For those of my fans and/or stalkers in the Montreal area, and others planning to attend Worldcon, here’s my programming schedule:

When: Thu 12:30
Location:  P-511BE
Title:  I Read the News Today
Session ID:  176
All Participants:  Brad Templeton, julie c andrijeski, John Joseph
Adams
Moderator:  julie c andrijeski
Description:  How has the war on terror been reflected in onscreen SF?
 Do those aliens represent al-Qaeda or us?  Does SF provide a means to
discuss these matters indirectly?

Duration:  1:00 hrs:min
Language:  English
Track: Media
AV/Internet request:  None

When: Fri 10:00
Location:  P-518A
Title:  When did SF Conquer the Mainstream?
Session ID:  483
All Participants:  Daryl Gregory, Fred Lerner, Julie McGalliard, Kathy
Morrow, John Joseph Adams
Moderator:  Julie McGalliard
Description:  Once upon a time, very little science fiction was to be
found that didn’t appear either as a novel of ideas with a dash of
action (Wells, Rosny) or a juvenile yarn with a dash of ideas (Verne,
E. E. Smith).  Today, science fiction runs the entire gamut from the
pulpish to the mainstream (Chabon, McCarthy) and ideas may be served
up wholesale in many other media.

Duration:  1:00 hrs:min
Language:  English
Track: Literature in English
AV/Internet request:  None

When: Fri 14:00
Location:  P-Autographs
Title:  John Joseph Adams Signing
Session ID:  1232
All Participants:  John Joseph Adams
Moderator:  <Not Available>
Description:  John Joseph Adams Signing
Duration:  1:00 hrs:min
Language:  English
Track: Autographs
AV/Internet request:  None

When: Fri 21:00
Location:  P-513B
Title:  Vampire Rules–and How to Recognize Them Without a Mirror
Session ID:  724
All Participants:  Inanna Arthen, Jennifer Williams, Karen Dales,
Victoria Janssen, John Joseph Adams
Moderator:  Victoria Janssen
Description:  Are there vampire rules that writers MUST follow? Some
experts and enthusiasts discuss vampires, including eastern vs western
vampires.

Duration:  1:00 hrs:min
Language:  English
Track: Creative Writing
AV/Internet request:  None

When: Sat 15:30
Location:  P-513A
Title:  “Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is over.”
Session ID:  631
All Participants:  Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Kij Johnson, John Joseph
Adams, Liz Gorinsky
Moderator:  Kij Johnson
Description:  That was The Onion’s headline when George W. Bush took
office, and, in many respects, it was an accurate piece of SF-nal
prediction. What use has sf made of the George W. Bush presidency, and
the War on Terror in particular?
Duration:  1:30 hrs:min
Language:  English
Track: Literature in English
AV/Internet request:  None

When: Sun 14:00
Location:  P-516E
Title:  From A to Zombies
Session ID:  862
All Participants:  Eric Gauthier, Adeline Lamarre, John Joseph Adams
Moderator:  Eric Gauthier
Description:  Lend us your brains —  we’ll find out why zombies are so
cool.
Duration:  1:00 hrs:min
Language:  Bilingual
Track: Teen Programming
AV/Internet request:  None

When: Sun 22:00
Location:  P-511CF
Title:  The Living Dead
Session ID:  393
All Participants:  Jason Bourget, Jeanne Cavelos, Seanan McGuire, John
Joseph Adams
Moderator:  Jeanne Cavelos
Description:  Forty years after George Romero gave us “Night of the
Living Dead,” his zombies still walk among us in remakes, new films
from Romero himself, and astonishing recent movies from others ranging
from “Shaun of the Dead” to “28 Weeks Later.”  Why is this SF/horror
subgenre so enduring?  What are its classics and which are merely the
walking dead?

Duration:  1:00 hrs:min
Language:  English
Track: Media
AV/Internet request:  None

When: Mon 9:00
Location:  Outdoors
Title:  Stroll With The Stars – Monday
Session ID:  7
All Participants:  Lawrence M. Schoen, Stephen H. Segal, Stu Segal,
Frank Wu, John Joseph Adams
Moderator:  Stu Segal
Description:  A gentle, friendly 1 mile stroll with some of your
favorite Authors, Artists & Editors.  Leaving daily 9AM, from the
Riopelle Fountain outside the Palais (corner of Ave Viger & Rue de
Bleury), returning before 10AM.
Duration:  1:00 hrs:min
Language:  English
Track: The Light Programme
AV/Internet request:  None

Read More

I value efficiency and convenience very highly, so I’m often thinking of ways to improve upon both.

