Kyell Gold's Blog, page 29

Coming Back From RainFurrest

RainFurrest was, as always, a terrific time. The weather did not cooperate as much this year as it has in years past, but indoors, everything seemed to go pretty well (apart from one offsite unfortunate event that happened to a friend of mine, but that’s not the con’s fault).

I’m on my way back to the Bay today, driving through rainstorms with a motley crew, so replies to notes and e-mails and whatnot will likely come later on in the week as I get caught up. But I wanted to highlight a couple cool things from the weekend.

First off, thanks to the RainFurrest staff for all the work they did to put on a good con, and especially the writing track leads, Hunter and Sterling. I think the writing track this year was the best I’ve seen. I enjoyed all my panels and they were a lot of different discussions than the instructional panels I often do at conventions. I talked about historical fiction, young adult fiction, and editing anthologies, among other things. Sterling and I geeked out about Russian history, which was awesome, and I got to do an Unsheathed with none of my original team but me–but B-Hop filled in as engineer and guest, and Not Tube made a fine co-host, and the podcast went off very well, I thought. We even continued our tradition of getting art for it.

Second, thanks to all who came to the panels and came by the table to buy books. Sofawolf sold out of Ryan Campbell’s new book, “God of Clay,” and the OOP books sold very well. Rukis provided me an early look at the cover for “Red Devil,” the sequel to “Green Fairy” which is coming in January, and I had it out at the table for people to see. Lots of people said nice things about “Green Fairy,” which made me very happy, and I am hopeful that all you guys will like “Red Devil” as well when it comes out.

Oh, and RainFurrest has invited me to attend next year’s convention as the Writing Guest of Honor, and I’ve accepted. I’ll be working with the convention and with the Artist GOH, Egypt Urnash, to put on a terrific convention for you guys in 2014. The theme is cyberpunk, which I’m pretty excited about for reasons that will hopefully become clear as the year goes on…so start making your plans now to come to Seattle in late September 2014, and I’ll see you there!

At Rainfurrest!

E-mail and FA responses will be slow until about Wednesday. But if you are also here in Seattle, you can come see me this afternoon at 4 and 5 at my panels! Check the RF schedule for location because I haven’t actually registered yet and I don’t know where they are. Writing track rooms, I’m gonna guess, since they’re writing track panels.

Audiobook Updates!

I have submitted Bridges and Isolation Play for review, so barring any technical problems, they should be up for sale in about three weeks.

Savrin is diving right into Divisions, and would like to have book 4 done so that it’s for sale around the time of the release next summer.

Waterways is still being worked on. I don’t know what it is about that book, but this is the third time I have tried to get an audio narrative done of it and I feel like it’s going to be my Don Quixote or something. Well, who knows? But I’m happy with the books that are out, and looking forward to the ones still to come.

RainFurrest: My Schedule

I’ll be at RainFurrest this weekend, at the Seattle/Tacoma Airport Hilton. I’m arriving sometime Thursday by car and will be diving immediately into panels. Friday morning I’ll be helping open the Sofawolf table and will be behind it when I’m not at panels, usually.

Thursday

3p – 4p: Children’s, Young Adult, and Adult Writing. I’m going to assume that on the strength of “Green Fairy” and “Waterways,” I’m meant to cover the “Young Adult” portion of this panel, between Mary Lowd and Fuzzwolf (author of such beloved children’s classics as “What Is That Wolf Doing To That Fox?” and “Jake Has Two Daddies Who Pretend To Be Animal People”).

4p – 5p: Reading and Q&A With Kyell Gold. Come listen to me read from an unreleased story! I’ve got a segment of the upcoming “Red Devil,” the upcoming “The Mysterious Affair of Giles,” and probably one or two more. You vote on what you want me to read! Then ask questions about upcoming books, past books, or whatever you like.

