My thanks go out to all who worked so hard to make this Balticon as good as it could be. I saw so many of you running, running, running, putting out fires I never knew about. Sure, there were troubles. We all had some. But, really, it was a huge undertaking and not without some…
Yesterday, I facilitated my “Present Out Loud” workshop at Balticon (the Maryland Regional Science Fiction/Fantasy convention). The workshop is on how to present/read your work at bookstore events, interviews, audio narrations, and workshops. We worked on breath technique, voicing, characterization, and how to differentiate your narrator from your characters and their dialogue. But mostly, we…
Yesterday, at Balticon, I had the honor of sitting on a panel that discussed how to adapt fiction to stage or screen. One of the questions the moderator asked was to define the nuts and bolts of doing that sort of adaptation. One of the other panel members said that you needed to only the…
When you create, sensitivity is a must. But when you are trying to sell what you’ve created, it can be downright dangerous. This is what has me thinking this morning before I head out to another day at Balticon (The Baltimore Science Fiction Convention at which I am a presenter/participant this year). I’m about to…
Today, I took a deep breath and officially self-identified as a writer. It took a while. I’ve written four books, dozens of papers, a whole bunch of articles, and other pieces. And I’ve even had “writer” on my social media profile for the last couple of years. But I’ve always felt like I was wearing…
Yesterday was a crazy day in my life. I had to complete two vastly different projects. First, I was presenting my “Let’s Talk Clouds” workshop at a local middle school. As the Earth Lady, I work with schools to help students jump-start their interest in science, specifically Earth Science. Then, I switched gears and released…
Tonight, I will be creating a brand new vision board. For those who don’t know what one is, it is a focusing tool, usually some sort of paper, that you create to clarify your goals and foci. A physical board can be a piece of paper on which you draw or glue pictures of your…
I’m not going to bore you with a long drawn out write-up. This is an informational post. There are a number of primaries today (April 26, 2016). I encourage everyone who is registered to go vote. Please. Here is some information on voter registration and how to find your voting locations for all the States…
Andrew Lippa’s “I Am Anne Hutchinson” and “I Am Harvey Milk.” Whew! How to describe the show this evening. I have all sorts of superlatives I can lavish on it. Amazing, Spectacular, Magnificent – those apply. The choruses outdid themselves. And both Chenoweth and Lippa brought their A-game vocally. Really, I am used to being…
I did something tonight I have never done before. I walked out in the middle of a Shakespeare production. The only time I’ve ever been tempted to walk out of a Shakespeare production was a terrible Troilus and Cressida production I saw 28 years ago at Stratford, Ontario. But even that piece of dung was…