I was just reading an article in the SFWA Bulletin called “Learn How to Twitter” as I was curious what it would actually say. Something it talked about gave me an idea about convention networking–wouldn’t it be great if we could use Twitter to help organize stuff at conventions? Not for everyone, of course, but for we TwitterFolk. So what you do is, if you’re posting something about a convention while at the convention, you can use the hash mark + con name to make your Tweets findable in Twitter by anyone searching for it. So, for instance:

johnjosephadams: #wiscon anyone know of any parties tonight besides the one in room 256?

And then people can chime in. It would be like bringing the groupmind power of Twitter into the convention. Which would be awesome.

Also, it would be great if the concoms got in on the action and posted notes to #[convention name] if there are changes in the schedule or whatever. Surely at least one person on any concom uses Twitter, no?

And while I’m wishing for technological convention assistance, I think we’re at the point where we should expect and demand good, user-friendly electronic convention program books. I mean, if I create a bunch of program listings in Outlook, including all the information, such as room number, time, panelists, and program description, I can easily setup a whole convention program book, which can then be exported into any number of formats. The thing is–I’m never going to carry around my program book at all times, but I will always carry my iPhone, and I should be able to put the schedule on there with very little effort. This would also be great because I could download it from the website before leaving for the convention and that way I can actually browse through the schedule while traveling there; once I actually get to the convention it can be really hard, with all the people you want to talk to, to actually find time to sit and read through the program book.

Read More

I’m flying out to Calgary today for the World Fantasy Convention.

On Friday @ 12PM, there will be a reading for The Living Dead, featuring George R. R. Martin, Catherine Cheek, Darrell Schweitzer, Nina Kirki Hoffman, and Nancy Kilpatrick.

On Saturday @ 1PM, I’ll be on the panel “What A Good Anthology Does & Why It Matters",” along with Gary A. Braunbeck and Darrell Schweitzer.

Read More

I’m flying out to Calgary today for the World Fantasy Convention.

On Friday @ 12PM, there will be a reading for The Living Dead, featuring George R. R. Martin, Catherine Cheek, Darrell Schweitzer, Nina Kirki Hoffman, and Nancy Kilpatrick.

On Saturday @ 1PM, I’ll be on the panel “What A Good Anthology Does & Why It Matters",” along with Gary A. Braunbeck and Darrell Schweitzer.

Read More

I’ve got a new post up on Tor.com, about Nathan E. Lilly’s Convention Finder website, which has now been revised and expanded since its launch last year.

Read More

Apparently, I won’t be getting to my planned Worldcon recap any time soon, so suffice it to say I had fun, got to meet some cool people, catch up with ones I already knew, and got to pick up two Hugos (one for Gordon and one for Ted Chiang). One of the highlights was meeting in the flesh for the first time my pal Jeremy Tolbert–we’ve been online friends for about seven years now and only now met in person. Ain’t the 21st century grand?

I spotted a couple of photos of me online. Here’s me looking like a missionary. I don’t normally wear glasses, but I was having a lot of problems with my contacts while in Denver.

Here’s me again, with the same exact expression, but now standing next to a pretty girl (Ace/Roc editor Jessica Wade).

Here’s a better photo of me, since I was not posing.

Read More

During Worldcon last week, I went on a VIP tour of the NORAD facility at Cheyenne Mountain, which is known in SF circles for its relevance to the plot of the film WarGames and the television series Stargate SG-1. A bunch of other great authors were along on the trip, including Plague War author Jeff Carlson, who was the reason the tour came to be in the first place. I wrote up a report about our trip to NORAD for SCI FI Wire.  Annalee Newitz was also on the trip, and she wrote up a report for io9.com.

Worldcon itself was pretty good; not a great Worldcon, but lots of fun nonetheless–got to hang out with lots of cool people I knew already and met some new ones. More Worldcon musings may be forthcoming, but that’s all I have time for for now. So much work piled up when I was away!

Read More