One of the best things about being a writer is being able to post a convention schedule. Not only is it a measure of your achievement, it also means you’ll be seeing your long distance friends. And when the schedule happens to be for Dragon*Con, well, let the party begin!
Friday, September 1
11:30 AM: Just the Facts, Ma’am
Description: Non-fiction is a market that needs good writers. If this appeals to you, come listen to these pros tell you how to make it happen.
M Chapman, G. D. Falksen, John L. Flynn, Anya Martin, and Jean Marie Ward
Location: Manila / Singapore / Hong Kong – Hyatt (Length: 1 Hour)
8:30 PM: New and Next Weird
Description: New weird, mash-up, slipstream, interstitial, crossover… what does the future of “genre” hold, especially for the darker fringes of fantasy?
Lou Anders, Stephen H. Segal, Ann VanderMeer, Jeff Vandermeer, and Jean Marie Ward
Location: Cairo – Hyatt (Length: 1 Hour)
10 PM: Broad Universe Reading
Description: Quick cuts read by some by the women authors of Broad Universe
Gail Z. Martin, Jody Lynn Nye, Jean Marie Ward, Trisha Wooldridge (moderator) and many more.
Location: Greenbriar – Hyatt (Length: 1 Hour)
Sunday, September 4
1 PM: Broad Universe Reading Part 2
Description: More great reads by the women authors of Broad Universe.
Gail Z. Martin, Jean Marie Ward and many more.
Location: Fairlie – Hyatt (Length: 1 Hour)
Monday, September 5
11:30 AM: Win, Lose or Draw – SF and Fantasy style
Description: A replay of our popular game show where your job is to draw sf and fantasy names and phrases to get others to guess them. Prizes available.
MC: Jean Marie Ward
Location: Fairlie – Hyatt (Length: 1 Hour)
Hope to see you there!
Posted 5 months, 1 week ago at 1:48 am. Add a comment
Yeah, I know, you’ve been wondering whether I forgot how to do this blog thing. Not quite. I just wanted to save it until I had something to make you go Ooooooh! And I do, Ben Fogletto’s wonderful cover for Hellfire Lounge 2, where you’ll find one of my darker little stories, “Billy’s Monster”.
I don’t have an ISBN or release day yet, but when I do, you’ll hear it here first. Not to worry, you won’t be bored in the meantime. It’ll take days to see all the fabulous details in this image. Enjoy!
Posted 5 months, 2 weeks ago at 12:27 pm. Add a comment
Tuesday, July 19th, 2011 | Author: jmward14 | Blog | 4 Comments
Like everybody else, I’m stricken by the news that Borders, which for years served as my happy place for books, will be no more. I can’t offer enough sympathy and good wishes to its employees–or rain enough curses on the heads of its inept and wrong-headed management.
My mom used to say laughter cures all ills. As far as I know, it doesn’t do beans for a job hunt. But in the hopes that it might make the evenings afterward more bearable, I offer you two BroadPods. I really should’ve mentioned Lord Bai and I were in the April episode, which also features Jody Lynn Nye’s reading from her new comic space opera and K.A. Laity’s meditation on Mad Hatter economics, as well as novel excerpts from from Shauna Roberts and Lynda Williams.
But the real news in this post is the unveiling of the July BroadPod, just in time for bookstore relief. Jody hosts this one, which features Jaleta Clegg’s new take on “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, Tracy S. Morris’s Bubba vacation tale and Justine Graykin’s job security-seeking spies. And, oh yeah, a little passage of mine about sirens and strudel. You know the one. Mwahahahaha!
(P.S., Yes, I did consider this important enough to say it twice. I originally posted this on my News page, but I felt it needed wider play. After all, how often does a girl get introduced by Jody Lynn Nye? 
)
Posted 6 months, 3 weeks ago at 2:35 pm. 4 comments
This is so good I’m dancing. Patricia Bray and Joshua Palmatier announced the table of contents for their new fantasy anthology, The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity, coming from DAW Tekno Books in March 2012. And the writers are:
Introduction by Patricia Bray and Joshua Palmatier
“We Will Not Be Undersold” by Seanan McGuire
“Changeling” by Susan Jett
“Water-Called” by Kari Sperring
“The Roots of Aston Quercus” by Juliet E. McKenna
“To Scratch an Itch” by Avery Shade
“Continuing Education” by Kristine Smith
“How To Be Human™” by Barbara Ashford
“How Much Salt” by April Steenburgh
“Hooked” by Anton Strout
“Crash” by S. C. Butler
“Fixed” by Jean Marie Ward
“A People Who Always Know” by Shannon Page & Jay Lake
“The Slaughtered Lamb” by Elizabeth Bear
“Corrupted” by Jim C. Hines
Yes! That’s me on that list! “Fixed” is the story of a teenaged cat shifter who gets taken to an animal shelter while wearing fur. Needless to say, he really REALLY doesn’t want to get “Fixed”.
