premiered in 2017, I've been selling books (both Thing and the collection The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Vol. 2
, in which I have a short story) at conventions in the Atlanta area. I feared I've been reaching the point of diminishing returns and so I started looking for conventions or events outside of Atlanta I could sell at until I've got more books available. Thanks to the Southern Fandom Resource Guide's calendar I found Hypericon, which is usually in Nashville but this year is in Murfreesboro. I've never done any authorial business in Tennessee, so this will hopefully be lucrative.Here's my schedule for the convention, which will be July 5-7 this year. All events are in Central Time and will take place at the Clarion Inn in Murfreesboro.
Friday, 7 PM, Oakland Panel Room: "In The Cauldron Boil and Bake." This is a panel dedicated to mixing genres. Think The X-Files
, in which we had a wider science fiction plot involving alien colonization mixed in with "monster of the week" horror plots, more conventional crimes, and fantasy plots like the episode involving voodoo to raise the dead and another one featuring the ghost of a charismatic preacher who set out to forgive the man who murdered him. On my end, although The Thing in the Woods
is straight-up monster horror, I drop some hints about the creature's otherworldly origins in a scene from the creature's point of view. The sequel I've sent to the publisher (and will self-publish if he doesn't want it) gets into the Grey/UFO/MJ-12 mythology and the third novel I've just started writing is more "small town creature horror," only with an old-school nuclear-test monster instead of something from another world. We'll get back to the alien-invasion stuff in the planned fourth book.Friday, 8 PM, Oakland Panel Room: "My History With Horror." This is an autobiographical one-man show in which I discuss my own history with the scary stuff. It goes waaay back, beginning with watching Earth vs. the Spider
on TV in pre-school, not being allowed to see Gremlins 2
and Arachnophobia 
in theaters (probably a good idea on my parents' part), seeing Jurassic Park
when it first came out, and those elementary school staples, the Crestwood Monsters books
and Calvin and Hobbes
. I'll also discuss my first attempts at publication in high school, my first sale (the short but gruesome "I am the Wendigo"
), and ultimately Thing itself.Saturday, 1 PM, Oakland Panel Room: "Building a Better Beast: Monsters and Other Things That Go Bump in the Night." Something I've realized recently with the rise of "torture porn" is that I don't necessarily like horror movies per se, but monster movies. "Monster" being defined broadly to include things like dinosaurs, aliens, etc. After all, serial killers and depraved pervert torture types are real and should be feared, but giant bugs
, alien energy beings building bodies out of human technology
, vampires
, formerly human S&M monsters
, etc. aren't. I've written a lot of monster stories, so I think I'll fit in nicely here.Saturday, 5 PM, Oakland Panel Room: "World-Building." This is an area of writing where I'm very good, if I do say so myself. And members of the different writing groups I'v participated in have said the same thing. :)
Saturday, 7 PM, Oakland Panel Room: "Marketing and Social Media For Authors." This is where I can discuss things like blogging, Twitter, newsletters, etc. This is an area where I need to improve, so hopefully I'll be able to learn from this panel as well.
I'm also going to be allocated slots at the author table to sell my books. Those haven't been finalized yet, but when they are, I'll update this post with the times. I'll also bring some books with me to each panel for anybody who's interested.
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