Category: conventions

I’m having a little FOMO. I decided to skip Worldcon this year. I had originally intended to go. That was why I had signed for LOSCon last year. But I had a somewhat mixed experience last year, so instead I decided to just stay home. I’m not really having much FOMO because I really don’t like going to conventions all that much in the first place. But a little.

Last year I did everything. I did Arisia, Boskone, Watch City, Nebulas, Readercon, Worldcon, and LOSCon. I had signed up for everything since I had a new book coming out! But then my book didn’t come out in December. Or January. Or February. Or May. Or July. Or August. In November, we finally got copies while I was at LOSCon. And I probably should have signed up to do everything again this year to promote my new book. But I couldn’t.

Part of it is traveling. Since I have to use a portable oxygen concentrator to fly, it’s pretty inconvenient. It’s really helpful to have someone to travel with me but I wasn’t sure I could get anyone to go. Often my son has traveled with me, but the semester is about to start. And I really didn’t want to travel by myself.

A lot of people love going to conventions for the parties. Unfortunately, due to my health issues, I can’t really attend parties anymore. I need to wear an N95 mask and I especially try to avoid crowded spaces that have poor ventilation. So I can’t do the parties.

Note: It’s worth pointing out that I hate parties and I would never go to them anyway if I could possibly avoid it. I can’t stand parties and I would rather eat shards of broken glass that go to one. But now I *can’t* so it’s OK.

As an aside, I saw that COVID is high in California anyway, so I’m feeling like I dodged a bullet. Last year, pretty much everyone who worked at my publisher’s dealer table got COVID, flu or both. I didn’t — because I wore a mask the whole time.

I enjoy serving on panels at conventions. I think I’m not bad at it. I used to worry about what I was going to stay, but I’ve discovered that if you stick a mic in front of me, I can babble endlessly. People generally seem to think I have something useful to offer.

I liked selling books in the bookstore I was really surprised to find I was pretty good at that. But after the unpleasant run-in with the other author last year, I was reluctant to do that again.

A final factor that played into my decision was that this is my last week of employment. Monday, August 31, is my very last day. As it turned out, getting all of the paperwork organized and submitted has been unexpectedly complicated. You would think a giant university would know how to manage something like that, that obviously happens literally every day. But they don’t. Which day is my “date of retirement”? My last day of employment? Or the first day after? They don’t know. (It turns out it’s my last day of employment.) I’m glad to not be trying to resolve these issues remotely from California.

In the end, I’m guess glad I didn’t go to Worldcon. I do have a little FOMO. I will miss seeing my SFWA folks and a lot of the other authors I’ve worked with. But I’m glad to miss the travel and the stress.

I do plan to go next year, when it is in Montreal, because I can just drive there. I’ll see you all then!

name tag and lanyard

My first appearances of 2026 have been scheduled! Some of these are still preliminary and may change, but I wanted to get them out in time to share in my January newsletter.

At Arisa 2026 (January 16-19), I am scheduled to moderate one panel and serve on four others:

Manga 101: Introduction to Japanese Comics
Kendall Square Saturday, January 17, 2026, 10:00 AM EST

Don’t Know Much About Geography–But You Should!
Porter Square A Saturday, January 17, 2026, 5:30 PM EST

Artist, Craftsperson, Maker, Crafter, Hacker – What’s in a Name?
Central Square Saturday, January 17, 2026, 6:45 PM EST

Your Fat Friends
Porter Square A Sunday, January 18, 2026, 10:00 AM EST

Isekai 101: Surviving Your Time In Another World (moderator)
Harvard Square Monday, January 19, 2026, 10:00 AM EST

There is still a chance I will get an opportunity to read at Arisia. The schedule is still being finalized.

On January 31, I have been selected to read from A Familiar Problem at the Straw Dog Writers Guild Author Showcase at 4pm at the Forbes Library in Northampton. I will also be bringing copies of my books to sell!

