#worldcon schedule

[reachingforthevoid]

Worldcon 2024 starts next week in Glasgow! The full programme was released today. Here is where you can find me, if you're going to be at the convention in-person.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The majority of censorship is self-censorship

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT in SAN DIEGO (Feb 22, Mysterious Galaxy). After that, it's LA (Saturday night, with Adam Conover), Seattle (Monday, with Neal Stephenson), then Portland, Phoenix and more!

I know a lot of polymaths, but Ada Palmer takes the cake: brilliant science fiction writer, brilliant historian, brilliant librettist, brilliant singer, and then some:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/10/monopoly-begets-monopoly/#terra-ignota

Palmer is a friend and a colleague. In 2018, she, Adrian Johns and I collaborated on "Censorship, Information Control, & Information Revolutions from Printing Press to Internet," a series of grad seminars at the U Chicago History department (where Ada is a tenured prof, specializing in the Inquisition and Renaissance forbidden knowledge):

https://ifk.uchicago.edu/research/faculty-fellow-projects/censorship-information-control-information-revolutions-from-printing-press/

The project had its origins in a party game that Ada and I used to play at SF conventions: Ada would describe a way that the Inquisitions' censors attacked the printing press, and I'd find an extremely parallel maneuver from governments, the entertainment industry or other entities from the much more recent history of internet censorship battles.

With the seminars, we took it to the next level. Each 3h long session featured a roster of speakers from many disciplines, explaining everything from how encryption works to how white nationalists who were radicalized in Vietnam formed an armored-car robbery gang to finance modems and Apple ][+s to link up neo-Nazis across the USA.

We borrowed the structure of these sessions from science fiction conventions, home to a very specific kind of panel that doesn't always work, but when it does, it's fantastic. It was a natural choice: after all, Ada and I know each other through science fiction.

Even if you're not an sf person, you've probably heard of the Hugo Awards, the most prestigious awards in the field, voted on each year by attendees of the annual World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon). And even if you're not an sf fan, you might have heard about a scandal involving the Hugo Awards, which were held last year in China, a first:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/science-fiction-authors-excluded-hugo-awards-china-rcna139134

A little background: each year's Worldcon is run by a committee of volunteers. These volunteers put together bids to host the Worldcon, and canvass Worldcon attendees to vote in favor of their bid. For many years, a group of Chinese fans attempted to field a successful bid to host a Worldcon, and, eventually, they won.

At the time, there were many concerns: about traveling to a country with a poor human rights record and a reputation for censorship, and about the logistics of customary Worldcon attendees getting visas. During this debate, many international fans pointed to the poor human rights record in the USA (which has hosted the vast majority of Worldcons since their inception), and the absolute ghastly rigmarole the US government subjects many foreign visitors to when they seek visas to come to the US for conventions.

Whatever side of this debate you came down on, it couldn't be denied that the Chinese Worldcon rang a lot of alarm-bells. Communications were spotty, and then the con was unceremoniously rescheduled for months after the original scheduled date, without any good explanation. Rumors swirled of Chinese petty officials muscling their way into the con's administration.

But the real alarm bells started clanging after the Hugo Award ceremony. Normally, after the Hugos are given out, attendees are given paper handouts tallying the nominations and votes, and those numbers are also simultaneously published online. Technically, the Hugo committee has a grace period of some weeks before this data must be published, but at every Worldcon I've attended over the past 30+ years, I left the Hugos with a data-sheet in my hand.

Then, in early December, at the very last moment, the Hugo committee released its data – and all hell broke loose. Numerous, acclaimed works had been unilaterally "disqualified" from the ballot. Many of these were written by writers from the Chinese diaspora, but some works – like an episode of Neil Gaiman's Sandman – were seemingly unconnected to any national considerations.

Readers and writers erupted in outrage, demanding to know what had happened. The Hugo administrators – Americans and Canadians who'd volunteered in those roles for many years and were widely viewed as being members in good standing of the community – were either silent or responded with rude and insulting remarks. One thing they didn't do was explain themselves.

The absence of facts left a void that rumors and speculation rushed in to fill. Stories of Chinese official censorship swirled online, and along with them, a kind of I-told-you-so: China should never have been home to a Worldcon, the country's authoritarian national politics are fundamentally incompatible with a literary festival.

As the outrage mounted and the scandal breached from the confines of science fiction fans and writers to the wider world, more details kept emerging. A damning set of internal leaks revealed that it was those long-serving American and Canadian volunteers who decided to censor the ballot. They did so out of a vague sense that the Chinese state would visit some unspecified sanction on the con if politically unpalatable works appeared on the Hugo ballot. Incredibly, they even compiled clumsy dossiers on nominees, disqualifying one nominee out of a mistaken belief that he had once visited Tibet (it was actually Nepal).

