Mountain Con Was Great; The First Line (with my story in it!)

I went to a local Sci-Fi/Fantasy convention this weekend. It's called Mountain Con, and it's more of a fan convention than anything. Still and all, there were some great "creators" in attendance. I got to hang out with Ken Rand, who's a great writer and also a really nice guy. Just being around him allowed me to soak up a lot of writer wisdom. I also got to go to dinner with Diana Pharaoh Francis, who was the writer Guest of Honor for the 'con. She's very nice and approachable, and her family is great. I went with my friend Paul, who's really helped me understand what I need to do to get ahead in the writing biz (he and I are also best buds who've known each other for ages). He's got his book coming out next April, so he had a lot of promotional material to put out. For more info on Paul's work, look here. I was primarily pushing Nasty, Brutish, and Short, so I hope to have some new people checking it out. Dare I hope that someone might actually submit? Well, perhaps that's aiming high.

It was a really fun Con. I met a lot of neat people, including local writers like Julie Frost, who's a very cool person, as well as being a Browncoat (Serenity/Firefly addict). I'm glad I went. I actually got to sit on a panel today when most of the panel members failed to show up. Fun stuff. I'll have to put a bunch more "cool people" entries on my website's blogroll area.

The big thing other than that is that my story, "With a Dancer's Grace" came out in The First Line this week. I just got my copies on Saturday, and I think that the quality is very high. There are some people who can really, really write in this issue, and I'd run out to their website and buy the issue, whether I appeared in it or not. I hope you'll check it out. Their website is only a click away.

Anyway, a hell of a week, and I'm jazzed up to write and submit more stuff. Hope you're all doing equally well out there.