Sunday, October 2nd, Lynda Williams will be participating as a reviewer for the 2011 VCON 36 Writers Workshop. Participants seeking reviews submitted science fiction or fantasy stories of 5,000 words in length (or the first 5,000 words of a novel) to be reviewed by a panel of professional writers.
The Sunday workshop begins at 10:00 AM with an introduction by R. Graeme Cameron, moderator. Other professional writers attending on Sunday include Cooper Walls, Keith Mabbs, Marissa Fischer, Linda Demeulemeester, Rhea Rose, and Michael Donoghue.
VCON 36 runs Friday, September 30th to Sunday, October 2nd. The workshop also runs at 1:00 PM Friday and 10:00 AM Saturday, with 3-4 reviewers and 3-4 participants per session.
Karl Johanson, editor of Neo-opsis sci-fi magazine, just e-mailed me about this picture from VCON 2010 featuring post-duel fooling around at VCON 2010 in Vancouver. The event was an Okal Rel Universe duel staged by fencers Craig Bowlsby and Devon Boorman. You can see Craig and Devon in the background.
With luck, the picture will make Karl's collection of interesting stuff for the annual Neo-opsis CD.
Great poster by artist Michelle Milburn for title challenge match to be featured at the Okal Rel Universe event at VCON, Saturday Oct 2, 7 p.m. Fencing instructors Devon Boorman and Craig Bowlsby will square off in a featured clash of titans. We'll also be giving away character cards, Okal Rel buttons, singing a few Okal Rel filk songs and launching Avim's Oath, Book 6 in the series, by Lynda Williams; as well as Opus 4 collection of stories set in the Okal Rel Universe and Okal Rel novella Misfit Leaves Home by Krysia Anderson.
David Lott got us set up with an ad for Part 6: Avim's Oath on the VCON website. I was taken with the ad service they are using, called Project Wonderful. Exactly the sort of smart and appropriate advertising the web media begs for, rather than limiting the potential to static print models.
Here's a shot of me at the EDGE booth, at VCON 33 in Vancouver this past weekend. I'm holding up one of 50 special pre-publication copies of Horth in Killing Reach by Craig H. Bowlsby, created just for VCON. The title is the first full novella by another author than myself to come out under my editorship in the Okal Rel Legacy line (see http://www.absolute-x-press.com/catalog/ for more about the legacy line). It will be available in perfect binding soon, through regular distribution channels as well as online in digital form from http://www.absolute-x-press.com.
This week's google alert for "Lynda Williams" netted two items for me and nothing else. Strange how this makes one feel real again when the last half a dozen have been about other worthy women named Lynda Williams. The world is getting so big and busy I guess we have to find ponds where we can to assert our identities - like competing with our name-sakes for attention on the web. We are creatures designed for the soft voices of village life, not the roar of the whole world. It is oddly reassuring to know one's name has been 'spoken' by friends. So thank you VCON 33 and Nina Munteanu for making me feel real today.
VCON 33 is getting its programming pages up. Here's my bio. There will be an Okal Rel Universe event. Calling all con-goers game to take part to turn out. ORU Events feature supporters and contributors giving short presentations from short readings of favorite passages to fighting demos, making connections, showing ORU-inspired art, statements, or modeling ORU costumes. We've had great turn outs for these in Calgary and Prince George but this will be the first time in Vancouver, so I'm a bit nervous! Search "okal rel" on youtube for video of last event in Prince George.
FINALLY getting at some of the pictures I took at this year's VCON in Vancouver. That's VCON 32, for the record. This shot features a new friend, Michele Dube, who is just getting to know the Okal Rel Universe. I enjoyed a chat with her during a quiet moment. She certainly deserves a "Rel Pilots Make Dock" postcard for the eye surgery and associated problems she has been through recently. I am selfishly glad she can see well enough, again, to read about Amel, Ann, Horth and all the ORU gang.
Righteous Anger didn't win the Prix Aurora 2007 for best SF novel, but it was rather exciting to be in the line up illustrated above. My book was also the only one from a middle-sized press, which is sort of cool. Heaps of thanks to those who voted for Righteous Anger!
Here's the winner, Dave Duncan, accepting the Aurora for his book Children of Chaos. I have read and enjoyed many of Dave's books. He has always been gracious to new-comers like me, also. So I was pleased to hear Children of Chaos was a book he particularly liked and had been wanting to see in print for a long time.