Later in the year, I’m tentatively planning to attend Watch City, the Nebula Conference, and Readercon again. I’m also proposing myself to be a participant at Worldcon. I’ll post further updates as we get closer!

name tag and lanyard

Back in July, I pitched a panel for LOSCon. It turns out that my panel was accepted! On Saturday, I will moderate a group of panelists to discuss Poetry and Songs in Speculative Fiction. I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve got some idea for questions. I reached out to the panelists, but haven’t gotten much back yet. I think it will be easy to talk almost endlessly about the theme. It’s a fascinating topic.

On Friday, I will be a panelist discussing Biology in Science Fiction and Real Space. I was nicely prepped for this one by the recent presentation on Worldbuilding 101 by James Cambias. And, of course, if you stick a microphone in front of me to talk about biology, I can babble endlessly.

On Sunday, Developing a Creative Habit. This is kind of a funny topic for me, since my pitch is really the anti-habit. I wanted to talk about how, while many authors love to develop a habit to be productive, I would rather just let my creativity happen randomly. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t.

My publisher is going to have a table in the dealer room. My new book, A Familiar Problem, is scheduled to come out Dec 9, 2025 — too late for the convention. But there’s a chance a few copies will arrive in time. I’ve got my fingers crossed.

I usually suck at meeting people at conventions. But I’m going to make a particular effort to meet people involved with organizing the coming Worldcon in Los Angeles. Or, rather, Anaheim. Wish me luck!

japanese maple

Fall has begun. It’s always a dark time for me, as the seasons change and the days grow shorter. I have settled into my phased retirement, however, so the semester is not so onerous as it once was. And each thing I do professionally, I have the opportunity to reflect on how it’s the last time — or nearly the last — that I will ever have to do that.

After the wonderful experience with the panel about the evolution of dogs at Worldcon, I decided to have my students research and write about dogs for my scientific writing class. I always try to pick a theme I haven’t chosen before. I have had my students study many things in the 23 years I’ve taught this class — tardigrades, autumn leaves, cockroaches, garlic mustard, frogs, monocots, terrestrial gastropods, leaf miners, earthworms, millipedes, etc. — but I’ve never done dogs before. I think it’s going pretty well.

I’ve been productive with SFF writing as well as fall begins. I finished a novelette, Bearly Believable; wrote a short story, Uplands; and have started working on a second, Tablelands, in the same series. (Both are sequels to Bottomlands, a story that has been accepted for publication, but for which I’ve not yet received a contract.) I wrote about using regular expressions to find other -lands words, so now I have a bunch of ideas for further titles in this series.

I have also written an article for Planetside, the newly renamed SFWA blog. I made a pitch back in August which was accepted. Once I submitted the manuscript, it was sent to a line editor for revisions, which went well. Now it’s with the lead editor for final review and to select some of the images I submitted to go with it. It’s been my first experience writing for Planetside and it’s been a real pleasure.

I’ve not been as diligent about getting work submitted for publication this year. I have two works “in press” though long delayed. But I need to do better at getting work submitted and promptly re-submitted once it’s rejected.

I have two public appearances coming up and anticipate a few more in the coming months. I will appear next month at WriteAngles on a panel about science fiction: Writing the Future. The following month, I am scheduled to be on a panel at SFWA Quasar. I have also applied to be a participant at LOSCon in November, Arisia in January, and the next Worldcon in August.

November is going to be busy. In addition to Quasar and LOSCon, on November 8, I will be selling books at the Mill District Holiday Arts Market and the following day, I will host a Straw Dog Writers Guild craft workshop entitled Worldbuilding 101 with James Cambias.

Around the equinox, I met with the amazing curators of @wss366 to talk about Wandering Shop Stories. It’s a great bunch of folks! We had a new curator join us since our last meeting and it was wonderful to meet her. I love our small community and it gives me immense pleasure every day to have a little creative exercise in the morning to start things off. Our next meeting will be around the solstice.

Although it’s depressing to watch the news, I am encouraged by more than just schadenfreude. Not everything is dark. People are waking up to the fact that AI is a hype and asset bubble. And it looks to me like, in running up against the real world, the Republicans are beginning to realize that actually governing is necessary. I rarely agree with what they’re doing but, occasionally — after exhausting all of the other possibilities — they do finally do the right thing. It’s something.

