Category: watch city

a button for watch city vendors

For the week before the Watch City Steampunk Festival, I kept checking the forecast and trying to decide what to do. There was rain predicted the day before, but the forecast kept changing: some days, it seemed like it would clear up before the festival opened. And other times, it looked like it would be a washout. The night before, I decided that I would just have to drive there and make an assessment.

I had thought there would be another attending author. I’d met him previously at Readercon was hopeful he’d come early enough to help me set up. But it turned out he actually couldn’t attend. I was luckily able to recruit my son to go with me to help with load out, load in, and to give me breaks to use the facilities.

My son and I got up at 5am for the two-hour drive to Waltham. Normally, the drive would be a half-hour shorter, but it was slower driving in the rain. When we arrived, light rain was still falling. But looking at the radar made me think that the heaviest of the rain was over. The radar image was fascinating: the storm was rotating counter-clockwise, almost like a hurricane, very nearly centered on Waltham. But most of the heaviest bands of rain were to the north and the whole system was moving slowly northeast.So we started unloading. We set up the canopy and the table, put up the banner, and brought just a minimal subset of books to display.

a booth with a red canopy with a limited selection of books in the rain

My wife looked at the picture and said we should have lowered the banner and/or raised the table cloth. She tracked down the picture from last year to show me how it looked before. I said that Daniel and I had agreed that the weather had left us “rain damaged.”

Business was slow all morning. A few people stopped to look, but nobody bought anything. It continued to rain and was chilly, with temps only in the low 50s. I put on a heavier coat and my gloves. But, little by little, the sun began to peek out and the festival became more lively. And sales picked up.

I hadn’t brought a wide selection. In addition to what was listed there, I brought Romancing the Rainbow, my books of haiku, and a few other things. But a lot of people buying books here had seen me before — either last year at Watch City or at Readercon, Arisia, or Boskone. When I had signed up to do Watch City, I thought I’d have a new book out. But it’s been delayed. I had hoped it would be out in June, but now looks like it may be delayed yet again. In any case, several people said they already had either Revin’s Heart and/or Better Angels: Tour de Force, so their choices were pretty limited. One young woman, who already had Revin’s Heart bought a copy of Romancing the Rainbow. A young man, with his parents, was very interested in Revin’s Heart but really liked the bundle of novelettes, so his parents paid the extra $10 to buy him the bundle. A young woman was interested in the Esperanto books, saying her dad spoke Esperanto. She bought him a copy of Premitaj Floroj. A young man, who had been a student employee of mine ten years ago, remembered himself to me and took a card, so he could order a book. I gave away a lot of cards.

Another vendor stopped by to ask me how we did. I indicated that sales had been lackluster. He said he’d done very well: he’d sold 24 copies of his new release. He made encouraging comments about small-press and indie publishing.

A lot of people were puzzled by the “Small Publishing in a Big Universe” moniker. Once they heard what it was, they agreed it sounded like a great idea. One woman mentioned the Independent Publishers of New England that is conceptually similar. I should look into them some more. She mentioned upcoming events I might consider.

After we packed up, we drove to Dirigible Brewing for dinner and a beer. The weather by then was perfect. Still cool, but sunny and pleasant for drive home.

Small Publishing in Big Universe at Watch City

Small Publishing in a Big Universe (SPBU) is sponsoring a table at the Watch City Steampunk Festival again this year on May 10 in Waltham, Massachusetts. If you’re an author who would like to attend you can fill out this form to join us and sell your books. You can already see who is signed up this year.

Watch City is an amazing spectacle! There are hundreds of people who attend wearing steampunky costumes with dozens of vendors selling art, crafts, and food. Plus music, contests, and performances. It’s a fun-filled day with lots of excitement and cheer.

I ran the table for SPBU last year and we sold a fair number of books. I’m looking forward to going back again this year! Maybe this year, I’ll be organized enough that the colors of the price tags will actually mean something. It could happen!

My year in writing has been a year of transition. During the spring, I negotiated with my employer to begin a phased retirement. I was distracted during much that time trying to figure out all of the ins-and-outs of this huge life change. There’s a lot to learn and a huge number of details. Luckily, my life partner is good at this sort of thing — much better than me — and she did the lion’s share of the work. I’m so lucky to have her. But starting this fall, I began teaching half-time, which has freed up a lot of time for writing.

I attended several events related to my writing. I was both a participant at Arisia in January moderating a panel on gender and sexual identity in media and serving on several other panels. I was a participant at Boskone during February where I served on panels about evolution and romance. I ran the Small Publishing in a Big Universe (SPBU) Marketplace table at the Watch City Steampunk Festival. I also ran Water Dragon and SPBU tables at Readercon in July.

I offered several readings as well, at Arisia, Boskone, and for Straw Dog. I mostly did readings from Better Angels: Tour de Force with selections from Military Morale Mishegoss and all of The Super Sticky Situation.

To support sales of the signed edition, I made a Better Angels ‘zine similar to the Revin’s Heart ‘zine with snapshots and descriptions of each of the Angels with their vital statistics and “three measurements.” I was really pleased with how it turned out — especially the pictures of the individual Angels. They’re really kyuto!

I continued to offer Straw Dog Writes for the Straw Dog Writers’ Guild. Roughly forty people have signed up or attended at some point, The average attendance was four with a range of 1 to 9. Attendance was lower during the summer but a few loyal attendees came nearly every week.

I set up and ran Wandering Shop Stories beginning in 2024. I have written a story fragment almost every day as a warm up exercise. We have four or five other participants nearly every day. In December the server we had used to operate the bot was scheduled to shut down, so I migrated to wandering.shop. Nearly 100 people have signed up for the feed. And in late November, I created a bot to offer the prompt on Bluesky as well.