There's no evidence that the Chinese state asked these people to do this. Likewise, it wasn't pressure from the Chinese state that caused them to throw out hundreds of ballots cast by Chinese fans, whom they believed were voting for a "slate" of works (it's not clear if this is the case, but slate voting is permitted under Hugo rules).

All this has raised many questions about the future of the Hugo Awards, and the status of the awards that were given in China. There's widespread concern that Chinese fans involved with the con may face state retaliation due to the negative press that these shenanigans stirred up.

But there's also a lot of questions about censorship, and the nature of both state and private censorship, and the relationship between the two. These are questions that Ada is extremely well-poised to answer; indeed, they're the subject of her book-in-progress, entitled Why We Censor: from the Inquisition to the Internet.

In a magisterial essay for Reactor, Palmer stakes out her central thesis: "The majority of censorship is self-censorship, but the majority of self-censorship is intentionally cultivated by an outside power":

https://reactormag.com/tools-for-thinking-about-censorship/

States – even very powerful states – that wish to censor lack the resources to accomplish totalizing censorship of the sort depicted in Nineteen Eighty-Four. They can't go from house to house, searching every nook and cranny for copies of forbidden literature. The only way to kill an idea is to stop people from expressing it in the first place. Convincing people to censor themselves is, "dollar for dollar and man-hour for man-hour, much cheaper and more impactful than anything else a censorious regime can do."

Ada invokes examples modern and ancient, including from her own area of specialty, the Inquisition and its treatment of Gailileo. The Inquistions didn't set out to silence Galileo. If that had been its objective, it could have just assassinated him. This was cheap, easy and reliable! Instead, the Inquisition persecuted Galileo, in a very high-profile manner, making him and his ideas far more famous.

But this isn't some early example of Inquisitorial Streisand Effect. The point of persecuting Galileo was to convince Descartes to self-censor, which he did. He took his manuscript back from the publisher and cut the sections the Inquisition was likely to find offensive. It wasn't just Descartes: "thousands of other major thinkers of the time wrote differently, spoke differently, chose different projects, and passed different ideas on to the next century because they self-censored after the Galileo trial."

This is direct self-censorship, where people are frightened into silencing themselves. But there's another form of censorship, which Ada calls "middlemen censorship." That's when someone other than the government censors a work because they fear what the government would do if they didn't. Think of Scholastic's cowardly decision to pull inclusive, LGBTQ books out of its book fair selections even though no one had ordered them to do so:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/06/books/scholastic-book-racism-maggie-tokuda-hall.html

This is a form of censorship outsourcing, and it "multiplies the manpower of a censorship system by the number of individuals within its power." The censoring body doesn't need to hire people to search everyone's houses for offensive books – it can frighten editors, publishers, distributors, booksellers and librarians into suppressing the books in the first place.

This outsourcing blurs the line between state and private surveillance. Think about comics. After a series of high-profile Congressional hearings about the supposed danger of comics to impressionable young minds, the comics industry undertook a regime of self-censorship, through which the private Comics Code Authority would vet comings for "dangerous" content before allowing its seal of approval to appear on the comics' covers. Distributors and retailers refused to carry books without a CCA stamp, so publishers refused to publish books unless they could get a CCA stamp.

The CCA was unaccountable, capricious – and racist. By the 60s and 70s, it became clear that comic about Black characters were subjected to much tighter scrutiny than comics featuring white heroes. The CCA would reject "a drop of sweat on the forehead of a Black astronaut as 'too graphic' since it 'could be mistaken for blood.'" Every comic that got sent back by the CCA meant long, brutal reworkings by writers and illustrators to get them past the censors.

The US government never censored heroes like Black Panther, but the chain of events that created the CCA "middleman censors" made sure that Black Panther appeared in far fewer comics starring Marvel's most prominent Black character. An analysis of censorship that tries to draw a line between private and public censorship would say that the government played no role in Black Panther's banishment to obscurity – but without Congressional action, Black Panther would never have faced censorship.

