AD ASTRA 2016 SCHEDULE! YAY!!!

That's right, folks. It's time for one of my favourite Toronto-based Conventions. Ad Astra!

If you don't know about Ad Astra, click here. Then register. Then show up and hang out, because they're great people!

This year I am very excited because the amazing Hayden Trenholm has written a play and I get to be in a perfromed reading of it!  Yay!  And I get to see a whole bunch of my favourite people! Yay!

So with no further ado, here is...

My 2016 Ad Astra Schedule!

Friday!

7 p.m. Trophies: A Live Reading of the Stage Play

It's a live reading of Hayden Trenholm's live stage play, Trophies!

9 p.m. Food Drink and Cuisine in Speculative Fiction

"One of speculative fiction's most notable characteristics is its focus on worldbuilding. And an underappreciated, but important, aspect of worldbuilding is the food that characters eat and drink.

Have you ever read of a fictional meal and thought, "Wow, I really want to try that"? What can food, drink, and cooking tell us about a character, or about the society that character lives in? How do issues like food security and food scarcity play into dystopian fiction? This panel will look at this topic and how it affects other aspects of speculative fiction worldbuilding, like trade, war, relationships, and more."

Saturday!

FREE!  I AM FREE!!! I can do whatever I like!

I have no panels scheduled for Saturday so I'll be hanging out and seeing other people's panels and talking with writers and maybe even holing up somewhere to write. Generally, I'll be enjoying the heck out of myself.  If you're around, look for me. I'm always happy to stop and chat.

Sunday!

11 a.m. How To Go Beyond Getting Started and Get Something Finished

Are you the kind of person who has a million ideas, but no motivation to see any of them through to completion? What does it take to see a creative project all the way through? In this panel, authors and artists share their stories of being demotivated and distracted and talk about how they made it to the light at the end of the tunnel. - See more at:

12 Noon: Surviving as an Artist

So you want to make a living as an artist of some kind. That science degree isn't doing it for you. Maybe you want to be an actor and everyone is telling you that you're going to starve! Come to this panel and hear how some of the artists in film, literature, gaming and music have found a way to "make it" and find out what making a living as an artist or writer actually means to you.


I hope you all come to Ad Astra, and I really hope I get to see you there!

2016 – New Beginnings

Those who follow this blog know that it fell silent last year. You probably know why, because I blogged about it. For those who don’t, the short form is, I was suffering from chronic depression and couldn’t manage to do anything for a while. It has taken eight months to get back to the point where I can function reasonably well, and even so there are days when I just can’t.

But today is not one of those days, and thanks to modern medicine, Mind Over Mood, and much support from the people I love, I am on the road to recovery.

Which leads us to this post.

I have plans for 2016. Lots of plans. I have stories to write and a novel to finish and another to write and another novel that I’m going to self-publish, which means marketing plans to make and execute and all sorts of other fun things.

And going to more conventions. I like conventions and need to get out of the house a bit more.

And I plan to talk about it all here.

I’ll be spending part of my January getting organized and figuring out my blog schedule, and then I’ll be posting regularly.

I hope you’ll join me.

Happy New Year, everyone.