The Dreaded Empty Signing Queue

Some of you may remember my essay from a couple of years back called “Overcoming Self-Doubt as a Writer,” which was published on the SFWA blog. That essay will be included a new book called The Writer’s Book of Doubt, edited by Aidan Doyle. I think it’s a great idea. Artists of all shapes and sizes struggle with self-doubt and depression, and a handbook on how to overcome the worst of those humps would be super-useful. But the book will only see the light of day if it makes its Kickstarter funding goal. Can you help out?

Donate to the Kickstarter here.

Maniac, a new series on Netflix starring Emma Stone & Jonah Hill.

The last time I was on Jim Freund’s Hour of the Wolf radio program, I had no idea he was going to put it up on Facebook Live, and so, well, I didn’t shave or put on a nice shirt. Viewers saw me, like a wild animal, in my natural state. This time, when I was on Jim’s program this past Wednesday, I made sure to clean myself up.

Jim and I talked about TV shows, the state of the genre, and about 1h21m into the show, I read “The Marsh of Camarina,” my story about AI and job replacement that appeared in the anthology Shades Within Us. You can see the most recent Facebook Live recording here.

My Geeks Guide to the Galaxy discussion, just released, was thankfully audio only. So listeners will have no idea if I am waxing philosophical about the Netflix show Maniac in my underwear. It’s up to you to decide. 

Seriously, though, I had a lot of fun discussing that show with Chandler Klang Smith, Rajan Khanna & host David Barr Kirtley. You can check out the show here.

More to come soon, after I finish the damn novel.

Last week I participated in SFWA’s #ThePanel YouTube live videocast, Episode 4 – “Cli-fi” and Solarpunk, with panelists Sam J. Miller, Dr. Laurel J. Standley, J.K. Ullrich, and moderated by Diane Morrison. As readers of this blog and followers of my social media feeds know, I feel strongly about environmental causes and averting the worst predictions of climate change. I do this by bringing attention to our common fatalism. What I mean is that we are so often used to pessimistic thinking about the future — that climate change is inevitable — that we don’t work to bring about potential solutions. In my (recent) fiction and on social media, I work to counter this pessimistic force. I am not a head-in-the-sand Polyanna. I don’t believe that a positive future is the only outcome. But I believe that with hard, concerted effort, we can mitigate the worst predictions of climate change and perhaps even bring about an abundant future for humanity.

In this panel, I and my co-panelists speak about the reasons we each write and are concerned about climate change, and some ways our fiction may address the issue. It was a really interesting panel, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Also, this weekend I’ll be attending the Milford Readers and Writers Festival in Milford, PA, where I’ll be doing a reading, a signing, and a panel alongside Chandler Klang Smith, Karen Heuler, and Mercurio D. Rivera. Plus I have new fancy schmancy full-color cosmic business cards to show off. If you are in the area, I hope you can come by! 

Hello! So, after a brief hiatus where my wife and I traveled around the Southwestern U.S. visiting the National Parks, I’ve been back at the keyboard since the beginning of September. Since then I’ve revised and sent out a short story, and have been revising the YA novel.

I’ll be attending a few conferences & writing festivals in the next several months, so if you happen to be at one of these, please come say hi. I don’t bite (often).

My conference schedule:

• The Milford Readers and Writers Festival, Sept 28-30, 2018, Milford, Pennsylvania
• New York Comic Con, Sept 7, 2018, New York, New York.
• The World Fantasy Convention, Nov 1-4, 2018, Baltimore, Maryland
• Arisia, Jan 18-21, 2019, Boston, Massachusetts. 

Hope to see you soon!

So you might recall me mentioning that my Nebula-nominated story “The Last Novelist” is currently up for a Eugie Award. Well, I’ll find out if I win this weekend at Dragon Con in Atlanta*!

I’ll be attending Dragon Con from this Thursday, Aug 30th – Sunday, Sept 2nd, and I’ll be on several panels while I’m there. My tentative schedule is below. Hope to see you there!

*I used to go to school in Atlanta. I studied Computer Science at Georgia Tech, but I haven’t been back since ’99. It will be weird to revisit my old stomping ground to see how much has changed. If you happen to be at Dragon Con and want to connect, message me on Twitter at @mattkressel.

Title: Realms of the Dead: Ghosts and Spirits in UF
Description: Our panelists discuss the various types of ghosts and spirits found in their work, and in the genre.
Time: Fri 11:30 am Location: Chastain 1-2 – Westin (Length: 1 Hour)
(Tentative Panelists: Leanna Renee Hieber, David B. Coe, E.J. Stevens, A. J. Hartley, Matthew Kressel, Gail Z. Martin)

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Title: Faith in Science Fiction
Description: Many times authors create religions for their societies. Many times they use established faiths to inform their characters and their actions. Our panelists discuss when this works, when it doesn’t, and is it absolutely necessary to make a good story.
Time: Fri 07:00 pm Location: Embassy AB – Hyatt (Length: 1 Hour)
(Tentative Panelists: Fr. Bryan Small, Damien Patrick Williams, Matthew Kressel)

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Title: Secondary Characters to Die For
Description: Developing extraordinary secondary characters that push the plot forward and create extraordinary fiction.
Time: Sat 04:00 pm Location: Embassy CD – Hyatt (Length: 1 Hour)
(Tentative Panelists: Clay and Susan Griffith, Nancy Knight, Robert J. Sawyer, Zac Brewer, Joshua Palmatier, Matthew Kressel)

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Title: Tooting Your Own Horn: Marketing Yourself
Description: Indie writers and those who self-publish need to really market themselves to get their work known and out there. Our panelists discuss what they do and how they do it.
Time: Sat 05:30 pm Location: Embassy AB – Hyatt (Length: 1 Hour)
(Tentative Panelists: John G. Hartness, Cecilia Dominic, Gray Rinehart, Kal Spriggs, Courtland D Lewis, Quincy J Allen, Matthew Kressel)