This is why attempts to cleanly divide public and private censorship always break down. Many people will tell you that when Twitter or Facebook blocks content they disagree with, that's not censorship, since censorship is government action, and these are private actors. What they mean is that Twitter and Facebook censorship doesn't violate the First Amendment, but it's perfectly possible to infringe on free speech without violating the US Constitution. What's more, if the government fails to prevent monopolization of our speech forums – like social media – and also declines to offer its own public speech forums that are bound to respect the First Amendment, we can end up with government choices that produce an environment in which some ideas are suppressed wherever they might find an audience – all without violating the Constitution:

https://locusmag.com/2020/01/cory-doctorow-inaction-is-a-form-of-action/

The great censorious regimes of the past – the USSR, the Inquisition – left behind vast troves of bureaucratic records, and these records are full of complaints about the censors' lack of resources. They didn't have the manpower, the office space, the money or the power to erase the ideas they were ordered to suppress. As Ada notes, "In the period that Spain’s Inquisition was wildly out of Rome’s control, the Roman Inquisition even printed manuals to guide its Inquisitors on how to bluff their way through pretending they were on top of what Spain was doing!"

Censors have always done – and still do – their work not by wielding power, but by projecting it. Even the most powerful state actors are not powerful enough to truly censor, in the sense of confiscating every work expressing an idea and punishing everyone who creates such a work. Instead, when they rely on self-censorship, both by individuals and by intermediaries. When censors act to block one work and not another, or when they punish one transgressor while another is free to speak, it's tempting to think that they are following some arcane ruleset that defines when enforcement is strict and when it's weak. But the truth is, they censor erratically because they are too weak to censor comprehensively.

Spectacular acts of censorship and punishment are a performance, "to change the way people act and think." Censors "seek out actions that can cause the maximum number of people to notice and feel their presence, with a minimum of expense and manpower."

The censor can only succeed by convincing us to do their work for them. That's why drawing a line between state censorship and private censorship is such a misleading exercise. Censorship is, and always has been, a public-private partnership.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/22/self-censorship/#hugos

[charliejaneanders]

Here's my Worldcon schedule! I made the worst graphic in the history of graphics because I'm at the airport and waiting for a delayed flight! Come hang with me!

[clatterbane]

Welp, just to make that upcoming appointment situation more fun?

It's currently looking a lot like a last-minute reschedule.

Mr. C came home from that trip with another case of COVID, and I'm not feeling right either today. 🫠

He had no symptoms when he got back, so i'm guessing he probably picked it up at Worldcon. Today we both seem to be at a point of "is this 'just' pollen plus relatively hot weather, or am I actually starting to get sick?".

Some people he was hanging out and drinking with gave him a heads-up that they had since tested positive. He also has now. I am waiting until tomorrow to swab myself, but yeah there's a pretty low chance that I won't get that con souvenir too. I would need Known Sick Man to tag along as moral support and backup interpreter regardless.

Not too surprisingly, I DO NOT want to be That Asshole dragging possibly two knowingly sick people into the university ortho clinic.

Naturally, the appointment is also scheduled for like 8:15 Monday, so there's no way to do 24 hour advance notice either. Hopefully they won't act like jerks about rescheduling, though I do strongly suspect we'll get charged for the short notice.

[argentum-in-aqua]

So... I'm going to be on a couple of panels at #Glasgow2024 !

Specifically, I’m on Playing With Gender and Gender Expectations in SFF (Friday August 9th, 13:00 GMT+1, Alsh 1) and Magic as Art vs Magic as Science (Friday August 9th, 20:30 GMT+1, Dochart 1)

[moniquill]

My Schedule for Worldcon (remote)

https://guide.glasgow2024.org

Saturday

Indigenous Futurisms in Conversation

12:30 PM EST

Darcie Little Badger

E.G. Condé

Eva L. Elasigue (moderator)

Moniquill Blackgoose

If the future is indigenous, what forms might it take? How do indigenous writers draw from their diverse traditions, languages, myths, music, and art to challenge colonial storytelling? What concerns are shared across indigenous futurisms, and how do they diverge? This panel brings different imaginations of indigenous futures into conversation, emphasizing diversity while opening the possibility for building bridges between communities.

Everything We Love (a Little or a Lot) About Fanfiction

5:00 PM

Asher Rose Fox (moderator)

Emma French

Laura Anne Gilman

Lyda Morehouse

Moniquill Blackgoose

What do we love about fanfic? The ships! Alternate realities! Adult topics! Fix-it fic! X-reader! More adventures! Why does an original procedural have gay pirates as a main trope? And why did action-adventure sci-fi spawn the coffee shop AU? Do we just always want something else? Or ever more of a very good thing? Join this panel as we get our squee on.

Sunday

The Myth of the Wilderness

11:00AM

Dana L. Little

Laura Anne Gilman

Moniquill Blackgoose

Rogba Payne (moderator)

Writers often find inspiration outside the familiar, but access to other cultures by those from cultures of power brings with it issues of privilege, exploitation, and challenges from subaltern authors. This panel will discuss appropriation, how it works, and how to avoid it.

