Where I'll be in 2013

2013's upcoming event and writing-related activities. I'll be adding more as they get finalized and linking as soon as there are things to link to.

January

•  Lesbian Fiction Appreciation Event, throughout the month of January. I'll be doing a guest post on host author K.T.Grant's blog on writing lesbian and bi characters in historical fiction, 1/12/13.
  
• Guest blog on author Cathy Pegau's blog on the topic of  "In Person Events for Writers."
  
• Author reading on Wednesday, January 23rd at 7PM at Subtext: A Bookstore in St. Paul
  

February

•  GCLS Conference Blog - guest blog on my experiences at the GCLS Conference. TBD

March

• Marscon -  March 1-3, Minneapolis. Attending professional.
  
• Portland Lesbian Book Salon - March 3. Q&A by phone, since I can't make it to Oregon, alas.
• Quatrefoil Library - March 16th, Minneapolis. Quatrefoil's new location - annual women's fiction reading with several other authors.
• Hour of the Wolf Radio Show, WBAI, NYC. Tentatively scheduled for March 19th. Reading and interview.
  

April

May

• WisCon, May 24-27th. Attending professional.
  

June

• 4th Street Fantasy, June 21-23. Attending professional.

July

• CONvergence, July 4-7. Attending professional.

August

• DreamHaven Books, Comics and Art - August 1. Diversicon Guest reading and signing by Jack McDevitt, Roy Booth and me 6:30-8:30PM
• Diversicon 21, Aug. 2-4. SPECIAL GUEST <g>

September

• S.E. Wisconsin Festival of Books - September 20-22. I'm scheduled for a panel called "OUTspoken and OUTfront: LGBTQ Writers Moving Beyond Binaries" on Saturday, 9/21 in the afternoon. 

October

• North Country Gaylaxians Book Club - October 8th, Discussion of Silver Moon at Quatrefoil Library, St. Paul 7PM.
• Minneapolis Lesfic Book Club - October 30, Discussion of Silver Moon, 7:30PM (not generally open to the public - contact me for details if you want to attend).

November

• Howl Out Cast - November 13th. Podcast interview about my work, my life and a lot of other things.
• 2013 MNSpec Writer's Showcase - Group author reading at the Acadia Cafe, Minneapolis. Sunday, November 17th, noon.

December

Somewhere in here, I'm signed up to do some mentoring for GCLS and a few other things which are very much TBD. All in all, I'm hoping to keep it a lighter year than 2012 so I can get in more writing. We'll see how that goes.

My 2013 Year in Review Post

In which I will mostly focus on the writing and related, but will note that we also made an epic trip to NYC and back to move my mother into assisted living, which impacted pretty much everything for the second half of the year.

My 2013:
Conventions: Marscon, WisCon, 4th Street Fantasy (in the sense of being there for one panel and the beginning of the Storm of Doom and accompanying power outage), CONvergence. And then I was one of the Guests of Honor at Diversicon 21. <g>

Related writing events – I was on a panel called "OUTspoken and OUTfront: LGBTQ Writers Moving Beyond Binaries" at the Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books in Waukesha, WI.

Author readings: SubText: A Bookstore, Quatrefoil Library Women Author’s Reading, DreamHaven Books and the 2013 MNSpec Writer’s Showcase (now on YouTube)

Radio/Podcasts : WBAI Hour of the Wolf Radio Show, Howl Out Podcast

Book club appearances: Portland Lesbian Book Salon, North Country Gaylaxians Book Club, Minneapolis Lesfic Book Club

Guest blogs:
Lesbian Fiction Appreciation Event 2013 on getting writing inspiration from history
SF Signal blog posts on “LGBT SFF Before 1970” and “Monstrous Females and Female Monsters" and "LBGT Themes in Fantasy and SF"
5 questions on author Warren Rochelle’s blog
5 questions on author Joel Arnold’s blog
“An In-Person Appearances Primer for Writers” on author Cathy Pegau’s blog

Writers hosted on my blog in 2013: Laura Lam,Jacqueline Koyanagi, Susan Jane Bigelow, Warren Rochelle, Joyce Chng/J. Damask, Jill Braden, Rachael Acks,Sunny Moraine

Short fiction finished and status thereof:  2 new stories published – “The Light Fantastic” in Luna Station Quarterly and “Medium Mechanique” in Ghosts in Gaslight, Monsters in Steam. 1 reprint in Best Lesbian Erotica 2014. And I also wrote 2 other new stories in need of homes and have 3 other stories underway and in various stages of progress.

Novel length fiction work and related: I completed 3 book proposals  and had all three accepted.  I have 85% of one novel draft completed and progress made on the Silver Moon sequel Blood Moon. Notice I’m not tossing out a timeline for the next book(s); this is because of reasons and I’ll do an update as soon as I can.

Awards: none won, alas, but Silver Moon was a finalist for the Bisexual Book Awards in the SF/F Category and for the Goldie Awards in the Speculative Fiction Category

Books Out of Print: Crave: Tales of Lust, Love and Longing. One of my two award-winning lesbian erotica collections.
Things learned:
·        How to write a book synopsis/outline
·        How to write a book proposal
·        How to outline stories that don’t exist yet
·        Have I mentioned outlining? It’s a new thing and it seems to be working for me. I’ve been a pantser since I started writing and this is a big transition for me. Next up, we see if we like the final results lots and lots.
·        How to be a guest at a con. Okay, I pretty much knew that before, but it was my first time headlining and Jack McDevitt and Roy Booth were great and very helpful, as was the Diversicon 21 con com.


All in all, it's been one hell of a year. Lots of big highs and big lows. Many, many thanks to everyone who hosted me, bought my books, came to my readings and panels, bought stories from me and listened to me kvetch. You are all awesome! Here's wishing a wonderful 2014 for us all!