Reading from Remapping Richmond’s Hallowed Ground

remapping

This Thursday October 24th at 6:30 p.m. at Fountain Books 1312 E. Cary in Richmond it will be my pleasure to join Ron Smith and Howard Owen in readings from Remapping Richmond’s Hallowed Ground, an outstanding collection of stories, poems, and art responding to the legacy of the Civil War in our fair city.  To be clear, this ain’t your mama’s War Between the States.  The event is free and open to the public.  Hope to see you there.

 

Readercon

I will be at Readercon, one of my favorite conventions, starting this Thursday. I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and discovering new writers. I read Thursday evening at nine from a forthcoming (July 31st) short story on tor.com, “All the Snake Handlers I Know Are Dead.” I’m also on a couple of panels, one about the wonderful fiction of Maureen McHugh, who is also the guest of honor; and another about the reexamination of the Civil War mythos, largely in the clutches of the Lost Cause folks since the war, in fantastic literature. I’ve done a bit of that. Most recently in “Christmas in Hollywood Cemetery” in the anthology Remapping Richmond’s Hallowed Ground. After Readercon I’m off to Norton Island off the coast of Maine for a couple of weeks of intensive writing. I have more publication news I can’t reveal yet.  Life is very good indeed.

Ravencon

I’ll be at Ravencon this weekend, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, on a variety of panels about everything from Downton Abbey to sf art films. It’s a small, friendly, affordable con. The Guests of Honor this year are Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta. If you come, say hello. I’m the skinny bald guy with the white beard.

Love Gone Wrong

I’m proud to be part of an innovative show at artspace, zero east 4th street, richmond, va 23224 / 804.232.6464:

Love Gone Wrong in the Smallspace gallery Heartbreak Illustrations
Ten artists illustrate ten authors, an art/text collaboration
curated by Santa Sergio De Haven
poems and stories by Dennis Danvers, Katy Resch, Amira Pierce,
Marie Potoczny, Susann Cokal, Alan Cheuse, Joel Kabot, Angela Apte,
April Sopkin and Katelyn Kiley illustrated by Eric Knight, Josh George,
William Waggoner, Eric S. Pfeiffer, Bob Scott, Rob Ullman, Julia Scott,
Kelly Alder, Robert Meganck and Eliza Childress

Love Gone Wrong – Heartbreak Stories Reading
Friday, February 10th, 7 to 9 pm
Free and Open to the Public

Richmond Noir Returns

Just in time for Christmas. Join me and Richmond Noir editors Andrew Blossom, Brian Castleberry, and Tom De Haven at Barnes & Noble Libbie Place this Saturday 1-3 pm. We’re celebrating going into a second printing. Each story in the collection is a noir piece by a local writer set in a Richmond neighborhood. What better way to get to know our beloved city? There’s a handy map of corpses in the front. There must be someone a bit noir on your list? It makes the ideal solstice gift. What’s darker than the shortest day of the year?

A Richmond Noir Detour

The Richmond Noir crew, myself included, will make an appearance at the James River Film Festival.  This should be great fun.  From their website:

Monday, April 11, 7:30 p.m., Gallery 5, Admission $7/5 JRFS Members

A Richmond Noir Detour featuring Edgar Ulmer’s Detour (dir: Edgar Ulmer, 1945, 68 mins., b&w)

Plus readings from Richmond Noir with Dennis Danvers and Tom De Haven

This baroque noir protoype from B-director Edgar Ulmer was often overshadowed by bigger productions from MGM (Postman Always Rings Twice) and Paramount (Double Indemnity) released about the same time. But Detour accelerates the noir cycle to its bitter end and resembles (in structuring and characterizations) latter day noirs like Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil (’58) and Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly (’55), with an over-the-top Ann Savage as the femmes noire from Hell, and Tom Neal as the romantic, ill-fated pianist who picks her up hitchhiking. All the noir conventions are intact: Fate, confessional voice-over, a love triangle, flashback and a Los Angeles end-game setting.  Ann Savage makes Barbara Stanwyck’s Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity look like a school marm! Editors Andrew Blossom and Brian Castleberry, writer Dennis Danvers, and writer/editor Tom De Haven will be on hand to read from and sign copies of Richmond Noir, on sale before and after Detour, courtesy of Chop Suey Books.

Gallery 5 this Sunday

“Dark and Wicked Halloween Reading”

Sunday, October 24th, 6PM, Free

Gallery 5

200 W. Marshall St.
Richmond, Virginia 23220
Phone: 804 644 0005

From the Gallery 5 website:  This will be the spookiest reading of the season! Authors from the notorious Richmond Noir will team up with Beth Brown, author of Wicked Richmond, to bring you a delightfully eerie evening of true and fictional stories of the underbelly of Richmond! Keep in mind, this reading will happen at Gallery 5, once the location of Richmond’s gallows. Chilling!

If you haven’t already heard about Richmond Noir, check out their publisher’s page: http://www.akashicbooks.com/richmondnoir.htm

Wicked Richmond, which comes out later this month, is a great book of true stories of Richmond’s darker side. Whether it is tales of Civil War espionage, Spanish pirates captured off the Virginia coast and brought to justice in Richmond, rumrunners peddling illegal liquor during Prohibition, or the misadventures of upper-crust colonial families, Wicked Richmond captures the debauchery that runs through the city’s historic past. Check it out here:
http://wickedrichmondva.com/

Tom De Haven, Andrew Blossom, and I will be doing the honors for Richmond Noir.  Hope to see you there.

I’ll be speaking at the Library of Congress

I love saying that.  People are so impressed, as well they should be—with the library not me.  As part of the What IF… Science Fiction & Fantasy Forum series, I’ll be speaking on “What I’ve Learned Teaching Science Fiction.” The lecture will be held Thursday, August 5 at 12:10 pm in the Pickford Theater in  the Madison Building of the Library of Congress.  Please come.  I promise it will be wildly entertaining and brief.  I spoke in this series a few years ago and found them a very congenial bunch.  Any former students out there who’d like to tell me what I should’ve learned by now, keep it clean.

More Richmond Noir Events

This Saturday April 17th at 2 pm in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Griffin Bookshop, 723 Caroline Street, will play host to Richmond Noir editors Tom De Haven and Brian Castleberry, as well as contributors Howard Owen and myself.

Monday April 19th at 7 pm in Richmond, editor Andrew Blossom and contributors Mina Beverly, Pir Rothenberg, Anne Thomas Soffee and myself will be reading at VCU’s Student Commons, 907 Floyd Avenue.