Appropriation Versus Inspiration

6:30PM

Dana L. Little

Laura Anne Gilman

Moniquill Blackgoose

Rogba Payne (moderator)

Writers often find inspiration outside the familiar, but access to other cultures by those from cultures of power brings with it issues of privilege, exploitation, and challenges from subaltern authors. This panel will discuss appropriation, how it works, and how to avoid it.

[kierongillen]

This week the Newletter that will become known as The Newsletter With No Name, where I talk about The Power Fantasy (mainly, how to order it off Comixology), my Schedules (Gencon and Worldcon) and more yabbe.

[catblackard]

THIS WEEKEND (Thursday Aug 8th - Sunday Aug 11th) the annual Worldcon (aka The World Science Fiction Convention) hits Glasgow, Scotland - but you don't have to be in Scotland to attend!

Omniverse will be there, represented by myself, @cthulhumystery and @gbresurrection's Doug Banks, and @mothershewrote's @cmdrjessie, along with Tess Tanenbaum who you'll meet in an upcoming Surprise RPG project. (Tess is in-person in Glasgow, while the rest of us appear online.)

We're all taking part in a number of panels about all sorts of things: JRPGs, food in anime, horror podcasts... but the big ticket Omniverse item is on Friday at 12:30pm EST / 17:30pm BST:

Surprise RPGs: Interactive Storytelling on the Bleeding Edge Or… How a Back to the Future RPG Changed My Life

Gathering around the table to tell stories is a powerful experience - powerful enough to fuel new innovations in storytelling and even therapy. Actual play pioneers Cat Blackard and Doug Banks (The Call of Cthulhu Mystery Program) take you down the rabbit hole of Surprise RPGs and "The Omniverse Method". Their experimental roleplay techniques pull players and audiences into the game like never before, opening hearts and minds and offering bold new storytelling opportunities that blur the lines between fiction and reality. They're joined by interactive narrative scholar and game designer Dr. Theresa Jean Tanenbaum and game master Jessica Mudd to share stories, findings, and advice for bringing your games to life.

We're discussing the methods of play we've developed for Surprise RPGs in a large public forum for the first time. This method began in concepts first tested in Ghostbusters: Resurrection and The Call of Cthulhu Mystery Program and came to fruition in K8 Was Here, The Extermination, City of Daemons, and our upcoming shows A Walk in the Park and Étude of the Storm.

There's more info on all the other panels we're a part of below!

You can get online (and in person) tickets to Worldcon here* and if you can't make them live, your ticket gets you access to video replays.

*Not gonna lie, Worldcon's sign up/ ticketing is obtuse and not user friendly at all, but if you read the above linked page and follow the directions therein, you'll manage. I believe in you. 

OUR PANEL SCHEDULE:

Thursday, August 8, 2024

Let Them Cook - Food in Anime - 08:00 EDT / 13:00 BST (In-Person and Online) 

Omniverse personnel: Jessica Mudd 

We've all wanted to take a bite out of a gorgeous piece of animated food: the hearty and comforting bacon and eggs of Howl's Moving Castle, the explosively flavorful wagyu of Food Wars, or even the dubious treasure bug sorbet of Dungeon Meshi. Come find out with us how anime can create connections between food, the audience, and cooking - but bring your own snacks!

Friday, August 9, 2024

Predicting the Shape of Things to Come  - 05:00 EDT / 10:00 BST (In-Person)

Omniverse personnel: Tess Tanenbaum

The panel discusses how ideas from the past – whether presented as science fiction or factual predictions – have stood the test of time. Which have come true, which were way off, and which are still future possibilities? And who proved better at predicting the future? Was it the scientists, mathematicians and engineers… or the science fiction writers?

Sci-Fi and Fantasy Musicals on Stage -  09:30 EDT/ 14:30 BST (In-Person)

Omniverse personnel: Tess Tanenbaum (moderator)

Return to the Forbidden Planet rocked our spaceship. The Rocky Horror Picture Show had us dancing the Timewarp. The Little Shop of Horrors, taught us botany and Young Frankenstein put on the Ritz. The panel will talk about the best and worst SF musicals, originals versus adaptions, and why we should have more of them.

