Re-Entry and Recovery

I arrived home from Chi Con at 10 am Monday. My flight left the Windy City at 7 am , meaning I was up at 3 am for a 4 am airport shuttle. And since I was sharing post-Hugo ceremony drinks and memories with my Taos Toolbox alumni until after midnight, the short doze I had from take off until snack service was about the extent of the sleep I got.

I'm accustomed to being on overnight call, so that stuporous-as-long-as-I-don't stop-moving-I -won't-collapse state wore off about 9 am and I nearly slept through the alarm this morning.  But back to work it was, including my first day of classes in my doctoral program!!!

Yes, I am nuts but a gal has to do what she has to do. More on that here.

Here are the Chi-Con highlights:

For sure, it was Story Musgrave signing autographs next to me. He came over before the session to chat with my daughter, and that was special. Later on, he visited Chi-Kidz and taught the kids about going to the bathroom in space. She still hasn't stopped talking about that. My husband either.
Well, he's more excited about having met Story Musgrave than toilet talk--but meeting an astronaut is way cool.

Plus I got to chat with Joshua Palmatier during the autograph session (he was on the other side of me) and that is always very pleasant.

My Kaffeeklatsche was devoted to at Taos Toolbox reunion (all but four of us made it to Chi Con this year) and the TT/Anticipation Workshop reading was well attended. Thanks to Ann Dulhanty and Peter Charron for joining me.

I'm now adjourning to the couch to read about 150 pages of scintillating theoretical and academic material so I can get up at 5:30 tomorrow and atart to regurgitate it in the form of two papers, with footnotes in APA style, by the deadline this weekend.

The only thing getting me through, keeping me on a perpetual high, is, as always my creative writing.

"Mishmash Magick" will be out any day now in Beltane: Ten Tales of Magic, edited by Rayne Hall.

I owe her two other stories (they're mostly set in the Boulevard of Bad Spells and Broken Dreams world) for Ten Tales of Zombies and Ten Tales of Witchcraft titles.

"Artichokes" is being released this month in A Quilt of Holidays, This Path was just re-released in ebook format. It contains two of my favorite essays

Meet Me at World Con

The schedule is short and sweet. Seems like they had no use for me on actual panels or as a moderator. The good part of that is I have NO prep work to do and won't run myself ragged like I did at Anticipation. And I'm not covering the event for any venues this year (IROSF and The Fix are long  gone).

I will be sharing the stage with some great writers and hope you can stop by and join us.


Friday August 31:

12-1:30

Kaffeklatsche with alumni of Taos Toolbox 2011 (AKA the Diesel Bears).  This will be a reunion of sorts  but if you'd like to learn more about the workshop and if it's right for you, please stop by. We are a diverse group, writing steampunk/weird western, alternate history, urban, young adult, and traditional fantasy, and science fiction.

Saturday September 1:
10:30-12

Book signing    

I will have copies of all my books for sale, and gladly sign books purchased elsewhere. I also have book card for ebook customers, some nice swag, and chocolate.

2-2:30

Reading

Ann Dulhanty, a fellow member of the Anticipation Workshops is confirmed and there are rumors that other Taos Toolbox alums will stop in and wow you with some of their published stories or works in progress.

We'll have a rapid fire reading and stick around afterwards to answer questions about the Anticipation Workshops and how to apply for membership. All those submitting manuscripts to the Chi-Con professional workshop should be sure to come by.

Ann Dulhanty (moderator of Anticipation Workshop Group 2) is a scientist, business person and believer in magic. She writes scifi and urban fantasy and sometimes both. Her style is jaunty and explores the foibles of human nature. Her life's goal is to use 'errr' properly in a sentence. She has published short stories in an anthology series called Twisted Tails ( volumes 2 to 6), edited by J. Richard Jacobs and published by Double Dragon publishing Inc.

Anticipation Workshop is a group of pro and semi pro writers organized into four groups (loosely organized by genre and form) who critique each other's work on a fixed schedule.

Ann Dulhanty