography of the author, and amazing insights into the series’ major themes and features—from the nature of evil and the Downworlders, to the power of the Sight, to the Mortal Instruments themselves. It’s everything fans have been hungering for since the very first book! This book is not authorized by Cassandra Clare, Margaret K. McElderry Books, or anyone involved in the City of Bones movie.