Surprise RPGs: Interactive Storytelling on the Bleeding Edge Or… How a Back to the Future RPG Changed My Life - 12:30 EDT/ 17:30 BST (Online)

Omniverse personnel: Cat Blackard, Doug Banks, Jessica Mudd, Tess Tanenbaum (moderator)

Gathering around the table to tell stories is a powerful experience - powerful enough to fuel new innovations in storytelling and even therapy. Actual play pioneers Cat Blackard and Doug Banks (The Call of Cthulhu Mystery Program) take you down the rabbit hole of Surprise RPGs and The Omniverse Method. Their experimental roleplay techniques pull players and audiences into the game like never before, opening hearts and minds and offering bold new storytelling opportunities that blur the lines between fiction and reality. They're joined by interactive narrative scholar and game designer Dr. Theresa Jean Tanenbaum and game master Jessica Mudd to share stories, findings, and advice for bringing your games to life.

Saturday, August 10, 2024

The Return of the Witch to A Hostile World - 05:00 EDT/ 10:00 BST (In-person)

Omniverse personnel: Tess Tanenbaum

In recent years, fictional witchcraft has seen a large resurgence, both in online communities and in contemporary horror. How does this interact with the rise of real practitioners? Who are some of the great new witches of speculative fiction? What is it about the idea of witchcraft that appeals in these times of uncertainty, as queer/trans rights are being rolled back and abortion access denied?

Diversity in Tabletop RPGs - 08:00 EDT/ 13:00 BST (Online)*

Omniverse personnel: Cat Blackard (moderator)

Roleplaying games can provide players the opportunity to embody a diverse range of characters with different backgrounds, gender identities, sexualities, abilities, and more. Our panelists will discuss the importance of diversity in tabletop RPGs, introduce audiences to a wide variety of decolonizing and inclusive game systems, and look at how players can push beyond stereotypical representation.

*There are two versions of this panel, an online one and an in-person one, with different panelists. There is a chance that this one may be re-titled "LGBTQIA+ Representation in Tabletop RPGs"

The Immersive Possibilities of Horror Audio - 14:00 EDT/ 19:00 BST (Online)

Omniverse personnel: Cat Blackard

Eerie, unsettling, and spooky tales are a perfect fit for audio dramas. Our panelists converse on modern horror audio dramas, like The Lovecraft Investigations, The Magnus Archives, and Old Gods of Appalachia, and how they use clever sound design, ambient audio, and other audio techniques to immerse their audiences in the world of their stories.

 Sunday, August 11, 2024

Podcast Production: Audio Recording and Editing - 05:00 EDT/ 10:00 BST (Online)

Omniverse personnel:  Jessica Mudd, Cat Blackard (moderator)

How do you make sure your podcast audio is clean, professional, and appealing to the ears of your listeners? Join us for a deep dive into the audio recording and editing process, showcasing strategies for gracefully integrating music or sound effects into your podcast, integrating multiple audio files into a balanced and unified whole, improving the quality of sub-standard audio, and output formats appropriate to your unique circumstances.

Let's Kill and Dethrone God: the History of JRPGs - 08:00 EDT / 13:00 BST (Online and In-Person)

Omniverse personnel: Jessica Mudd, Cat Blackard (moderator)

Japanese Role Playing Games have developed relatively independently to their western counterpart, evolving their own unique tropes, mechanics, and worldbuilding staples. In this panel we will discuss what makes a JRPG, trace its history, and shed light on some hidden gems of the genre - it's not all just Final Fantasy!

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

How much are your tour tickes going to cost? And what is you schedule going to be?

Tickets are going to be $20 a piece, and I'll have four events that will each last about 1-3 hours:

A talk on my new book (about "the math of the human brain")

"Writing Frank," where I discuss how and why AI is written as it is

(And probably) some kind of event related to Good Omens, since there were several people who wanted me to sign books at Worldcon

The schedule isn't set in stone yet -- for instance, one idea I had was having an extended discussion with Francis Eppleman from Cave Story fame about game design, which would then lead into some sort of demo or playthrough session of Cave Story itself (since it'd seem like a good match). But everything else could easily happen in whatever order. If you want to come see any particular thing, definitely check back closer to the date; if something sounds cool but not super important to you, maybe don't worry too much. It might just be fun to show up!

(You can also join my mailing list by signing up at nostalgebraist dot com.)

[devilgate]

Finished reading: Nova Scotia Vol 2: New Speculative Fiction from Scotland, Edited by Neil Williamson and Andrew J Wilson 📚

If there’s a record for the longest gap between volumes of a series of collections, I think we all know that there’s only one real contender. Though to win it, JMS’s The Last Dangerous Visions will have to actually be released (which, at the time of writing, is scheduled to happen next month, amazingly).