Although you won’t be able to hold the book (or the pixels of the ebook version) in your hands until March, The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity is available for pre-order on a number of sites, including Amazon. Buy, buy, buy! In multiples, if you can. Patricia and Joshua were so much fun to work with, I’d love to do it again.
Meanwhile, I’m grinning from ear to ear.
Posted 6 months, 4 weeks ago at 8:56 pm. Add a comment
Wednesday, July 6th, 2011 | Author: jmward14 | Blog | No Comments
I flatter myself to think some of you wondered where I disappeared to after announcing my return from New York. I planned to spread my usual nonsense on Facebook and Twitter after I finished my docent shift at Alexandria’s Carlyle House yesterday. Instead, Greg and I attended the after hours viewing of a friend who shouldn’t have died.
We say that a lot when someone dies, especially if we don’t want them to leave us behind. In this case it was the bald truth. Brian was healthy and happy, a top stagehand with a wife who loved him and a teenaged daughter who, by her own description, didn’t know the sun didn’t rise and set on him until she was somewhere around thirteen. But last Thursday, when he was heading home on his motorcycle after an evening show, he was struck and killed by a drunk driver.
His family, his wife’s family, the extended family of his union local and all the people like Greg who’d been his friends from college made the viewing a crowded, loving affair. It would’ve been even livelier if we could’ve lifted our glasses as befitted his Irish heritage. Unfortunately, U.S. funeral homes don’t have liquor licenses–a terrible, terrible oversight on their part.
As a stagehand, Brian wore black nearly every day of his life, and he hated it. So black was banned from the proceedings. His daughter and I wore pink. Greg donned peacock blue. The dress code for the packed funeral mass was Hawaiian shirts. I never thought I’d wear a Hawaiian shirt to a funeral. Yet it fit on so many levels. There was a great band–playing liturgical music, but you can’t have everything. Even better, the soloist “didn’t step on the cat” during “Ave Maria”. The priest and the folks delivering the eulogies made us laugh and cry in equal measure. The priest, in particular, seemed determined to talk about “the life of Brian”. He must’ve been a Monty Python fan, too.
After it was over, Brian’s daughter gathered friends and family to sing “Piano Man”, because he’d turned her on to Billy Joel when she was seven. His college buds lined up beside the hearse to give him a Benny Hill salute and vowed, whichever one of them was next, to make sure “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” was played at the ceremony.
It was as good a send-off as it gets. But that doesn’t change the fact that he shouldn’t have been in that box. It doesn’t change the fact that his wife has lost her best friend, or that his daughter will never have him applauding at her high school graduation, moaning about college costs or giving her away at her wedding. They were robbed of his presence and his love for no reason at all.
I try not to inject too much of the personal into my posts. I keep politics off my Fan page and the inevitable writer whining to a minimum. But this needs to be said, and I don’t think anybody will disagree when I say it. When you’re driving in your car, your truck or whatever kind of wheeled carton you take on the highway, look out for motorcyclists and bicyclists and pedestrians. There’s nothing between them and the pavement except you.
And for the sake of Whomever or Whatever you consider holy in DON’T. DRIVE. DRUNK.
Posted 7 months ago at 4:01 pm. Add a comment
My main computer has crashed. Guess who’ll be heading to Best Buy tomorrow. I hadn’t planned on buying a new computer this year, but it’s been four years, and my luck with repairs to old computers has been less than stellar.
It’s not like I didn’t expect something like this to happen. Yesterday morning I woke from a dream of babies. To understand how bad this is, you have to know the dream signs my mom taught me:
- Insects, spiders and other bugs: little problems.
- Mice and rats: bigger irritations.
- Cats and dogs: significant problems you need to address quickly.
- Babies: bar the door and hide under the bed, because they’re coming to get you NAO.
