In which *my* Hogwarts letter arrives

I haven't said anything previously, cuz in my heart of hearts I just didn't think it could be real. But here it is, in defiance of probability and reason: I'll be keynoting at the University of Glasgow's GIFCon - Glasgow International Fantasy Conversations at the end of April. 

 Dr. Rob Maslen at the U of G has helmed the launch of the world's first master's degree in fantasy literature, and it is a truly 'fabulist' honor to celebrate that in such exceptional company. Registration opens tomorrow, and haggis nachos are on me!

Writers in the Field: Your Hogwarts Letter Has Arrived...!

Okay, so you know that whole thing about karma: whatever it is you dump out into the cosmic ocean on a daily basis will eventually wash back up at your front door. I can't say for sure that it's true, but I have been striving (however imperfectly) to pour out Exxon-Valdez quantities of love and realness and radical generosity. Helps cut down on water weight, if nothing else.

Of course, you never know exactly whether or how your moral exports will come back to you – but a few months back, a bona-fide unicorn beached itself at my feet. Only this is a marine metaphor, so like... maybe a narwhal or something. His name is Shane.

He's basically Mead Hall Dumbledore.

Anyway, so you know that thing, when somebody just randomly says to you, "Hey, so my wife and I own sixteen acres down south of the airport, and we've been running this big-ass awesome steampunk ren-faire for a few years now, and I'm not a writer or anything, but I'm a huge reader, and... how do I say this... is there some way I could help you guys like, not screw up your fight scenes?  And period clothing and such? Like, if I got some of my sword guys down here, and a poisons expert, and the WWII artillery crew, and some folks who could show you how to pick locks and sew Victorian underwear and make real-life herbal remedies and stuff... do you think writers would be interested in a thing like that? We can throw in a wine-tasting too, by the way. Do writers like wine?"

And y'all... when a dapper pipe-smoking karma-narwhal asks you a thing like that, there is really only one thing to say.

It's called Writers in the Field. It is going to be PHENOMENAL. And I am asking for your help in making it an unforgettable smash hit.

Shane and his crew have thrown themselves into building this event. They've been hammering away at the pavilions and the booths for weeks now.

They've brought in a slew of experts from their huge arcane Rolodex, for every kind of hands-on tutorial and demonstration you can think of.

A small sampling of the faculty. Anybody know a good potions professor?

They've got first aid, security, parking, concessions, restrooms, vendors, electricity, and wifi all taken care of – and kept the ticket price for the entire glorious weekend to only $45. Yes, really.

This is it, guys. This is your Hogwarts.

This is going to be an incredible event, y'all. It's built - it's happening - and the only thing we need now is you.

And let me be clear: even if you live a thousand miles away, we still need you. 

If the logistics don't work out for you to attend this year – we still need you.

If this isn't exactly up your genre alley, or your writing is on the back-burner right now, or you've already given your bottom dollar for worthy causes and don't have a penny to spare – we still need you. 

Because damn it, the fun's not going to have itself!

If you're thinking "man, this is such a cool idea - why hasn't anybody done this before?", let me tell you: it's because an event like this is a five-leafed clover. Because nailing down the venue AND the outdoor-event-management know-how AND the talent AND the community connections AND still keeping the cost down to something the humble striving scrivener can afford... is damn near impossible. You can't do all this when you are hiring for each of those positions. You can't create something like this as a strictly transactional enterprise.

Which means that something like Writers in the Field can only happen under the most perfect and unlikely conditions – when you have *exactly* the right balance of passion, talent, generosity, and one-in-a-million golden opportunity. We just-so-happen to have lucked our way into the perfect primordial alchemy here - and you are the lightning that is going to bring it to life.

Your playground awaits...

So. If you like the idea of making hands-on education and research opportunities accessible to writers from every walk of life – if you want tentpole writing events that go beyond the ballroom of the airport Hyatt - if you want to see this event come back next year with even more variety of activities, for even more kinds of writers – if you want to help us establish a strong precedent for one day having something like this in YOUR neck of the woods – then we need you to come out of the gate *roaring*, as fierce and enthusiastically as you ever have. We need mentions. We need shares. We need good old-fashioned buzz. More than anything, we need 'proof of concept' - and that means tickets sold.

...and so does your saloon.

And of course, I wouldn't ask you to do anything without putting my own skin in the game. So let me make you a deal.

1.    If we can sell 150 two-day tickets between now and midnight on Sunday (three days from today) I will personally read 5,000 words of your work - any format, any genre, any combination - and you and I will have half an hour of undivided real-time conversation about it. Phone or Skype or whatever you want to do. Once we hit the 150-mark, you forward me your ticket receipt and attach your doc file and we will make us a date.

2.    If you can't attend Writers in the Field but want to get in on the critique deal – or again, want to vote with your dollars for more events like this one – we can totally do that. Just buy a ticket and use promo code GIFT when you check out. We will give the ticket to a local writer who couldn't otherwise afford to go - and you will get the critique, even if we don't hit the 150 mark. Like I said, y'all – this is about love and realness and radical acts of generosity. And, you know, learning how to hit people with swords.

This is how we do it, guys. This is how first-evers become first-annuals, how we know more and do better, how we give ourselves something fantastic and special to be proud of, even when it feels like the whole rest of the world is going all to hell. This is how game-changing greatness begins.

It is also how legends begin.
Epic, unforgettable, totally-worth-the-hangover legends.

Are you pumped? Are you ready? Then pick out a job below and go!

• Help us collect likes, shares, and follows: Facebook event - Facebook page - Twitter - Instagram (hashtag #writersinthefield)
• Volunteer to do a demonstration, help out at the event, or request to be a vendor: email findyourtribe@wordwriters.org
• Print and post flyers for your writers group, coffee shop, library, etc. (remember to ask permission!): download our full-size flyer here
• And of course, visit the website and buy tickets - yours or someone else's!

