Most of April and May was spent in preparation for Clockwork Alchemy, one of the most author-friendly steampunk conventions out there. I attended in 2013, and was so inspired that I was manning a table with my own first novel on it, and teaching panels in 2014. Truly awesome stuff! We have a full author track every year with everything from how to work with an editor, write a limerick, build worlds, beat NaNoWriMo, to the Science of Airships, and writing with Hot Potatoes! We had over 30 hours of panels this year alone.
In addition to putting out new editions of my annual scandal sheet, the Blackfriars Courant (all the news that’s unfit to print, or what really happened in all the novels and short stories the Clockwork Alchemy authors write) and the Authors Alley Advance, a schedule with all the panels helpful to writers that one doesn’t need a microscope to read or sort through, 2017 included the added bonus of a table decoration competition. What better way to give away scandal sheets than a newsstand?
Below is the awesome BJ Sikes, author of Alt History novel The Archimedean Heart, and my table mate at the Courant ready to sell a ticket for a fantastic voyage to an alternate world. As a way to get the shyness out and prove our authors don’t bite, we gave out tickets on trains, ships, and dirigibles to the locations featured in our newest anthology Some Time Later. When a person found the author whose stories included the destination on the ticket, we brought out the Box of Doom (some patrons made me squee when they called it the gom jabbar…Yay for Frank Herbert’s Dune!), into which the patron hand to stick a hand and pick out a token to redeem a prize.
Also pictured are AJ Sikes, author of Emergence (Kindle Worlds), and Gods of Chicago, manning the second half of our tabl, in his way cool Spider Jerusalem cosplay, and yours truly with our blue ribbon.
So come on down to the South Bay next year for Clockwork Alchemy 2018. The dates are moving to March 23-25. Hope to see you there!
Dover Whitecliff 