At least I didn’t dream of brides = death.
The funny part about this is Mom was a psychiatric nurse and a Jungian. I don’t know if she ever realized what her dream shorthand said about where her head was at. On the other hand, as long as it worked reliably, she probably didn’t care.
Geez, I’m glad I didn’t wipe the SD disks with the Balticon video interviews. Still, I hope they can retrieve my data. There are several days worth of fiction I hadn’t shipped to my various emails. And before you say it: I tried those off-site back-ups. They were, to put it politely, problematic.
Posted 7 months, 2 weeks ago at 9:48 pm. Add a comment
I’m going to RWA Nationals in two weeks. Yay!
The workshops are excruciatingly generic. There are only two I’d care to attend. Boo.
But that means more time for New York! Three cheers and a couple huzzahs!
So, ladies and gentlemen of the Empire State, what sights and events would you recommend? Thanks to a wonderful round of parties and commitments (including a reception at the Algonquin!) my evenings are not my own, but any other time of day is wide open. I’m an experienced Metro rider, so subways don’t scare me, and I have no problem traveling to the Bronx, for example, in search of spectacular southern Italian food. (I’m southern Italian. Fettucini Alfredo is death to me, no matter how well-prepared, and danged if all the top Italian restaurants in the DC area don’t dote on northern-style, milk and butter heavy food. *sigh*)
I should probably add that I’ve done the Metropolitan Museum of Art almost as many times as I’ve toured the Smithsonian, so unless there’s a can’t-miss special exhibit, consider MMA as a given. Also, shopping counts as both an event and a sport, so feel free to share any suggestions in that area. Specialty shops, like Pearl River, earn extra points. 
Thanks in advance!
Posted 7 months, 4 weeks ago at 4:20 pm. Add a comment
Just updated the web page to highlight all the wonderful reviews Hellebore & Rue (and “Personal Demons” ) has received of late. With any luck, I’ve also, entirely by accident, figured out a way to crosspost. The proof will be in this post. I hope. If not, I’ll just have to drown my sorrows in X-Men: First Class. Ah, the genetically altered humanity…
Posted 8 months ago at 11:59 am. Add a comment
Monday, May 30th, 2011 | Author: jmward14 | interviews | No Comments
Be afraid. I’m back to asking nosy questions again, and this time I’m armed with a video camera. And you thought the Rapture was scary.
My first video interview from behind the camera is now live at BuzzyMultimedia.com. Carole Nelson Douglas has been writing top flight science fiction and fantasy–to say nothing of her tales of Las Vegas’s only cat PI–for thirty years. In her Buzzy interview, the focus is on her Delilah Street Paranormal Mysteries. But don’t worry. There are lots of entertaining feline detours along the way. (Duz said it was vital to mention this point, and who am I to argue with the Feline Overlord?)
More interviews with wonderful writers are in the pipeline–folks like Connie Willis, Joe Haldeman and Michael Swanwick–along with a few surprises. Meanwhile, my next job is finishing a short story and posting my Balticon photos. Between the Nebula Awards Weekend and Balticon, it’s been a fun couple of weeks. But now it’s back to work.
Posted 8 months, 1 week ago at 1:20 pm. Add a comment
Thursday, May 26th, 2011 | Author: jmward14 | cons | No Comments
I know, two posts in a single week. Try not to die of shock.
I posted my photos of Nebula Weekend on Flickr. I wanted to get them done before heading to Balticon. They’re smaller than usual. Next time I won’t resize in Corel Paint, but I have the full-size originals if anyone is interested. Besides they’re big enough to see the smiles.
When I get back from Balticon, I’ll be working pedal to the metal on a fiction deadline as well as on a spate of video interviews for Buzzy Multimedia. Yes, me, making movies. Mwahahaha!
I turned in the first, an interview with Carole Nelson Douglas (the Delilah Street paranormal mystery series, among many, many others) on Tuesday. It should air in a few days. Next up will be the interviews I recorded at the Nebulas: Connie Willis (this year’s winner for best novel–I think Connie owns more Nebulas thany anyone), John Scalzi, Joe Haldeman, Mary Robinette Kowal and Chris Claremont.
Who knows who’ll find themselves in my lens in Balticon? Be afraid. Be very afraid.
But don’t forget to attend my panels!
Posted 8 months, 2 weeks ago at 1:27 pm. Add a comment
