My Alabama Phoenix Festival RECAP

Welcome to my semi-tardy post-APF blog entry. And a special "Howdy, Comrades!" to all the Russian spambots that keep pinging my site. Nice to see ya!

I never did remember to bring my camera, so I got up from my booth for a few minutes Sunday afternoon, ran around, and snapped some god-awful poor pics with my cell phone, just to get a flavor of Authors Row. Came out a little something like this:

Yeah, I know, they're blurry and awful. Whaddaya want? Better pictures? Better truck on over to the official Festival Facebook page.

Word around the campfire is that we had about 1700 attendees, and I've heard nothing but praise from the other guests who attended. Had a pretty good time myself, as a matter of fact. Somehow I got the very first booth down the aisle on Authors Row, but I never figured out if that was good or bad. I did sell me a few copies of Summer Gothic (the proceeds of which I quickly blew in the dealer's room) and spent a lot of time getting to know my next-table neighbors, John Durden and Cam Crowder, author of Electus. Never did make it to an Adam Baldwin panel, but I hobnobbed with most of the other authors and watched Doctor Osborn make balloon animals, balloon hats, balloon firearms, balloon Ghostbuster particle accelerators, and yes - a man-sized balloon dragon skeleton.

Oh, and they let me sit on panels. (The fools.) Most of the time I felt like a college freshman rubbing shoulders with PhDs, but it was fun. Other guests on the author track included Lou Anders, J.F. Lewis, Kimberly Richardson, Allan Gilbreath, Van Allen Plexico, Bobby Nash, Jennie Breeden, and others whom I'm sure I'm forgetting. Topics I spoke on included two Steampunk panels, one on Pulp, one on marketing, one on what editors want, but the most fun was the "Dead Author Society," in which Kimberly, Van, and I pretended to be Edgar Allen Poe, Carl Sagan, and Robert E. Howard respectively and answered audience questions on their behalf.

Will I go back next year? You betcha. Will they let me? Wait and see.

My Alabama Phoenix Festival Schedule

Be there or be square.

Come down to the Cahaba Grand off of Hwy 280 in Birmingham this weekend and fork over your registration fee. In addition to making a nuisance of myself and forcing people to buy copies of Summer Gothic, I'll be sitting on the following panels:


Fri., May 25:

5:00 p.m. - Steampunk History

Sat., May 26:

11:30 a.m. - Marketing 101
2:30 p.m. - Steampunk Stories
4:00 p.m. - The Bloody Pulps
7:00 p.m. - Dead Authors Society

Sun., May 27:

2:30 p.m. - What Editors Look For

Alabama Phoenix Festival - May 25-27!

I can't believe this is almost upon us - the Alabama Phoenix Festival, Birmingham's brand new science fiction & fantasy convention, at which I will be attending as a guest!

Why have I not made a bigger deal of this before now? Probably because of the nagging fear that if I called attention to the fact that I was attending not just as a fan but as editor of Summer Gothic, the gods would take notice and find some way to smite me. Wrong thing to do, I know, especially when I should be in promote promote promote mode.

Anyhow, the convention will be held at the Cahaba Grand Conference Center on Hwy 280 (conveniently close to my house, no less) from May 25-27. (Right during my 10th wedding anniversary. The gods aren't the only ones who might smite me.)

In addition to selling and signing copies of Summer Gothic (Did I order too many? Not enough?) I'll be participating in a number of panel discussions, such as "The Bloody Pulps," "What Editors Look For," "Gardeners vs. Architects," and "Dead Authors Society."

Good times! Hopefully I'll get a breather in there to go raid the dealer's room.

Summer Gothic: Where It's At

Four weeks out of the gate, and how's the baby doing?

For starters, there are almost 200 copies of Summer Gothic in print - not bad for a regional self-published anthology less than a month old. Right now I'm giving away five copies over at Goodreads. They're still taking entries until Friday, but so far over 350 people have signed up to win, and as of this writing almost 80 Goodreads members have added it to their "to read" shelf.

This Thursday, I and several of my fellow contributors will be making a visit to the Birmingham chapter of Sisters in Crime, courtesy of the wonderful Margaret Fenton (author of Little Lamb Lost and the Summer Gothic story "Fourth of July." We'll be talking about the anthology and hopefully selling a few copies. The program will be Thursday, April 19, 7:00 p.m. at the Homewood Public Library.

After that, I'll be presenting a play-by-play of the self-publication process (the grimy bits, not the flashy bits) at the next meeting of Write Club at the Hoover Public Library on Saturday, April 28, 10:30 a.m. Also on the horizon is my appearance as a guest (!!) at the Alabama Phoenix Festival, Birmingham's new SFF convention, on Memorial Day weekend.

Looks like a busy Spring.