I love books, and I love conventions, and for the most part, I love books and conventions together. The trouble with most conventions in my area is that books are usually a sideshow, while the main event lies elsewhere. Even conventions that say they’re about books often have a split personality, with as many panels for writers as there are for readers.
Which is why I started my own convention— Story Con. Story Con is laser-focused on helping readers find their next great book. With the help of the Fort Vancouver Regional Library district, Story Con hosts its inaugural convention this Saturday at the Vancouver Community Library in Vancouver, Washington. It’s just over the river from Portland, Oregon. (No, really, it’s just over the river—like closer to downtown than Hillsboro or Gresham.)
I’m super excited to see all the great authors turning out. New York Times best-selling author Daniel H. Wilson will join us for a reading, and I will sit on a panel with him and Will Hertling. We’re talking about the singularity. (Hint: I’m skeptical. They both wrote books about the rise of the singularity. It should be fun watching them tear my arguments apart.)
Also, 2014 breakout writer Jason Gurley will be there with us. Gurley just agreed to a breathtaking contract with Crown Publishing for his indie novel Eleanor. Crown is the publisher who took the indie book The Martian and made it a hit. Gurley’s agent also works with John Joseph Adams and Ann Leckie, among others. So expect big things for Eleanor late next year. (Just remember you heard about it first here on GeekDad.) I will get to play warm-up act for Gurley when we share the stage for a reading.
Ernie Lindsey will be there. Long ago on a mothership far far away, I reviewed Lindsey’s book Going Shogun for this blog. It’s still one of my favorite books. Lindsey has written a book about the secret government hit squad assigned to assassinate super heroes, and he and I will be talking superheroes with my fifteen-year-old daughter. She and I are writing a superhero origin story about a fourteen-year-old girl who’s genetically modified in a bio-terror attack. The story is set in Portland, Oregon, somewhere in the near future.
Story Con has a whole lot more to offer to readers than just these panels. There will be YA fiction from Ripley Patton, mysteries from Kate Dyer-Seeley, and flash fiction from Clarion West graduate Curtis Chen. You can find the whole schedule of events at www.storyconvention.com. I look forward to seeing you there.
