I was interviewed on The Dragon Page podcast. Go listen!

In other news, on Saturday I spoke at the Face the Fiction event, presented by the Science Fiction Society of Northern New Jersey. Which reminds me that I never posted a report of my speaking engagement at the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County’s  monthly meeting.

The SFABC meeting was held in the beginning of February at a community center in Upper Saddle River, NJ.  The community center is actually a decommissioned church, which seemed a somehow appropriate place for SF readers to meet (those heretics!). The group is headed by Phil DeParto, who is the one responsible for inflicting me on the group. I found the place without much difficulty, and at the time I arrived there were already several group members present. I was welcomed by Phil and got the lay of the land. Had some pleasant conversation with some of those present before the event itself started. One of the people I met there was John J. Pierce, a former editor of the late, great magazine Galaxy (and now it turns out I’m on a panel with him at Lunacon). Met several other nice folks whose names you probably wouldn’t recognize as well, of course.

Once the event started, Phil introduced me to the group and I got up on the little stage and started off by telling them a little bit about myself, then went into Wastelands mode. Turns out I talk really, really fast sometimes. I spoke for a while, then we took  a break, and after the break, Phil had me come down off the stage to encourage the audience to participate more–I guess I was rattling along so quickly no one had time to process any questions! It went more smoothly after that, and it was more of an interactive experience. All told, I spoke for about three hours, which surprised me because it didn’t seem like it had gone on that long (and that anyone would want to listen to me babble for that long).

The SFSNNJ Face the Fiction event took place at the Borders Books in the Garden State Plaza Mall, in Paramus, NJ. It seems to be a very confusing place at the best of times, and that night was not ideal due to high winds and the fact that every single person who lives in Paramus and the surrounding area was at the mall. But despite that dubious beginning (which included being baffled by the mall directory–the 1st floor and 2nd floor do not appear to be right on top of each other; instead they are connected by the Macy’s or something, and are just kind of adjacent to each other) the event turned out quite well.

There were two dozen or more in attendance for the event, which consisted of me talking about Wastelands and taking questions from the audience. Most of the questions were about Wastelands and post-apocalyptic fiction, as you might imagine, but we also talked a bit about me, how I got into the field, how I initially got interested in the genre, zombies, pirates…the usual (for me). During the intermission, a lot of people bought books, and several of them had me sign them. (Someone even had a copy of the pirate issue for me to sign!)

One of the cool things about having the event in a Borders is that there were several passersby who stopped to listen for a while. I even ensnared the attention of one of them, so much so that he sat down with the rest and even asked a number of questions. Someone else also joined in mid-discussion, which distracted me a bit because he sat down in the front row, right in front of me, clearly carrying a stack of magazines–which I assumed he was going to leaf through while I was talking and ignore what I was saying. But he ended up sitting there for a while, seemingly attentive; at some point he got up to leave and declared that "You all will think I’m crazy, but the Brewers are going to win the World Series this year."

At the end of the event, SFSNNJ leader Todd Ehrenfels guilted me into reading something from the book. Since I only wrote the introduction, the header notes, and the appendix, I only thought it would be appropriate for me to read the introduction. In retrospect, I think that may have been a mistake, simply because as I was reading it I realized that I had pretty much talked about everything in the introduction during my discussion. But when I was done the audience clapped anyway, so that was nice of them. You can read a more thorough recap of the event on the SFSNNJ website, as well as view a slideshow.

If you’re a fan living in the NJ-area, I highly recommend you check either of these groups out. And if you’re a writer in the area, I’d encourage you to contact them about doing an event of your own. Not only was it a lot of fun, but it’s a good opportunity to sell some books, and maybe make a few new fans.