Friday

4p-6p: Sofawolf Book Launch. I’ll be in attendance as we welcome Ryan Campbell’s first novel, “God of Clay.” There’s sure to be snacks, and you can bother the author with copies of the book you bought at the Sofawolf table earlier that day!

7p-9p: Tell Me A Tale: Live Flash Fiction With Reading. I assume that Ianus, Hunter, and I will be writing flash fictions. And then reading them live. (I have just verified this by looking at the panel descriptions.) So come make me write something fun! If you suggest something lame then we will kick you out. I have just decided that we have the power to do that.

10p – Midnight: Unsheathed. Our popular podcast lives again! I will not have K.M. Hirosaki, sadly, but Ryan Campbell will be joining me to talk about his book, and if past podcasts are any indication, we may be joined by yet another special guest.

Saturday

6p-7p: Modifying and Retelling Historical Fiction. I’m not sure whether “Camouflage” and “Green Fairy” count for this, but apparently we are supposed to talk about our favorite examples of historical fiction, so that should be fun. I always come away from these kinds of panels with a To Be Read list.

Sunday

11-Noon: And Suddenly…You’re Popular! Me and Fuzzwolf and Phil Geusz talk about the pleasures and pitfalls of popularity.

4p-5p: Finding and Forming a Writing Group. Well, I have no idea what this is going to be about.

It promises to be a fun weekend! Come to some or all of my panels and come say hi at the Sofawolf table. As usual, I prefer you come get signatures at the Sofawolf table rather than at panels, but if I have a little time after a panel and you haven’t been able to get to the dealer’s room, I’ll happily sign things.

On Reviews And Things

Whenever I log into Goodreads, I see a long list of people who are following my reviews. This makes me feel a little guilty, because the number of reviews I have posted on Goodreads right now stands at a nice round zero. This isn’t because I don’t read books; on the contrary, though I don’t read as much as I’d like, I still read probably a dozen books and many short stories in a year.

The problem is that in the furry community, and to a lesser extent in the SF community, I know or could run into the authors of the books I read. And–I want to stress that this is my personal feeling, not something other people should necessarily worry about; I like reading reviews of my books–I get too worried trying to write a review of a book and then thinking about the person reading it if I don’t know them, let alone if I do, that it just becomes easier not to do it. Besides which, I’ve already encountered drama between people I know over star ratings, and I just don’t want to have to deal with that.

I make a few exceptions, like for Rukis’s “Heretic,” when it’s a book I thoroughly enjoyed and suspect that many people might not know about or give a chance. In Rukis’s case, though Red Lantern proves her story chops, a lot of people might be reluctant to pick up a book of prose; I wanted to tell them they should absolutely give it a shot. When I have a purpose to the review, like that, then it’s a lot easier to convince myself to do it.

And I absolutely do go to sites like Amazon and iTunes and leave ratings (not under this name) for books I like. This is one of the best things you can do for an author right now: those sites work off customer reviews, not only for people browsing the books, but also in figuring how often books are returned in search results, etc.

But in general, yeah, I am not going to be reviewing a lot. Sorry about that. If you run into me in person, you can ask me what I thought of a book and if I’ve read it, I’ll be happy to talk about it.

PornCampWest Recap

The Circlet Press Retreat, dubbed “Porn Camp West” for hashtag purposes, went from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, and as I’d never been to one and only knew Cecilia Tan (the founder and owner of Circlet), I wasn’t sure what to expect. I trusted Cecilia to put on a good event, though, and I wasn’t disappointed.

One of the interesting things about writing what I do is that I move in a variety of fandoms. Generally, when I’m hanging out with furry writers, I am comfortable discussing adult material, though I sometimes feel like the pornographer in the room (though most of the writers I know have at least dabbled in adult and are perfectly happy to read mine). Hanging out with more traditional F/SF writers, I tend to be less forthcoming about the adult and/or furry nature of my stories, depending on the people. At this gathering of adult writers, I was comfortable talking about the porn, and was surprised to find that everyone was pretty open to furry stories as well. In fact, a couple of the attendees confessed that they’d read “Out of Position,” which continues my startling year of randomly running into non-furries who’ve read my books.

