Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 31

New Views

Very pleased with my new canvases, cover art by Elizabeth Leggett.

Now to find space on my already-crowded walls.

LOTR Rap

You’ve probably seen this by now, but if that’s the case, now you can see it again.

Stephen Colbert, who has praised Lord of the Rings to the skies for decades now, celebrates the 20th anniversary of the film’s release by breaking into song— or anyway rap.

He’s aided by a surpassing pack of guest stars, but I won’t spoil your fun by naming them. (Except— wait?— Anna Kendrick?)

Enjoy.

The Schedule of Me

I am in Portales. The Jack Williamson Lectureship has already started, with Connie Willis interviewing me, and will continue tomorrow, with five hours of programming featuring, well, me.

You can watch live over Youtube. Here are the links.

The schedule is as follows. Remember that we’re in Mountain Daylight Time.

Friday, April 8th:  

10:00 am: Guest of Honor Reading, GSSC Presentation area 

12:00 pm: Williamson Lectureship Lunch and Main Event, CUB Ballroom 

1:30 pm: Gaming...

Eyeworthy

The world’s only Gothic Western science fiction police procedural will shortly have new cover art, courtesy of the fantastic Elizabeth Leggett.

Days of Atonement has a long, sad history with cover art, starting with the atrocity on the original hardback, then graduating to my own poor attempts to put something together by merging various pieces of stock art. (In my defense, there is no stock art available that says “Gothic Western science fiction police procedural.”)

But now than...

Arise, Arise!

The first of my historical novels, To Glory Arise, is now available as an audio book from Audible, narrated by Bronson Pinchot.

And speaking of audio books, The Praxis, The Sundering, and Conventions of War are now available in their new, revised editions, narrated by the fantastic Stefan Rudnicki. Go forth and give your ears a treat.

Goalworthy

The Shaper of Worlds Kickstarter is within a few hundred bucks of making its goal.

There are still three spaces left in my kaffeeklatsch, and each will set you back a mere $400 CDN. (None of the money goes to me, it goes to publishing costs and to the authors— oh wait, I guess I am an author, so I’ll make a few pennies on the deal.)

Writers writing, and in my case talking. Check it out.

Return to Portales

I will be the guest of honor at the 45th Jack Williamson Lectureship, April 7-9, in lovely and hospitable Portales, NM. Connie Willis will be the toastmaster, and I assume the usual assortment of New Mexico writers and fans will be present, along with representatives of the Williamson family.

It occurs to me that I was present at the very first iteration of this event, which must have been— gulp— 45 years ago. Jack kindly invited us to his house for drinks, a generous gesture in what w...

Sharing

Mary Anne Mohanraj leads a discussion of writing for shared worlds. Besides myself, there’s fellow Wild Cards writers David Levine (and Mary Anne), and Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman (and Mary Anne) of Tremontaine.

This panel was recorded Saturday afternoon at ICFA, and the amusing thing was that though we were all present at the conference, we were broadcasting from our separate hotel rooms.

ICFA

I’m off to the International Conference of the Fantastic in the Arts. Which is held in Florida, where people demand the freedom to infect their friends, co-workers, and family with a deadly virus, but aren’t allowed to say the word “gay.”

I’ve got a single panel on Friday, on “the business of writing,” which I guess I know about. There’s a signing somewhere, but I don’t have a time yet. The rest of the time I’ll be hanging out and talking to people, so come and talk.

My Kind of Stamp

Ukrposhta, the Ukrainian post office, will release a new stamp based on the iconic moment when the border guards on Snake Island transmitted, “Russian warship, go fuck yourself!” The design, by artist Boris Groh, won a contest over nineteen other entries.

I hope that we’ll be able to buy these stamps once they are available. It’s a way to get money to Ukraine.