My Capclave Schedule

This weekend—the real Columbus Day weekend—you can find me at Capclave, my hometown con. The guests of honor will be John Scalzi and Nick Mamatas. But they’ve given me some really nice panels, too. Come join us in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and see for yourself.

Friday
4 p.m., Frederick Meeting Room
Required reading
Students are required to read many novels. Is this a good thing? Can High School students truly relate to the Joads? Does being forced to read hold back students? Panelists: Roger MacBride Allen, James Morrow, Jean Marie Ward (Moderator)

Saturday
Noon, Bethesda Meeting Room
Reviews, what are they good for?
They said what!?! What is the value of book blogs and review sites? Should you engage? Panelists: Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Brenda Clough, Gayle Surrette (Moderator), Jean Marie Ward

3 p.m., Salons A & B
Romancing the Paranormal
Witches and werewolves and vampires in love. Why has paranormal romance become so popular? Is this a fad or a lasting subgenre? Have publishers started cutting back? How much romance needs to be in the book for it to be paranormal as opposed to urban/modern fantasy? Panelists: Victoria Janssen (Moderator), Sherin Nicole, Jean Marie Ward

4 p.m., Bethesda Meeting Room
Has Steampunk gone mainstream?
New York editors are acting like gears and coal-fired engines are the new vampires. Has the genre become too popular--and is that a bad thing? And what exactly is steampunk and is it fantasy or science fiction? Panelists: John Ashmead, Jonah Knight (Moderator), Alan Smale, Elaine Stiles, Jean Marie Ward

7:30 p.m., Salons A & B
Capclave Signing
All Guests

10:30 p.m., Salons A & B
I Swear It’s All True
Panelists regal fans with their best “true” stories about things that happened to them. The moderator will give prompts, “Things that happened when I was supposed to be writing,” “Craziest thing that happened at a convention,” “Weirdest interaction with an editor or agent,” and “How I learned a lesson I’ll never forget.” Panelists: Jean Marie Ward (Moderator), Lawrence Watt-Evans

Sunday
11 a.m., Bethesda Meeting Room
WWI Comeback
It has been nearly a hundred years since the War to end all wars, is this a setting that still has potential? Will the movie War Horse and the TV show Downton Abbey spark a new interest in fiction set during World War One? Panelists: Tad Daley, JD, PhD, Andrew Fox, John G. Hemry, Victoria Janssen (Moderator), Jean Marie Ward

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Dragon*Con, Here I come

It's the most wonderful time of the year...
No, silly, not the winter holiday season.  I'm talking about Dragon*Con, where you too can be surrounded by forty thousand of the closest friends and acquaintances you never met before--like these charmers.

I'll be doing my thing on five panels this year:

Friday, August 31, 1 p.m. (Hyatt, Fairlie Meeting Room)
Talking Cats and Clever Rats--Animals as symbols and characters in SF and fantasy.
Panelists: Lynn Abbey, Diane Hughes, Jean Marie Ward (Moderator)

Saturday, September 1, 2:30 p.m. (Hyatt, Greenbriar Meeting Room)
Good War/Bad War--How have recent conflicts shaped or influenced today's SF?
T.C. McCarthy, Jean Marie Ward (Moderator), Michael Z. Williamson

Sunday, September 2, 5:30 p.m. (Hyatt, Greenbriar Meeting Room)
Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading--Well-known and up-and-coming women writers read from their works.
Too many writers to count.  ;-)

Monday, September 3, 1 p.m. (Hyatt, Fairlie Meeting Room)
SF Win, Lose or Draw--The third annual Win, Lose or Draw competition comes to Dragon*Con.  Put together a team or join one when you arrive.

Monday, September 2, 2:30 p.m. (Hyatt, Embassy D-F)
Writer's Wonder Panel--Writers discuss the wonders--good and bad--of being a writer.
Lynn Abbey, Carole Nelson Douglas, Nancy Knight, Jennifer St. Giles, Jean Marie Ward, Janny Wurts

Looking forward to seeing you there!

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Old Town Synchronicity

You just can't make this stuff up. Last week, Diane Whiteside received a letter from a fan of her novel, The Shadow Guard. The fan was seeking the grave of Col. John Fitzgerald, aide-de-camp to George Washington at Valley Forge and prominent Alexandria cit mentioned in Diane's book. When the usual sources (Wiki, Google, etc.) came up empty, Diane asked me if any of my friends at Alexandria's historic Carlyle House might know. I promised to ask the next time I volunteer (sometime after Dragon*Con). In the meantime, I started rooting around in my local library.

Fitzgerald was the driving force behind Old Town Alexandria's first Catholic Church, St. Mary's, so I started with the records for St. Mary's Cemetery, copies which are conveniently located in every Alexandria branch library. From there I went to compilations of The Alexandria Gazette obituaries and the records of the Hustings Court. (Fitzgerald was a big wheeler dealer on the local real estate front.) I confirmed his town home was located on the corner of King and Fairfax Streets, where the main branch of Burke and Herbert Bank now stands, but hey, that's a no brainer. They've even got a plaque to that effect on the bank.