There’s a long, dark winter ahead. But spring will follow eventually.

an older man sitting on the garden terrace at the Seattle Worldcin

The 2025 Worldcon in Seattle was generally good. I served on a lot of panels, had a good reading, and (for me) met a lot of people. But I had one unpleasant experience that left a bad taste in my mouth and left me feeling rather mixed on the whole convention.

I had a reading. At first, I realized they had scheduled my reading for Sunday when would have already left. But they were graciously able to reschedule it earlier in the Con. It was, in fact, in the second reading slot for the convention. I worried that it might not get any attendees. After Boskone, I said I would be happy if my reading had any attendees. But there were six people, two of whom came specifically to see me. I joked afterward that it had a non-zero number of attendees and some of them were not even related to me by blood.

I also served on seven panels at Worldcon. Seven is rather a lot, but I like to be busy. I moderated one panel and was a panelist on the others. Many people came up afterward to praise my performance both as panelist and moderator — and to express interest in my books. And some even came to the dealer room later to find me and buy copies.

The panel I moderated, An Hour of the Strange, Unusual, Creepy, went very well. One of the participants had emailed everyone within a day or two of the panel being proposed to start organizing it and asked everyone to introduce themselves and describe what they wanted to do talk about. I responded to the email and then, a day or two, followed up gently with the email I normally sent to panels that I’m going to moderate that introduces me as the moderator with my usual information requests, that includes how to pronounce names and solicits questions that will allow each panelist to make the points they want to make about the topic. A few days before the panel, I sent the list of questions I’d come up with. Our presentation went well and I think everyone was able to participate well and say what they wanted to say. The guy who’d tried to take over as organizer apologized after the panel for jumping the gun. He said he’d served on another panel where the moderator never reached out or did anything (which has happened to me too). I said it was no problem. I was pleased that everyone seemed happy with the result.

Most of my other panels were about biology. On Life as we know it, I got to serve with Frank Wu again. We were on a similar panel at Boskone. In the lead up to the panel, I pointed out a couple of new unusual life forms that I had heard about that Frank hadn’t yet seen. He was super excited about them and I think I earned a lot of points with him. In both Can biological research ever be independant? and Human evolution and our influence on it were well-stocked with real expertise and I felt like I could play effectively off points other people were making to add useful information and nuance.

I was on two ‘non biology’ panels. One was about self-publishing for poets, which went well where I got to show off my Esperanto books and the ‘zines I’ve made. The other was about Makerspaces. One of the participants didn’t show up for that one and so it was a little thin. But we had a good time playing off the audience’s questions and letting them to contribute useful information.

My favorite panel was Biology and Evolution of the Dog that had a perfect mix of expertise and personalities. The moderator was a PhD Doctor of Veterinary Medicine who had been deeply involved with sequencing projects. There was an evolutionary biologist and a dog training expert. And me. Since everyone else could play to their expertise, I could just be the weird author and talk about boxer dogs and my story with a character who is a NeoBoxer.

The panel got off to a rough start when it turned out that there was no projector to share the slide presentation the moderator had constructed. I suggested that we could run a zoom session that the participants could join and the moderator could share the presentation that way. In the 15 minutes before the start, I set a zoom session, everyone joined, and it worked. (Mostly. The convention center was experiencing some network issues and the moderator got dropped from the zoom session a couple of times. But we rolled with it, reorganized a couple of the points, and got through everything.)

I also had several SFWA events. I attended a board meeting, served at the SFWA “fan table” a couple of times, and attended a breakfast (for a few minutes: it was tightly packed in a small, poorly ventilated room so I left once it got busy to reduce my exposure to COVID). They had a networking reception that I unfortunately couldn’t attend, because I was on a panel at the same time. But I got to introduce myself as the Secretary to a bunch of SFWA folks, including John Scalzi, while I was serving at the fan table and selling books.

I was too busy to spend a lot of time selling books in the dealer room, but I was there much of my free time. We had brought some books (my own and others from my publisher) and dropped them off before the dealer room opened. I managed to sell most of the books I’d brought and ended up bringing home only a handful. I didn’t manage to sell any of my Esperanto chapbooks, which kind of surprised me. But not that much.