Anyway. We talked about writing sex scenes, of course, but a large part of the retreat focused just on writing good fiction(*), marketing your fiction, and connecting with other authors and readers. Each of us was invited to give a ten-minute “TED Talk” style presentation, so I spoke on “Owning Your Weirdness,” relating my journey from “Oh god is anyone going to buy/like ‘Volle’” to, well, sitting in a non-furry writing group discussing my furry books.

* I seem to recall that at the first “Adult Fiction” panel I did, with K.M. Hirosaki at Furry Fiesta 2009, we said, “How do you write a good erotic story? Write a good story and have sex in it.” Still holds true.

I met many cool people, got to see some readings (we went to Writers With Drinks), and was semi-foxnapped to go on a bookstore run after the retreat ended yesterday. I am constantly surprised at how many awesome people live in the Bay Area, and I’ve just met more, so yay.

If you write sexy stories, check out Circlet’s calls for submissions. If you like sex in your SF/Fantasy, check out their catalog. Specifically, if you are kinky (I know that many of my fans are, even though my sex is usually fairly vanilla), they have a lot of great kinky material you should check out.

Upcoming Fox Activities

This weekend is going to be pretty cool: I’m going on an author retreat hosted by Circlet Press, which I got invited to because I sold them a story a couple years back. I met their editor-in-chief at WorldCon last year and we had some good chats; she remembered my story, which was really flattering, and I am really impressed by what she’s done. If you’re not familiar with Circlet, they are a F&SF erotica press founded twenty years ago because nobody then was publishing F&SF erotica. They do a lot of cool stuff and I’m looking forward to spending a couple days with some of their other authors.

Right now I am working on the edits to “Red Devil” with the hope that I can get those out of the way before RainFurrest. This week has been busy on a lot of other things, but next week looks (fingers crossed) relatively free. If I can finish up the edits, the book should be good for FC release (yay!).

(By the way, I might have four books coming out next year again, you guys. Just a heads-up.)

And RainFurrest is coming up! If you’re going, you should arrive Thursday afternoon so that you can attend my reading. I might read from the above-mentioned “Red Devil,” or maybe I’ll read from an upcoming Cupcake–or maybe both. I’ll also be on a few other panels, like an Unsheathed podcast Saturday night (sadly without my co-host, but I’ll have some other guests to talk to so it’s not just me yapping). When I’m not at panels, I’ll be at the Sofawolf table Friday through Sunday.

And beyond: I have registered for Bent-Con in L.A., November 8-10, so if you’re in the SoCal area and want to check out a big gay convention, come on by! We will be trying to show off the gay side of furry (which is a pretty big one and one that I’m heavily involved in, so, y’know, perfect for me).

After that hopefully I will be done with conventions for the year. I’m giving MFF a miss this year again just because I am still paying off debt from all the traveling over the summer and I am planning to be doing a lot of work this fall on OOP4 and 5.

So that’s what’s up with this fox!

 

Why You Should Buy A Supporting WorldCon Membership

So after that long journal entry I wrote, why should you pay $40-50 to get a supporting membership (non-attending) to WorldCon?

Well, it depends. I’m guessing this applies more to my fans than to furries in general, because you guys at least have read a furry book. But if you’re interested in reading and in science fiction in general, you should consider dropping $40-50 a year on a supporting WorldCon membership, and here’s why:

It entitles you to vote in the Hugos.

