Event List – May 2016
I have so many things coming up in the next few months, so I thought I’d give you all a quick list. If you want to know more about anything or want to point me in a particular direction at any individual event, please leave a comment!
Book Expo America – May 11-13
BEA is the primary tradeshow for publishing in North America. This year it is taking place in Chicago and I am so excited. My bookstore doesn’t usually send anyone to BEA or SIBA (Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance,) but I have friends I wanted to visit anyway, so I’m going. It will be my first trip to BEA and I am beyond excited.
SFWA Nebula Conference – May 12-15
Oh, look what just happens to be in Chicago at the same time as BEA? It’s the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America annual conference. Oh, well, if I must go where some of the top people working in the field I love are, I suppose I can. It will be difficult, but I will soldier on. Grimly. (The grim part is mostly so I don’t squee at everyone in a never-ending stream of enthusiasm. It’s really not polite.) I won’t be going to the actual Nebula Awards dinner, but I do have a membership for the rest of the conference and it will be lovely!
ConCarolinas – June 3 – 5
This is a small convention in North Carolina. The guest list has some folks I’d like to see; Ursula Vernon & Chelsea Quinn Yarbro to be precise. It’s also close enough for my best friend to meet me there, which is always a good reason to go to an event. I’ve applied to the art show, but I haven’t heard back yet, but it should be a good time either way.
Magic City Con – June 10 – 12
This con is in my own backyard, so of course I have to go! I’m actually vending at this event, so I’ll be there in a slightly more professional capacity than sometimes. There is a very strong Bioware fan presence at this convention, which is awesome since I know several of the folks from the DragonAge costume photo shoots from DragonCon. I’ll have to remember to stop chatting long enough to work my booth. I missed MCC last year because I was in Iceland, so this will be a new experience for me.
LibertyCon – June 8-10
LibertyCon is part of my regular rotation right now. I’ve gone for the past two years and exhibited in the art show. There is quite a bit of crossover between LibertyCon and JordanCon attendees, so I’ve got lots of friends there now. The author guest of honor is Jonathan Maberry, and we all know how fond I am of him. Melissa Gay is the special guest and she’s possibly the nicest person in the convention art circuit. Todd Lockwood is the artist guest of honor. I met him at JordanCon last year and he is as nice as he is skilled.
DragonCon – September 2 – 5
I’ve gone to DragonCon for a very long time at this point. It’s something I schedule for the day I get home from the previous year’s DragonCon. I meet up with some of my friends that I don’t see very often, wear outrageous costumes, take hundreds of photos, and go see amazing panels. As of last year, I’m also helping out with the Vintage Vogue Fashion Show.
This is a fantastic event on Friday at DC that highlights historical costuming. If you enjoy costuming and are coming to DragonCon, we should talk!
So, that’s what I’ve got coming up. What events are you looking forward to in the rest of the year?
Over Your Dead Body
Today is the day!
The best day.
The day I have been waiting for for… a really, really long time.
Today, Over Your Dead Body by Dan Wells comes out!
But Sara, why is that so special?
Well, reader, let me tell you…
#1. Over Your Dead Body is book 5 in the John Wayne Cleaver series; the series we thought we would only ever have three of. And yet, there is a book 5 now.
#2. After the last JWC book (The Devil’s Only Friend) I really, really, really needed to know what happened next. (I do, in fact, know already. Because I got an ARC and read it. But YOU couldn’t read it until today and (for once) I didn’t want to be smug about that.)
Brandon Sanderson is NOT in the book with me. Probably. As far as you know… ^.^
#3. I’m in it. Like, as a character. Me, myself, with my actual name.
“Wow,” you might be thinking to yourself. “Dan Wells must really like you to put you in his book!”
Well, actually, no. I mean, as far as I know, he likes me just fine. I did make him a maple bacon pecan pie that one time. And got him carrot cake that other time. (I buy affection with food.) But he didn’t put me in the book out of some sort of carbohydrate induced stupor. I bought what’s known as a Tuckerization.
These are usually sold as part of a fundraiser and basically gets you a small cameo in an author’s forthcoming story.
So, I’m special, but mostly because I jumped on a charity item he had listed before someone else could get it. Still gonna ride this one into the ground.
And yes, I have been using that as a selling point when recommending the series to customers in the store. “You should buy this because I’m in book 5!”
It’s surprising how often it works. Either the customers like me or they’re hoping something really bad happens to me since it is a horror series…
So, you should go buy it now if you haven’t already.