Everything went very well with one exception. One of the other authors with my publisher decided to try to chastise me on two separate occasions for things they misunderstood about what I was doing. In both cases, I felt that they were very aggressive and kind of an asshole about it. I reported the conflicts to my publisher and said that, as things stand, I will not work with this person going forward. But it made me somewhat upset and rather colored the whole Worldcon experience for me.

I should recognize my son Daniel for coming along with me. He was a boon companion and made sure I got at least one good meal each day. Plus he helped me schlep the books all the way there. I really enjoy having him come along with me for many reasons but also because, honestly, I don’t quite trust myself to manage all of the travel details anymore, and so having second set of eyes on everything is reassuring.

We checked out of the hotel around 6am Sunday morning and spent the whole day traveling home: light rail to the airport then two 3-4 hour flights with a long layover in DFW. We finally got home around 1am. I’m rather glad I’m not traveling again until November for LOSCon.

The final(ish) Schedule for Worldcon has come out and I am on the program! My experience with Worldcons seems to be either feast or famine. I had eight appearances as a participant in Chicago, for my first Worldcon, and then was totally declined as a participant for Glasgow. This year, I’m excited to moderate one panel, appear in six more, and I also have a reading. Here is my schedule in chronological order.

Reading: Steven D. Brewer

Room ???, Weds 11–11:30 a.m.

A Familiar Problem. Becoming a powerful demon’s familiar might just be the best thing ever. But what’s the catch? Rory Soletsa is supposed to find his magical familiar, but he doesn’t want something trite, like a cat; or stupid, like a bird; or ugly, like a toad. Amazed when he is captured and becomes the familiar to a powerful demon who presents as a voluptuous, beautiful woman, Rory discovers how much more powerful his magic is with her. And he’s ecstatic when the demon tells him she will train him in advanced offensive and defensive magic. But just what is she training him for?

Note: This session has been rescheduled from Sunday.

Can Biological Research Ever Be Independent?

Room 447-448, Wed. noon–1 p.m.

Let’s face it, we conduct science in an inherently for-profit environment, which leads to all sorts of biases. How do we work around these built-in barriers to create truly independent science? Without breaking too many laws, of course.

An Hour of the Strange, Unusual, Creepy

Room 343-344, Wed. 3–4 p.m.

Ewww! Gross! WTF? Yep, all of this stuff is real… and some is common in your back yard.

Self-Publishing for Poets

Room 445-446, Thu. 10:30–11:30 a.m.

From chapbooks to zines, poetry has a rich history of self-publishing. Whether your goal is merely to get your poems into more hands or to craft an online presence as a poet, this workshop will help you learn how to market, sell, and self-publish your poetry. From blogging to Instagram to Amazon, we’ll dive into the important details of crafting a bestselling poetry collection. Learn how to format poetry, how to find the best distribution sites for poetry books, and how to market a collection from advertising to book reviews.

Life as We Know It

Room 447-448, Thu. 1:30–2:30 p.m.

Nothing in fantasy or sci fi is original (no, don’t rage-quit); it is all amalgamations of things we have seen or heard of. So would we recognize life that is truly alien?

Human Evolution and Our Influence on It

Room 445-446, Thu. 3–4 p.m.

Just because we’re at the top of the food chain doesn’t mean that humans are done evolving. Can we predict what is in the future for our bodies? Which creators’ visions are realistic?

Biology and Evolution of the Dog

Room 447-448, Sat. 9–10 a.m.

Human’s best friend, best creation, and best companion: What was the evolutionary path of the household dog? Was humanity the worst thing to happen to wolves?

Makerspaces: For When You Can’t Own All the Tools

Room 335-336, Sat. 6–7 p.m.

A makerspace is shared workshop or group of workshops where people can use the tools and facilities to work on their own projects. Some are membership-based, and some are in public libraries. Assume that any major city will have at least one. Our panelists will discuss their involvement with makerspaces, what they recommend, and how the user can get the best experience from a makerspace.

I was excited to be offered a place on the program at Worldcon in Seattle, but recent events about Worldcon have left me in a quandary. I will probably still attend, but I’m dismayed and discouraged by what’s happening.