I had two works published in 2024. The collected edition of Revin’s Heart came out from Water Dragon Publishing with the original seven novelettes plus three “side quests” — short stories from the perspective of other characters. I also had a short story, Always a Destroyer, selected for the anthology Romancing the Rainbow by Knight Writing Press.

I have signed the contract with Water Dragon Publishing for A Familiar Problem. A young man desperately wants a strong magical familiar but, instead, is captured and made the familiar of a powerful demon that intends to train him up for something. But what? The book is tentatively scheduled to be released in January 2025.

I did a lot of writing. I finished writing a new series of six novelettes: Lady Cecelia’s Journey with a seventh omake novelette for the extended edition (totaling 74,000 words). I’m calling it a sapphic romantasy road story:

Love blossoms between two young women, aristocrat and commoner, who risk everything to pursue a life together in face of parental and societal disapproval. Their hope takes them from their small town, across the island, to the Capital following the passionate dream that they can be together openly.

I also have written tens of thousands of words of The Ground Never Lies another sapphic romantasy about a geomancer with an anger problem who thinks herself unlovable, but discovers a capacity for love she believes she had lost. I had developed an original outline and when I finished writing it, I realized I only had about half a novel. But then I realized that I could write another timeline of the events that led to her disillusionment and intersperse the two timelines. At least that’s the plan.

I have several other works in progress. I have two novellas written as sequels to Revin’s Heart with a third in in progress. I’ve written several other short stories set in the same universe as Always a Destroyer.

In the fall, when the candidate for Secretary of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) dropped out, I proposed myself as a write-in candidate. In October, I was elected and took office on November 1. It’s been an interesting experience and a good fit for what I can offer to an organization. It’s been a steep learning curve to get up to speed with the current challenges and culture of the organization. But I’m very happy with the rest of the leadership team and feel appreciated for making a useful contribution.

Not everything went well in 2024, however. I was very disappointed when I was not offered a participant role at Worldcon in Glasgow. I had already purchased plane tickets and lodging. I ended up deciding not to go. I was able to recover some of what I had spent, and it turned out that many many people got COVID, so it was perhaps for the best.

I have some exciting plans for 2025 that I look forward to sharing soon.

When I agreed to run a vendor booth at the Watch City Steampunk Festival for the Small Publishing in a Big Universe Marketplace, I was hopeful that several authors might also attend to help set up and sell books. It sounded like several authors had expressed interest. But, as the event approached, it became apparent I was going to be on my own. The day before, my wife took pity on me and agreed to go with me to the event to keep me company and, at least, make sure I could go to the bathroom when necessary.

Since I normally get up pretty early anyway, I had been planning to leave early the morning of the event. But my wife suggested we travel the night before and stay in a hotel so we could have a more leisurely time. She tracked down a room for us and made reservations, so — after my last class on Friday — we hopped in the car and drove to Waltham. There was a restaurant across the street from the hotel that had an outdoor patio and a good beer selection, so we had a pleasant evening.

The morning of the event, we drove to the common where the festival was getting set up and, after checking in, found a place to park where I could leave the car that wasn’t too far from where our booth was located. Waltham doesn’t allow vehicles on the common, so we had to move everything from the car about 200 yards. It took about 45 minutes to schlep everything over and then an hour to set up the tent and table, hang the banner and flags, set out the books, and get price tags on everything. But we were easily ready by the time the festival began.

The festival was well attended. There were thousands of people of all ages, many wearing steampunky costumes: top hats with goggles and fascinators; elaborate steampunky backpacks, carts, and gear; dresses with hoop skirts and bustles; and pseudo-victorian clothing. Kevin Harkins of Kevin Harkins Photography shared a gallery of imagery that includes a lot of nice pictures of people’s costumes.I wore my straw fedora with steampunky goggles and my maroon paisley smoking jacket over a t-shirt with the Water Dragon logo. A number of people commented positively on my suitable attire.

Initially, there had been a prediction of rain. In the end, the weather was cloudy but fair. It was a bit cool — not too breezy — with the sun peeking through in the afternoon. If it had been 10 degrees warmer, it would have been perfect.

I developed a pitch to welcome people to the table: “We’re Small Publishing in a Big Universe — a cooperative of independent authors and small presses that have collaborated to stock a table for you. I’m an author with Water Dragon Publishing and, since I’m here, my books are in the middle.” Then I would describe my two books and introduce the books by the other authors. Finally, I would invite them to pick up the books to learn more about them and not hesitate to ask me questions.

We sold a fair number of books. My books sold best: about half the sales were Revin’s Heart followed by Better Angels: Tour de Force and Snail’s Pace (the other fairly steampunky book). I sold two hardcovers, which kind of surprised me and made me glad I’d brought a few. I was disappointed to not be able to sell more books by the other authors. A lot of people took business cards: both SPBU’s and mine.

At the end of the festival, we had to pack everything up and schlep it back to the car. Our feet were pretty sore by this time. Once we finally had everything in the car, we drove to Dirigible Brewing, which was on the way home to have dinner and a well-earned beer.

For my wife and I, the trip was a bit nostalgic because it hearkened back to the time before I went to graduate school when we spent a year on the road together doing educational assemblies. Every morning, we drove to an elementary school unpacked and set up a portable planetarium, did shows, then packed up and headed to the next school. It was a fun time of our lives.

Several people asked if we’d be back next year and I indicated I thought we probably would. It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. And it’s always nice to sell some books.