Today Diane and I met for lunch. By some odd quirk of timing, we drove into the Market Square parking garage in Old Town at the same time. We planned to lunch at O'Connell's but power was off on that side of the street, so I asked, "Would you like to eat Italian? There's Landini Brothers and Il Porto across the street. Which one would you prefer?"

"Landini Brothers--you mentioned it first."

After lunch we headed for the Queen Street branch of the Alexandria library, home of the local history collection. Julia, the librarian on duty, wasn't quite sure where to look. I'd already searched the St. Mary's records. So we rooted around in the transcriptions of Alexandria tombstones. Nada. Then Julia pulled out Ethelyn Cox's Historic Alexandria Virginia Street by Street. It contained a page on Fitzgerald's King Street warehouse which noted his burial site as Warburton Plantation, the present site of Fort Washington.

Oh, and the warehouse? It's the same building where we ate lunch.

I love Alexandria.

You may have noticed a new con in the sidebar at JeanMarieWard.com. Madicon 22 has invited me to be a guest along with longtime buds (and great writers!) Jana Oliver, Tee Morris and Pip Ballantine, as well as friends-to-be Jonah Knight, Megan Amberly and R.S. Belcher. The dates to remember are March 8-10, 2013. The place is James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

For the here and now--or the hear and now, if you insist--I read a selection from "Lord Bai and the Magic Pirate" in this month's BroadPod, the Rapid Fire Reading of the air sponsored by Broad Universe. I've read bits and pieces from this story before, but never this section.

I've also posted the opening of "Burning Down the House", my story in Hellfire Lounge 3: Jinn Rummy. If you put it together with the excerpt here, you can get a real taste of the tale. Yes, that was another bad pun, but you'll have to read the excerpts to find out why. Enjoy!

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Six Sentence Sunday: Highway from Hell, Clip Three

Still working on revisions, so I'll stick with Highway for this weekend's Six Sentence Sunday. This snippet comes after DeeCee deForrest, aka Eurydice, has made it past Deadlands Immigration to the ground transportation area of the main immigration terminal:

After all the times I’d wished Jim had been around to take care of things lately, it felt as if I’d conjured him. He was almost exactly the way I remembered—drugstore shades crushing a swept-back tangle of light brown hair, cheekbones, chiseled lips and strong chin, white t-shirt, worn jeans. Almost. I couldn’t put my finger on the difference. If anything he seemed more…more something, which didn’t make any sense. Weren’t we supposed to be mere shadows of ourselves?

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Six Sentence Sunday: Highway from Hell, Clip Two

I'm still working my HfH rewrite. This time my Sunday Six is a little bit of description. Enjoy!

A storm system dumped a couple inches of white stuff on the ground a couple days after Martin Luther King’s birthday. But snow doesn’t usually stick on the mesa, even when it’s cold. Three days after the storm, there wasn’t enough left to worry about. Nothing the leather-topped trainers I’d worn to the construction site couldn’t handle, at any rate. Brisk snaps of wind carried the scent of pine and creosote. Between breezes, the late afternoon sun warmed my back under my borrowed jacket.

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Six Sentence Sunday: Highway From Hell

Let's see if I can squeak in under the Six Sentence Sunday wire with the first six sentences of my ongoing WIP, Highway From Hell--the story of Orpheus from Eurydice's POV. Enjoy!

Snakes. Why did Orpheus have to collect snakes?

“It slithered right past me. It’s a miracle I’m not dead!” Our housekeeper was screeching so loud my phone couldn’t handle it. Her distorted voice hooted in my ear like she’d pushed it through a wah-wah pedal.

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Nebula Weekend Photos

Posted the photos of my adventures in Nebula Land on my Flickr account. This is the direct link. For the first time anywhere, anywhen, I took more video than photos. So far, the only video posted is the Neil Gaiman interview at Buzzy Mag, but there are lots more on the way, including interviews with Jo Walton, Delia Sherman, Ellen Kushner and Walter Jon Williams. Now back to prepping for Fifteen Panels of Balticon. Hope to see you there!

My Schedule for Balticon 2012

This year’s Balticon will nothing if not exciting. I’m scheduled for fifteen (fifteen!) panels. Gulp.

Friday 4:00 pm (Salon B)
Symbology of Animals in Folk and Fairy Tales (Readers Track)
Are certain animals used to symbolize certain character types. How? Why? In a modern fairy tale, what animals would you use and in what way? (M): Trisha J. Wooldridge, (S): Jean Marie Ward, Ray Ridenour, D.H. Aire, Phil Giunta

Friday 5:00 pm (Salon D)
Worst. Panel. Ever. (Fan Track)
Panelists trade stories about their worst ever panel experiences. (M): Jean Marie Ward, (S): Wayne Arthur Hall, Perrianne Lurie, Stephanie M. Burke

Friday, 10:00 pm (Parlor 1041) T
he Role of Anthologies, Roundtable Discussion (Readers Track)
As both a source of fiction and a means of promotion, what do anthologies have to offer? Fan and author panelists discuss. (M) Danielle Ackley-McPhail, (S): Michael A. Ventrella, Joshua Bilmes, C.J .Henderson, Trisha J. Wooldridge, Bernie Mojzes, Pete Prellwitz, Jean Marie Ward