In recent years, Hugo voters have received an electronic packet of all nominated materials, including all the fiction, all the graphic novels, examples of works edited by the various editors…things that if you were to buy them retail would easily cost you over $100, maybe $200. Some of the things aren’t easily available–stories published in Asimov’s and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF for short) aren’t generally put online, although they will do that for Hugo nominees. But this year, you would have gotten Kim Stanley Robinson’s “2312,” John Scalzi’s “Redshirts,” Saladin Ahmed’s “Throne of the Crescent Moon,” Lois McMaster Bujold’s “Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance,” and Mira Grant’s “Blackout.” You would have gotten thirteen great short fiction stories, and Grandville: Bete Noire, and Saga vol. 1, and Locke and Key, and Schlock Mercenary, and Saucer Country. You’d have gotten the anthologies “Armored” and “Edge of Infinity,” and an issue of Asimov’s, one of Analog, one of Clarkesworld.

And–here’s the important part–you would have gotten to vote on which one you thought was best. Not only that, but before the packet was even sent out, you would be allowed to nominate works you liked.

I’ve talked before about the Ursa Majors and how important it is that we vote and recognize our creators. Well, if you want to be part of the science fiction community, you should at least be reading what’s out there. I’ve talked before about the free online magazines: Clarkesworld, Apex, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons. Those cost you nothing to go browse. And when you read them and come across stories you like, it’s important that here, too, you vote for them and get them recognition.

And as we in the fandom start producing more professional-grade content, which is already happening in graphic novels (Digger actually won the Hugo for Graphic Story), this is one way to make people aware of that. Fandom authors are starting to be published in F/SF professional venues, and the very small sliver of overlap between the F/SF fandom and the furry fandom is growing. On previous posts, the point was raised that the F/SF community wants to distance itself from furry stuff, and that may have been true in the past. I’m seeing it less now. There’s a movement in F/SF to include more and more diversity, and the younger fans are embracing the label “speculative fiction.” Yes, there are still people who will turn up their noses and sniff, “but why do they have dog heads?” Those people will always be there. If we don’t reach out with the really good stuff we have to offer–and we do have great stuff in this fandom, so much that I’m not familiar with it all and am not going to list anything for fear of offending the people I’m leaving out–then we will never reach the people who are open to furry fiction.

I know there are people out there who just like furry fiction and not F/SF, and that’s cool. This isn’t directed at you. But if you did grow up on science fiction and fantasy, like me, consider dropping a bit of money and seeing what you get from the Hugo packet and if voting makes you invested in it. I got to read a couple books and a bunch of stories I wouldn’t have been able to if I hadn’t voted, and I liked them a lot. Also I want to talk about them with people.

So yeah. If you like F/SF and you want to be part of the process, consider a supporting membership to LonCon. (And UKFurs, let’s have a get-together during LonCon even if you won’t have an attending membership!)

iBooks Still Reviewing Divisions and Winter Games

FYI, those who are waiting, I sent the iBooks people an e-mail and they wrote back saying that the books are still in review (it’s been five weeks now) and they don’t have a timeline for when they’ll be posted.

If you would like an ePub, I’d suggest you go to baddogbooks.com and buy the ePubs and then upload them to your iBooks app. Sorry it’s taking so long, but there’s nothing I can do at this point.

Fandom Observations

Ursula Vernon wrote about the age problem in SF fandom on her journal, and I had a couple followup observations/thoughts/somethings.

Furry fandom, as she noted, is extremely young. Whenever I go to a furry con, I feel like a greymuzzle (wherever you set that boundary)–not that that’s a bad thing. I mean, I’ve been in the fandom twenty years. I should feel like a greymuzzle. But I want to be the kind who says, “Hey, kids, this is what I love about the fandom! You love it too? Come on over and let’s talk about stuff! What are your favorite things?” (I think I am. I admit to being a little baffled over the whole Pony thing, but I’m just delighted to see so many people so enthusiastic about something.)

In SF fandom, I feel like a young radical. I mean, I’m white and male, yeah, but also gay, so I have some minority cred, but even beyond that, I’m furry. I am a fan of this whole genre of books that should have a place in SF fandom because it is imaginative, speculative fiction. Ditto manga (there was NO manga for sale in the dealer’s room at LoneStarCon), ditto YA spec-fic, ditto graphic novels, and so on and so forth.