Second on the list, though, might be Nova Scotia. The first volume was published in 2005, to more-or-less coincide with the second Glasgow Worldcon. Nineteen years later all is well, as Volume 2 is published to more-or-less coincide with this year’s Glasgow Worldcon.

And it is again, very good, and very varied. I’m not going to go through the stories, but it struck me that three of them concern someone being resurrected — woken from cryogenic stasis, or reconstructed from DNA and memories — in a future that might not be quite what they had expected or hoped for. A couple of others include bringing back extinct species, or sentient life coming to entities that are not (to the best of our knowledge) sentient at present.

I doubt the stories were chosen deliberately to have those connections. Rather, perhaps this is how our current end-of-the-world fears are playing out: in fantasies of technological afterlives. Not that such stories are particularly new, but maybe they’re particularly now.

Notable contributors: Ken McLeod, of course, Scotland’s premier living SF author. James Kelman, surprisingly: as one of Scotland’s best-known literary authors, it’s pleasing that he’d lower himself into our genre murk. Grant Morrison, Scotland’s best known comics writer, I imagine. And plenty others.

Books 2024, 18

[sarahbethdurst]

Worldcon 2024 Schedule

I'm off to Glasgow, Scotland, later this week for Worldcon (the World Science Fiction Convention)! Very excited!!! Here's my full schedule. Hope to see you there!

[hawkwinglb]

Glasgow Worldcon Schedule

I’m going to be at the Glasgow Worldcon next week, and I have my final schedule, at last. Friday, August 9, 2024 11:30. Ancient Cultures and Context From Claire North’s Ithaca to Vaishnavi Patel’s Kaikeyi, books set in or based on ancient civilizations are popular with readers and writers alike. But can writers borrow from ancient cultures without the ancient context? Do they inevitably place…

[darthjuno]

My Glasgow 2024 Schedule

The programme is out for Worldcon in Glasgow next week, and I’m thrilled to be on three panels throughout the course of the con. Here’s my schedule for those interested! Continue reading My Glasgow 2024 Schedule

[kellshaw]

Self-publishing - 2020 to 2022 in review

So it’s important to reflect and ponder, at least for the first few days of the new year!

In 2022, I became a self-published author, with one book. I started back in 2020, so this is like a two year recap/reflection.

The Dramatic Origin Story

It was 2020. I was re-writing the Epic Fantasy Novel (about five years in development) and got frustrated when I’d finished it and the structure was pudding. It was a bunch of novellas bolted together. COVID was everywhere, and I was trapped in my house. So I joined a year long writing, online course. It was in the UK, I’m in Australia, so lots of getting up at 4am to talk to people or waiting for the replays of courses rather than joining in them.

Anyway, one thing the course guys said was to focus on the bestselling subgenre in your genre. For me, this was urban fantasy rather than epic fantasy. Also, because the genre draws a lot from detective stories, I could do a complete story in one book! And the main character could have another adventure in the next book!

I also attended WorldCon 2020 in my bedroom. At the urban fantasy panel, a cool idea for a setting struck me—what if it was a world similar to ours with cars and technology but not our Earth? And what if the past was an epic fantasy setting? And in the modern age, what if people thought that their past was folklore? But magic was still there, if you knew where to look.

Projects

In 2020, I wrote the first novel in the setting. And got it finished, thanks to the online writing course. I had a draft, but it wasn’t ready for release. Lots of getting stuck in the middle, and figuring out to make the main relationship ‘work’ between the two characters. It’s not a romance–it’s more of a thriller, but that relationship needed to click or the main character’s motivations wouldn’t make sense.

So, as a side project, I wrote a novella featuring a side character from the novel, which became ‘Final Night’. I also wrote a short story per month for my mailing list and wrote all of my world building for the setting as a tabletop roleplaying game.

Problems

The novel took longer to develop than expected! In fact, I took it through two more writing courses (I think I got addicted to courses during COVID) and I still think it needs another draft.

Because of the above, I launched the finished novella as an ongoing series, which meant dropping the novel and completing the new series based around Lukie, the undead teen detective from the novella. This was a bit of rework and rescheduling things.

My best short stories (current reader magnet) don’t link into the current series I’m working on.

I’m still working out what comparison authors to use for marketing the series.

Notes for next series

Finish at least the second book in the series, and have an idea for the overall size of the series.

Have the reader magnet that links into the main series ready when the first book is launched.