Saturday, 12:00 noon (Parlor 1041)
Magical Systems in Fantasy Literature (Readers Track)
A Roundtable Discussion. Panelists look at what are some of the things we expect to see in magical systems and give examples of works that are missing those factors, but work just fine for the reader anyway. (M): Gail Z. Martin, (S): Hildy Silverman, Trisha J. Wooldridge, Myke Cole, Jody Lynn Nye (Guest of Honor, David Wood, Barba¬Friend Ish, Elektra Hammond, Bill Fawcett, Jean Marie Ward

Saturday, 1:00 pm (Salon B) The Effects of War on SF & F (Readers Track)
How has our war torn era shaped fantasy and SF? (M): Myke Cole, (S): Charles Edward Gannon, Bill Fawcett, Jon Sprunk, Jean Marie Ward

Saturday, 2:00 pm, (Maryland Foyer)
Autographing: Jaclyn Dolamore, Christine Norris and Jean Marie Ward

Saturday, 7:00 pm (Parlor 1041) Modern Fae Book Launch (Readers Track)
Come join editor Joshua Palmatier and contributing author Jean Marie Ward as they celebrate the release of the anthology The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity from DAW Books, containing tales of the fae and how they have adapted to fit into modern society. From leprechauns on Wall Street to Selkies at Sea World, see how the fae have learned to live with the infestation that is humanity. Drinks and snacks available, along with books for purchase and Autographing at the event. (M) Joshua Palmatier/Benjamin Tate, Jean Marie Ward

Saturday, 12:00 midnight to Sunday 1:00 AM (Pimlico) The Wild Hunt and the Payment To Hell (Readers Track)
Fairies Are NOT Nice! Panelists discuss the ugly side of the beautiful Fae. (M): James Daniel Ross, (S): Elaine Corvidae, Jagi Lamplighter, Stephanie M. Burke, Jean Marie Ward

Sunday, 1:00 pm, (1 hr, 20 mins) (Salon B)
Broad Universe Reading (Readers Track)
Rapid Fire readings from some amazing women/authors. (M): Jean Marie Ward, (S): Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Emilie, P. Bush, Elaine Corvidae, Roxanne Bland, Jody Lynn Nye (Guest of Honor)

Sunday, 7:00 pm (Belmont Room)
History as a Source of Fantasy (Readers Track)
Panelists discuss the use of history to develop fantasy and which sources are good ones. (M): Jagi Lamplighter, (S) Walter H. Hunt, Bill Fawcett, Pete Prellwitz, Jean Marie Ward

Sunday, 8:00 pm (Parlor 3041)
Which Comes First: Main Character or Supporting Cast? (Readers Track) Do you start with a main character and build the rest around them? Or do you start with a cast of characters and wait for the most compelling to ""become" the main character? What do you do when you start with a main character in mind and another character steals the show? (M): David Wood, (S): Jean Marie Ward, Barbara Friend Ish, James Maxey, Elaine Corvidae, David Sherman, Pete Prellwitz

Sunday, 9:00 pm (Parlor 3041)
'Fessing Up to the Adult Themes in YA Literature (Teen Track)
Young adult literature is growing up, tackling such hard issues as good and evil, abuse, abandonment, grief and loss. And then there's sex. Is there a line that shouldn't be crossed or is no subject taboo for today's teens? A roundtable of teens and YA authors discuss these topics and takes questions and comments from the audience. (M): Jean Marie Ward, (S): Sarah Taylor, Janine K. Spendlove, Michael Andrew D'Ambrosio, Daniel Hack, Sarah Sexton, Christine Norris

Sunday, 10:00 pm (Parlor 3041)
Films, Books and TV Shows That Everyone Likes, But I Don't (Film, TV, Film-making Track)
Panelists bash the things we hold dear. (M): Joshua Bilmes, (S) Daniel M. Kimmel, Ian Randal Strock, Trish Wilson (Elizabeth Black), Jean Marie Ward

Monday, 11:00 am, (Salon C)
Old Fandoms and Favorite Cancelled Shows (Fan Track)
Star Trek, Farscape, Lexx, Firefly: What keeps their fans hanging on? What are some other series that still have strong fan follow¬ings? (M): Billy Flynn, (S): Zan Rosin, Yoji Kondo/Eric Kotani, Hildy Silverman, Jean Marie Ward, Lisa Adler-Golden

Monday, 12:00 noon (Salon D)
The Discreet Charm of the Historical Fantasy (Readers Track)
What prompts otherwise sane writers to spend years research¬ing the Imperial Japan, the Silk Road, or the Ripper's London? How do they know when they've gotten it right? (M): Christine Norris, (S): Diane Weinstein, Patrick Scaffido, Bill Fawcett, D.H. Aire, Jean Marie Ward

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Neil Gaiman Interview

If you ever needed proof that I'm a total fan girl, here it is: my Nebula Awards Banquet interview with Neil Gaiman.  Enjoy!