I first attended Worldcon in 2023. I applied to be a participant with little expectation of getting on the program, and was very surprised when I ended up with eight appearances. I applied again in 2024 and, expecting to be selected, made all of my arrangements to travel internationally to Glasgow. When I was not selected, I decided — at significant expense — to cancel all of my arrangements. So, when I applied for this year in Seattle, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

I filled out the interest form to be a participant in October. In January, I was very excited to be invited to be a participant. And, in early April, I had the opportunity to fill out the panel selection survey, to propose myself for particular roles. And then, just before May, the Worldcon Chair issued a statement, followed by an apology, and then a clarifying statement, about the use of ChatGPT, a generative AI Large Language Model (LLM) in the participant selection process, that included the actual ChatGPT prompt they used to investigate participants.

Basically, they tried to use ChatGPT to assess potential participants (who were identified by name to the system) for disqualifying attitudes, statements, and behaviors. The system collected information and provided it for review, along with an assessment of the suitability of each name.

The reaction of the speculative fiction community was swift and almost universally negative. A few people have tried to speak up for the organizers, but most expressed outrage. A number of prominent people have withdrawn as volunteers and participants. Or even pulled their works from consideration for awards.

Large Language Models are reviled in the writing community for many reasons: they have been unethically developed, frequently exhibit bias, and are known to “hallucinate” false information. Moreover, they represent an existential threat to the writing community if their corporate masters are allowed to profit from the unethical use of the source materials that were used to train them.

Others, with more expertise, have written about the shortcomings of using Generative AI in general, and ChatGPT in particular, for this purpose. Both the choice of tool and the nature of the prompt meant that the results would be potentially biased and untrustworthy.

Many people ran the prompt on their own name to see what their report looked like. Out of curiosity, I finally decided to do that too, to see what they would have found when they investigated me. The report about me was banal with no wildly incorrect information. (I could speculate at length about why, but the reasons aren’t really germane to this discussion.)

I have written about my grave concerns about the use of generative AI and that fact that I do not personally use “AI” for anything. I had previously never used ChatGPT. And I regret having given into my curiosity to use it now.

My overall reaction has been dismay. Worldcon was already going to be thinly attended due to the unsafe conditions traveling to — or even within — the United States for many people. Now, even more people are canceling their plans to attend for this unforced error.

My initial hope was that they would reject the work done by AI — the fruit of the poison tree — and redo the participant selection process — even it meant I risked being denied a spot on the program. But, unfortunately, they seem to have doubled-down on retaining the work done to date.

So, I’m left with a quandary. I don’t plan to take any immediate action. I don’t even know if I’ve been selected to appear on any panels. And I have other obligations to fulfill at Worldcon: My publisher has applied to sell books there — presumably including my forthcoming book. Furthermore, as Secretary of SFWA, I would like the opportunity to meet with and coordinate with my colleagues. But I’m left dismayed and discouraged. And deeply unsettled.

I’ve gotten my final schedule for Boskone, Feb 14-16! I’m moderating one panel, serving on three others, and offering a reading on Saturday afternoon. 

 Start Time              Title
Fri  2:30 PM       Biology in SF/F                                   
Sat 10:00 AM       SF and Totalitarianism                            
Sat 11:30 AM       Genetic Engineering (mod)                              
Sat  5:30 PM       Reading: Steven D. Brewer                         
Sun 10:00 AM       Fantasy Beyond Swords and Sorcery

There are a lot of great people on the panels with me. It should be a lot of fun!

We didn’t get a table in the dealer room this year and so, since I’ll otherwise be at liberty, I’ve decided to organize a fan table for SFWA. It will be in the Galleria (along with the dealer room) so stop by to say hi!

I’ve only been attending Arisia for a few years and every year I’ve attended, it’s been at the Westin Seaport in Boston. But this year, they switched to the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge. Evidently, it had been here in the past.

It’s a lot smaller. It filled up so quickly that I wasn’t able to get lodging. And my publisher wasn’t able to get a spot in the dealer room.

I was able to get on the program. I was scheduled for six panels and a reading. Unfortunately, since I wasn’t able to get lodging, I decided to drive over only for a single day. So I declined the two panels and the reading on Saturday and planned to drive over just for Sunday.

