I had so much fun at DemiCon 36 earlier this month! It’s been a while since a whole convention felt quite so easy and joyous to me as it did at this year’s edition of the long-running Des Moines science fiction convention. It was an especially welcome experience because so many other things so far this year have seemed hard and unhappy. I’ve noted this before, in some of the few blog posts I’ve been able to produce in the…
Please note: this post is now several years old. For a look at publishing in 2025-26, take a look at my post “Time for the Annual Marketing Review.” Of course I have thoughts on publishing trends. I have to take trends into consideration with every decision we at Weird Sisters Publishing make. Especially right now, while G. is finishing out her time with The Dallas Winds, and I’m the one holding down the fort full-time. In my last post I…
What’s the proper balance between political opinion, professional life, and writing? Every writer, every publisher, and indeed every individual person must decide how to delineate their own personal “proper balance.” Here at Weird Sisters Publishing, the eponymous sisters – G. S. Norwood and I – see many things the same way. But not all things. Recently I’ve come to realize that the expression of political views in the public-facing, professional sphere is one of those things. G. is more reticent…
To cap off January, how about a post full of page-turners? This month I’ve been looking at my recent history of writing book reviews, and quite frankly found myself f lacking. In my first post of the year for 2024, I did a painful self-accounting and made a New Year’s Resolution to do better. In my second post I started to make good on that promise with reviews of three recommended nonfiction titles featuring widely different subject matter. But fiction…
By Jan S. Gephardt I am happy to report that I’m going to Archon 44 after all. Why? Because—and only because—Archon’s doing it right. The Email That Changed Everything You may recall that a few weeks ago, I very reluctantly decided to withdraw from this year’s FenCon, a Texas science fiction convention that my son and I have come to love. I had been watching the COVID-19 trends in the St. Louis area and growing more and more convinced I’d…