Where I'll be in 2014

Updates to follow as I have them.

January

• 2014 Lesbian Fiction Appreciation Event - January 13. The event will run all month on author K.T. Grant's blog, but my post on Amazons: Women Warriors in Fact and Fiction will run on January 13th.
  
• Arisia - January 17-20. Boston, MA. I'm doing a panel and a reading and probably odds and ends for Broad Universe.
  
• LGBT SFF in the 1970s - SF Signal - Part 2 of my series about historical LGBT SFF characters, writers and trends. Not sure of exact date but I'm almost ready to turn in the next one.
  

February

March

• Marscon 2014 - March 7-9, Bloomington, MN. I'll be a guest again this year and doing panels and probably a reading of some sort.
• Quatrefoil Library - March Women's Reading Event - March 22, 1-4PM, Minneapolis, MN. Annual showcase of local queer-identified women writers. This year, it will be at the gorgeous new location at Spirit on Lakes.

April

May

• Virtual Living Room - Spot-On Chat w/ MN Authors. Multi-day chat May 9-12 on the Virtual Living Room Yahoo Group with Jessie Chandler, Ellen Hart, Lori L. Lake, Rachel Gold, Catherine Friend, M.B. Panichi and me
  
• WisCon - May 23-26, Madison, WI. 3 panels and the Outer Alliance reading.

June

• MinneSpec Writers Panel - June 8, Uptown Lund's (meeting room), Minneapolis, 12-2PM  "Writing Erotica and Sex Scenes"
• 4th Street Fantasy - June 20-22. Minneapolis. Schedule,TBD

July

• CONvergence - July 3-6, Bloomington, MN. Panels, perhaps a reading
  
• Diversicon 22 - July 25-27, St. Paul, MN. Panels and more panels
  
•  

August
September
October

• Speculations Reading Series - October 22, 6:30 PM. DreamHaven Books, Minneapolis. Author reading.

November
December

2014 in Review, Writing and Other Stuff

Time for the usual post, with additions. First the writing part.

I wrote a lot of essays, posts and articles this year. These included:
"Amazons and Warrior Women In Fact and Fiction" for the 2014 Lesfic Appreciation Event
"LGBT Science Fiction and Fantasy in the 1970s" on SF Signal
"LGBT Science Fiction and Fantasy in the 1980s" on SF Signal
"LGBT Science Fiction and Fantasy in the 1990s" on SF Signal
"LGBT Science Fiction and Fantasy 2000-2010 PART 1" on SF Signal
"LGBT Science Fiction and Fantasy 2000-2010 PART 2" on SF Signal
"Mind Meld: Best Book Openings" on SF Signal
"Mind Meld: Our Favorite Convention Panels" on SF Signal

I also will have a story ("Arachne")  in the very soon to be released Best Lesbian Erotica 2015, edited by Laura Antoniou.

Writing as Other Me, Emily L. Byrne, I saw "The Adventures of Miss Scarlet" in Forbidden Fruit: Tales of Unwise Lesbian Desire, edited by Cheyenne Blue. Emily also had stories accepted for several forthcoming anthologies: an as yet untitled Alison Tyler anthology, The Princess's Bride: Lesbian Fairytale Erotica edited by Sacchi Green, The Mammoth Book of Uniform Erotica edited by Barbara Cardy and Bossy 2: Productive Tales of Lesbian Desire, also from Ladylit.

Other writing-related accomplishments: I finished 2 drafts of an erotic science fiction novel and embarked on a third, I wrote several new short stories, I got a bit of traction on Blood Moon and I just finished an essay on Irene Adler in films and TV since 2000, which will go out tomorrow. Plus, a lot of work in progress. I've also gotten some traction on indie publishing some of my own books, plus possibly starting up my own press. And I found out that an essay I wrote is required reading for an NYU class, which is building a series of Pinterest boards around it. <g>
So not anywhere near what I planned or hoped for at the beginning of the year, but not nothing, either.

Other stuff. Man, not the best year ever. We've been dealing with my mother's mental and physical deterioration all year and it's been draining and ghastly and unpleasant and stressful, with very rare intervals of calm. I've been sick a lot. Day job completely reorganized and it looked like my job was going to be outsourced, and it may well yet, but probably not for awhile longer. A chunk of my original support network evaporated earlier this year, in part because of people peace outing on me when things got really bad and I became burdensome? unpleasant? inconvenient?  and in part due to WisCon fallout, what between the lying, the victim blaming, the gaslighting and related. And then there was the news, oh so very much news and so much of it horrible.

But on the plus side, I have a wonderful wife and cats, the friends who stuck by me are great people and I've met some new folks and/or just gotten to know some other folks better. I dug us out of a substantial amount of debt and got our finances more stable. I'm working on a business plan. I've done a lot of interesting reading, learned some new software and embarked on several major projects to fix up our house. We went to Boston for Arisia and Wisconsin for TeslaCon, both of which were a blast. We got to visit the International Wolf Center and North American Bear Center, both in Ely, MN. I spent a nice weekend writing and reading in Reed's Landing, MN. Some friends from Iowa are finally going to get move up here, so we'll see them more. So, overall, 2014 - the proverbial mixed bag.

Here's hoping 2015 is a better year all around, particularly for those folks who had the worst of it this year. As for my readers, fans and colleagues, thanks for sticking with me and I wish you all joy, love and success in the coming year!