Here, let me give you some options for that:
Macmillan’s Website
Audible if you’d like to listen to it
Amazon, if that’s your thingPowell’s if you like to shop indie
Or you can call the store I work at (205-870-7461) and I’ll send you one and sign it for you if you want me to. I don’t know why you’d want that, but if you do, I am here for you. And your credit card. ^.^
PopSugar Reading Challenge
It’s May now, so we’re going to do a quick check in on how I’m doing on the PopSugar Reading Challenge.
A book based on a fairytale
Of Mice & Magic by Ursula Vernon
A National Book Award Winner
A YA bestseller
A book you haven’t read since high school
A book set in your home state
A book translated into English
A romance set in the future
A book set in Europe
Dying in the Wool by Frances Brody
A book under 150 pages
Spiderwick #1: The Field Guide by Tony DiTerlizzi & Holly Black
A NYT bestseller
The Devil’s Only Friend by Dan Wells
A book becoming a movie this year
A book recommended by someone you just met
A self-improvement book
A book you can finish in one day
I Am Princes X by Cherie Priest
A book written by a celebrity
A political memoir
A book at least 100 yars older than you
A book more than 600 pages
A book from Oprah’s book club
A sci-fi novel
A book recommended by a family member
Tomorrow the Killing by Daniel Polansky
A graphic novel
Around the World by Matt Phelan
A book published in 2016
Chaos Choreography by Seanan McGuire
A book with a protagonist with your profession
Crime and Poetry by Amanda Flower 
A book that takes place in the summer
Murder on a Midsummer’s Night by Kerry Greenwood
A book AND it’s prequel
A murder mystery
The Vicious Vet by M.C. Beaton
A book written by a comedian
A dystopian novel
A book with a blue cover
Stina by Lani Yamamoto
A book of poetry
Bloodhoof by Gerdur Kristny
The first book you see in a bookstore
A 20th century classic
A book from the library
An autobiography
You’re Never Weird on the Internet by Felicia Day
A book about a road trip
A book about an unfamiliar culture
A satirical book
A book that takes place on an island
A book guaranteed to bring you joy
Dragonbreath #11: The Frozen Menace by Ursula Vernon
So, I’m doing pretty well, but I need to be a little more conscientious about picking books that will work for the challenge. So, if anyone would like to make recommendations, feel free!
May Giveaway – Middle Grade Superpack
I hope everyone enjoyed the Poetry Month posts. I had fun picking them all out. May doesn’t have any month long celebrations that I feel quite as passionately about, but it is National Photograph Month. So, I’ll try to add a photo to every post this month just for fun.
Tomorrow also starts the 2016 Children’s Book Week, which I am very excited about. In honor of that, our May Giveaway will be a set of 5 middle grade books including: Hamster Princess 1 & 2 by Ursula Vernon, Monstrous by MarcyKate Connolly, Pugs of the Frozen North by Philip Reeve & Sarah McIntyre, and Little Robot by Ben Hatke.
The giveaway will run from tonight until May 14.
Click here to enter.
NPM #30 – The Thought Fox
I imagine this midnight moment’s forest:
Something else is alive
Besides the clock’s loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.
Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:
Cold, delicately as the dark snow,
A fox’s nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now
Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come
Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business
Till, with sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The windowis starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.
-Ted Hughes
NPM #29 – Funeral Blues
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
-W.H. Auden
I heard this poem for the first time in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral and I’ve never forgotten it.
NPM #28 – [Buffalo Bill ‘s]
Buffalo Bill ’s
NPM #27 – Painting by Moonlight
It was a bright inviting, freely formed,
though I suppose it was I who brightened,
with an internal scattering of light,
as though weather maps were more real
than the breath of autumn.
The low colourfulness
of the broken and dying leaves
was no embrittlement
to every decided colour on the sunlighted grass
and the warm-hued wood of his door.
But with the dust descending
in the glaring white gap
my backbone pulped and I closed up
like a concertina.
His tongue was hushed as Christ’s lips
or once-red grapes permitting
each touch to spread only
when the turn of the violet comes.
–Medbh McGuckian
NPM #26 – Mad Girl’s Love Song
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead,
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head)
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary darkness gallops in.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head).
God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and enter Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I fancied you’d return the way you said.
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head).
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head).
-Sylvia Plath
NPM #25 – Ulysses
Medusa's Library 