More than one person responded to my announcement that I’d be at WorldCon with “What’s WorldCon?” These are furry fans of mine who presumably like books (I have had the occasional fan who says “I haven’t read any of your stuff yet,” but I’m considering those as outliers) and yet have no idea that there is a convention every year where an award is given for the most popular SF book/story/novella/etc.

I’m not saying that furries should be going to WorldCon(*). But young fans of good SF should be going, and there are some of those in the furry fandom. I know. I talk to them.

*Problems: WorldCon is expensive. $170 for a membership, and it’s in a different city every year. WorldCon 2014 is in London, and it ends two days before EuroFurence (in Berlin) begins, so a couple of us are thinking about a WorldCon-EF combined trip. But WorldCon 2015 is in Spokane, a month and a half before RainFurrest in Seattle. Unless you live in the Northwest, you probably aren’t going to make two trips to that region in two months for a con. So if you’re a furry, which one are you going to pick?

Many people cited DragonCon on Labor Day weekend as a factor in WorldCon’s decline. “That’s where all the young people go,” I heard. I’m not sure that’s true. I mean, WorldCon was never a 50,000-strong convention. I don’t think it wants to be. They don’t necessarily want people who are just interested in costuming, or just interested in gaming. What they want are younger people who are interested in those things and also books. Right now, books are a secondary interest for most people outside the SF fandom, and I’m not sure how you fix that. Do you set up lots of costuming and gaming and attract a bunch of people who don’t really read, just to get your attendance up? What happens to the Hugos then?

In a podcast I was on this weekend, we talked about that, about how there are kids who love Dr. Who and the Star Trek movies and all kinds of SF media, and it feels like nobody is telling these kids that there are millions more stories like those in books. The kid who watches Dr. Who with her friends, the Game of Thrones devotees, the teens standing in line to get tickets to J.J. Abrams’ new Star Wars movie–these are the kids we want coming to WorldCon to discover more and more stories. And WorldCon does not seem interested in figuring out how to make that happen.

I think they might be looking at Comic-Con, which has blown out its attendance numbers, but many say has sacrificed its core audience on the altar of big media. Many of the Webcomics people we hang out near at that con have complained that they can’t make money anymore, that kids show up and only want to go to the media panels and media booths, and that it’s so expensive that by the time they get their membership and hotel, they don’t have money to spend on books.

Books were very out of fashion at the end of the millenium. They have been coming back thanks to audio and e-books, but they are still far behind movies and TV in cultural awareness. WorldCon, and the SF literary fandom, are all about books, and they are one of the few places where books are still supreme. I think the WorldCon old guard worry about becoming irrelevant at their own convention. I would like to tell them that the path they are on is only delaying that outcome, not changing it.

The way to continue to be relevant is to reach out to the younger generation. There are people out there under thirty who love books, and you need to find them and share your love with them. Bring them to your party, show them how much fun it can be, and let them enjoy it as much as you can. And–here is the tricky part, because I think most people would be fine talking to kids who love exactly what they do–listen to them. Love what they love, or at least understand it and acknowledge what they love about it. When you were their age, you wanted to fly a rocket ship. Cool. They now want to visit the land of Fae, or wear lots of leather and brass, or be a fox-person, or play a Star Wars tabletop RPG. We’re all outside the norm, and we should be celebrating what we have in common. Go to one of their games and try playing it, and tell the players about old space opera. Compliment someone’s costume and ask them what inspired it. Talk to furries about Cordwainer Smith and C.J. Cherryh. Share ideas, share love; that’s what fandom is all about. Then, in a decade, when these kids want to take over running one of your conventions, you will be appreciated and welcome.

If you persist in excluding them, then at some point in the future, someone will take over your con when there aren’t enough of you to win a fight, and they will be someone who doesn’t know you and doesn’t care about you, and you’ll lose your convention anyway.

Coming up: why furries should buy supporting memberships in WorldCons.