Business Approach

I realised I’d be a ‘slow’ author, and wouldn’t be able to keep up the book-a-month or rapid release schedule that the 20Books250k group focuses on. That’s all based around the KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited platform on Amazon. So I’d release wide instead. I went direct with Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Barnes & Noble and did the rest via Draft2Digital. I’ve only made about $10 from the release so far from vendors (more from hand selling to people at conventions and my book launch). I’m not too fussed, as my plan is to build a backlist and market that when I’ve got the box set ready.

Uploading to all sites was relatively painless. However, because I kept tweaking my backmatter, I’d have to login and reload my book multiple times. Next time, my final upload will be final.

Marketing

I started a mailing list, and wrote a short story a month to entertain people while I worked through things. I decide to have a character host the newsletter, as it makes it more fun for me to write, so I’m still working out a balance between microfiction/and real-life author updates.

Final Feedback

Final Night had a lot of work on it – lots of beta reading, developmental editing by the amazing Angela Slatter, more editing by Nef House Publishing…. And I thought it sparkled and gleamed like a fresh-cut gem!

I entered Final Night in the StoryGraph beta giveaway program. I got lots of reviews! Amazing! However, they were mixed. A few two stars, lots of threes and a few fours. After brooding for long hours on top of a skyscraper like Batman, I read the critical reviews. I thought people would have issues with the world building (It’s a modern world with an epic fantasy past!) but no one’s actually complained about that. Instead, the main takeaways were that readers thought the pace was too fast, and wanted more character development or digging into the side characters. I’ve made notes for Book 2—and I’m juggling the character development with the thriller pacing.

Goals

Long-term goal – build my author backlist. So write more books, and worry about ads and things later.

For 2023 – Finish the next two books in the Revenant Records series.

Complete twelve issues of the monthly newsletter.

When I finish my current series/short fiction backlog for the newsletter, submit at least three stories to magazines.

Write a proper Lukie-focused short as a reader magnet for the current series, and a second short for readers who’ve gone through Book 1.

Streamline my automation sequence for the newsletter.

Social media – Write a blog post at least once a month, besides the newsletter. Crosspost to Dreamwidth and Tumblr for audience reach. Try to find a social media that I can engage with that is fun and not tedious. (Currently enjoying Mastodon.) Write a blog post reviewing social media later on.

Read and review books and log them on Goodreads and/or Storygraph. Do one book review per month.

Engage an artist for some character/concept sketches, starting with the Librarian host of my newsletter.

Learn to draw so I can do my own character/concept sketches. Try to do one sketch every two days.

[petermorwood]

My Dublin 2019 Schedule

@dduane‘s schedule is much, much busier, but then she IS one of the GoHs. :->

                                                     ____________

Thursday 15th August

Opening Ceremonies, featuring the 1944 Retro Hugo Awards

20:00 - 21:50, Auditorium (Convention Centre Dublin)

Join us on Thursday evening for the official opening of the convention! Hosted by Ellen Klages and Dave Rudden, this evening of surprises will introduce you to our Guests of Honour, present the Big Heart and First Fandom Awards, and pay tribute to science fiction’s illustrious past with the 1944 Retro Hugo Awards. Plus a preview of the many exciting performances that await you over the weekend!

Ellen Klages, Dave Rudden

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Friday 16th August

Reading

10:30 - 10:50, Liffey Room-3 (CCD)

Peter Morwood

*****

Sharp Storytelling

13:00 - 13:50, Wicklow Room-3 (CCD)

Remember the "Greatest swordfight" from the "The Princess Bride"? Or Darth Vader's duel with Obi-Wan? How about Aragon versus the Nazgûl? There can be only one! Bob Anderson was an Olympic competitor turned swordmaster/fight choreographer who knew how to tell a story with weapons. Our panellists will analyse how he did it.

Thomas Årnfelt (Moderator), Rachel Hartman, Zoë Sumra, Ingvar Mattsson, Peter Morwood

*****

Kaffeeklatsch: Peter Morwood

Format: Kaffeeklatsch

16 Aug 2019, Friday 14:00 - 14:50, Level 3 Foyer (KK/LB) (CCD)

Peter Morwood

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Saturday 17th August

(free day; I can go to other panels)

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Sunday 18th August

Octocon presents: The Monster’s Perspective

11:00 - 11:50, Wicklow Hall 2B (CCD)

Often fiction is an exploration of the human condition as written from the perspective of the monster, the outsider, the other - the one who is different and so questions things which we may have taken for granted. But who defines who is the monster? Previous Octocon Guests of Honour and guests revisit a discussion from Octocon 2018.

Janet O'Sullivan (Moderator), Peter Morwood, Emma Newman, Pat Cadigan, Oisin McGann.