A couple of days before, the forecast changed to predict a serious winter storm for Sunday night. Great, I thought. But I have a four-wheel drive car, so I decided to just go for it.

They had warned the parking might not be available, so I got up at 4:30am and drove into Boston, arriving around 7am. As it turned out, parking wasn’t a problem and I had plenty of time to walk around and find everything before registration opened at 9am. Not that it took long to find things, because the venue was quite small.

I hung out in the cafe for a while and then ran into a writer friend who was setting up to volunteer in registration. We chatted amiably and then, once registration opened, I was able to get my badge, go to Program Nexus to get my presenter packet, get the QR code to get the parking discount, and get set up for my first panel.

It felt crowded and cramped having to squeeze through the hallway that was jammed with people. Arisia requires masks, but I found being in crowds to be nearly panic-inducing even before COVID.

My first panel was The Good, the Bad and the Cringe: Science in Social Media about how misinformation and disinformation has made social media into disaster even worse than journalism was before. All of the participants brought useful information. I was able to offer some unique perspectives about how people use social media, not just for information, but for “lulz” where engagement is more important than veracity. At the same time, I asked the audience to consider which was more important when they were a teenager trying to learn about sex: the sex-ed class or the locker-room? Both perspectives are incomplete: the sex-ex class generally offers only a curated and white-washed view of the truth while the locker room is more authentic, but full of misinformation and distortions. But both perspectives add value.

I had a short break before my next panel Athleticism in Fantasy and Science Fiction. I had wanted to be on the panel because physical fitness and training are essential elements in both Revin’s Heart and A Familiar Problem. I was able to plug my books and contribute several good bits that seemed appreciated by the audience and other participants.

I had a long break until my next presentation. It was so crowded in the hotel, I finally just went out to my car in the freezing parking garage, covered up with my coat, and snoozled for an hour until the cold finally drove me back in.

My favorite session was probably Writing With The Rainbow. This was the only one that was really about authorship. And had all the queer vibes I love. I was able to talk about my books and short stories I’ve written and the goals I’ve been trying to accomplish. I was glad to meet all of other participants and we had a great conversation about the topics.

Immediately after was my last panel, Makerspaces – For When You Can’t Own All The Tools, where I was the moderator. One of the participants had dropped out, so there were only four of on the panel and, so I promoted myself to be a participant as well as moderator. It was a nicely diverse group with another academic makerspace user, someone from a huge independent makerspace, and someone who runs a small makerspace out of their home. I was pleased with how well the questions I’d crafted elicited good conversation and information. I told a couple of stories that resonated with the participants and audience, about making a shimenawa and a story I’d heard about AS220.

As soon as the last panel wrapped up, I hurried out to my car and started driving home. The winter storm was moving in, and I had to drive straight through it to get home. The road signs all said, “Winter Storm Warning! Plan ahead!” Gee, thanks.

Visibility was low in a few spots and the MassPike was snow-covered, so it was sometimes difficult to see lane markings. I averaged about 40mph and took a longer route which avoided the back roads. It increased the travel time by only about 1/3, so was well worth it. It was nice to get home and go to sleep before midnight in my own bed after a very long day.

Now today, I’m back to work, waiting to see if I caught COVID, and dreading the change in administration. But, for a cold snowy day, I’ve made a big pot of clam chowder and am staying in where it’s warm.

I think Arisia is going to be in the same venue again next year, so I’ll plan to make my reservations earlier and recommend my publisher make the request for space in the dealer room as early as possible.

On July 15 (less than a month before the convention) I was notified that my request to be a participant at Worldcon was declined. I was pretty disappointed. Since I had been given eight participant roles at my previous Worldcon, I had expected I would get at least some role — even if just to read. But I was not selected for anything.

Given the huge expense of traveling internationally coupled with the heightened risk of COVID transmission on long flights — plus the decision of the convention to not require masking — I decided to cancel my travel plans altogether and not attend the convention.

Given my health issues, I had purchased fully refundable plane tickets. I will have to pay a non-refundable deposit to the hotel. And, of course, I paid the registration cost of the convention. But the expense is little compared to the disappointment of not being a participant.

Maybe next year.