*****

Independent Authors and Book covers

15:00 - 15:50, Liffey Hall-2 (CCD)

Standing out in the crowd is always a challenge even for conventionally-published novels in a busy marketplace. It's even more of a challenge for an independent author attempting to present competitively and professionally in a field where readers decide to purchase your book (or not) based on a scrap of imagery usually no bigger than a postage stamp. Diane Duane discusses the challenges of adapting novel-cover design to leverage current trends, including examples of hardware / software pairings that have proven useful in creating new, fresh-looking covers on the fly.

Diane Duane, Peter Morwood

*****

The 2019 Hugo Awards Ceremony

20:00 - 22:00, Auditorium (CCD)

The premiere event of the Worldcon will take place on Sunday evening, as we celebrate the best science fiction and fantasy of 2018. Hosted by Afua Richardson and Michael Scott, we invite you to join us in congratulating this year’s finalists and winners of the prestigious Hugo Awards.

Afua Richardson (co-Moderator), Michael Scott (co-Moderator)

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Monday 19th August

Creative couples

11:00 - 11:50, Wicklow Hall-1 (CCD)

C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner; Kate Wilhelm and Damon Knight; Kelly Link and Gavin Grant. The histories of science fiction and fantasy are studded with examples of couples who are notable as partnerships as well as individuals. But what is it really like to combine art, work, and life? When, why, and how does a project become a collaboration? In this panel, two creative couples will discuss their experiences.

Heide Goody (Moderator) Diane Duane, Peter Morwood, Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman.

*****

Closing Ceremonies

16:30 - 17:20, Auditorium (CCD)

All good things must come to an end – and for Dublin 2019, an Irish Worldcon, that ending will come on Monday at 16:30. We will take a look back at the weekend that was, say farewell to our Guests of Honour, and get a sneak preview of what awaits us at the 2020 Worldcon, CoNZealand.

Eoin Colfer (Moderator)

[johannestevans]

It's Leeds Pride this Sunday!

Get this update directly in your inbox.

Good evening!

Happy Pride for everybody else in and around Leeds, and if you’re around on Sunday, I might well see you in the evening!

To celebrate Leeds Pride, I’m running a promotional sale on Smashwords - all my eBooks are 75% off!

If you’ve read my most recent release, Powder and Feathers, please do review it on your favourite review site, especially GoodReads and TheStoryGraph, if you have the time, reviews and word of mouth go a long way to help with a new release like this one.

And another announcement - if erotic horror is your flavour, I’m involved in an erotic horror choose-your-own-ending project that’s currently raising funds on Kickstarter!

SLAKE HOUSE is going to be deliciously fucked up with me and 9 other authors, and 10 artists, with us paired up to write different rooms in an enticing - and terrifying - haunted house.

There are a whole bunch of rewards as part of the Kickstarter sign-ups at the different tiers, including different pieces of fiction and art for all of us contributors, but pledging at the lowest tier will get you a PDF and eBook copy of the book once it’s finished.

And finally, it’s very nearly time for WorldCon!

I’ll be at WorldCon 2024 for the whole four days in Glasgow, I’ll be on some panels as well as presenting a talk about uniforms and costume design in Star Trek. I’m super excited about the event, and while we won’t be selling paperbacks or badges at this one - hopefully we’ll have a stall at BristolCon in October - I’ll be happy to answer questions or sign anything if people are attending and would like. More than that, though, feel free to just say hello and have a chat!

And if you’re a Redditor, next month I also have another AMA scheduled with /r/Fantasy, and I’ll be answering questions there as well!

New Works Published

Slice-of-Life Short: Pretty City Eyes

Slice-of-life short. A sailor has an encounter with a pretty man in a coffee house. 

Rated T, 1.5k, some M/M. A pirate from Lesbos throws himself eagerly at an anonymous handsome man — haughty Paris.

Read on Patreon / / Read on SubscribeStar / / Read on Medium

Essay: What’s In A Uniform?: Imperial Attitudes Reflected in Starfleet’s Uniforms

Relationships with imperial attitudes reflected in uniform and costuming in Star Trek.

I’ll be covering some of these topics in my presentation at WorldCon, although in the presentation I’ll be talking on a much broader scale and discussing various sci-fi universes, not just Star Trek!

Read in An Injustice! / / Read on Patreon / / Read on Tumblr

TweetFic: The Politician’s Son

Son of a politician, now a priest, who is dispatched to a military fort to ensure he's protected during a period of unrest

Bored and frustrated and himself a pacifist, surrounded by soldiers on a mountain border and unable to leave

Read on Twitter