Set your watches now, y'all: in one month exactly, we make literary-adventure-field-trip history!

Announcing Candidate Campolo

You may have heard me describe myself, very modestly, as “simply the finest human being who has ever lived.”

That is no longer true.

The title now goes to my sister, Allison Campolo, who has just thrown her hat into the ring to run for the Texas state senate, in District 10. (That is basically the southern half of Tarrant County – Konni Burton’s district, for those of you who keep up with these things.)

And you guys, I just can’t even imagine the guts it takes to do that. You know, to put your face out there KNOWING that people will say horrendously ugly things to and about you. To volunteer yourself to spend the next 18 months knocking on doors and making phone calls and wearing out the bottoms of your shoes, all for a ‘maybe’. For a job that literally does not pay a living wage. (Texas state senators make $7,200 per year, plus a per diem when the lege is actually in session – which is four months out of every two years.)

But, you know. She sweated her way to a black belt in kung fu. Started, ran, and sold a business. Got her master’s and is working on a PhD in veterinary biomedical science. She’s spayed cats, researched fish farms in Thailand, smashed bricks, blood-typed horses, built a barn, broken bones, played in a band, doctored an epileptic beaver and a squeamish brother-in-law, and probably BASE-jumped from a breaching whale off the coast of Nicaragua while I wasn’t looking. She’s even more of a ridiculous Mary Sue than I am – and if that’s the kind of person you would trust to road-trip down to Austin and kick our Lone Star shit into shape, then I hope you’ll join me in backing her bid.

You can start by following her on Facebook and on Twitter. She’ll be speaking at the March for Science in Fort Worth this weekend, and will need our help in collecting donations and signatures to secure her bid. It’s going to be a long, uphill slog, y’all – but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from living with Al, it’s that bravery is contagious, and ‘badass’ is a verb.

Hats, Horse-Slobbers, and Happily-Ever-Afters

You know, my good buddy Ally Bishop has a wonderful rule: "90% of everything you do should be about somebody else."

This week, I am breaking that rule into tiny well-intentioned pieces.

Because when somebody else gives you a platform to talk about yourself, you can't exactly neglect to showcase their kindness afterwards, even though their efforts are technically all about you.  It's an ourobouros of socially-acceptable narcissism - and I am devouring myself like Pizza the Hutt.

If this obscure pop-culture reference means nothing to you...
well, that's probably for the best.

Anyway, here for you (and let's be real, me) are three guest blogs I wrote for three wonderful sites:

Civilian Reader - Don't Hold the Horses!  And don't let them be featureless expendable inventory items, either.  Here's an introduction to all the fun and plot-twisting adventures you can have with your story's four-legged fantasy Ferraris.

RisingShadow.net - Fine Dining in Fantasyland  Come for the story, sure – but stay for the butterbeer, the lembas, and a big, fresh, still-squirming plate of gagh.  Let's talk fictional gastronomy – and while we're at it, let's make the case for moving the menu beyond hardtack and stew.

Interview with Jan Edwards  Step right up, folks!  SEE the secrets of cowboy lingo revealed!  MARVEL at the insufficiency of allegorical representation!  SHUDDER as I wax distraught about the carnival of tedium that is modern living!

And here, hot off the presses, is the most fun I think I've ever had on Twitter - being interviewed by the inexpressibly wonderful Michelle Cornwell-Jordan! (If you don't follow her, please amend that with a quickness - she is a firehose of generosity and enthusiasm!)

And if you've read this far - well, feel free to call in a favor, because I owe you 90% of my everything!

And there's no limit to what we can do - me and you
But mostly me...!

Is That a Saguaro, or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

Hello again, Internet friends!  Going to try to keep it short this week, as your intrepid reporter is once again on the road, reporting live from an undisclosed location.

I can disclose this cactus, though. It is super freakin' weird.

Anyway, here's all the latest from the Tex Files:

I will be presenting at North Lake College's annual Arts & Literary Festival next week!  This gig is especially near and dear to my heart. I've attended a lot of schools, but NLC is my spawn point, my Hogwarts, my ancestral alma mater. If you are lucky enough to live in the Irving area and have daytimes free, check out all the A & L festival - they have an amazing lineup, and it's all free to the public.

I am also delighted to say that I've been accepted as a speaker at The Mid-American Review's Winter Wheat Festival!  This is kind of obscenely exciting, because *not only* am I going to get to go to Ohio (AND SEE REAL ACTUAL SNOW), I'm also going to have near-fatal amounts of fun with my supreme arch-linguist co-conspirator Jason Wells-Jensen and his posse of language-constructing, uke-tickling adventurers.  If you or a loved one are going to be in the greater Toledo area November 14th-15th, come treat yourself to a back-to-back lineup of dialect and conlang and all the writer knowledge you can handle!

Digitally speaking, I'm featured over at Lawrence Schoen's Eating Authors this week. It's not only a perfect example of an ambiguous modifier, but a great excuse for me to tell the tale of the dinner that broke me.  (Full disclosure: the phrase "cheese-smothered fetal dachshunds" also worked its way in somehow.)

And finally, the endlessly effervescent Laura Maisano lit up my life with a stellar review of One Night in Sixes.  This is kind of triply delightful, because Laura is NOT ONLY the senior editor of Anaiah Press (aka somebody who reads for a living) AND the mother of a very active toddler (aka somebody who has a whole lot of non-reading demands on her time), BUT ALSO my sworn rival: her first novel, Schism, has just been picked up for publication in 2015 - and I already know it's going to blow the barn doors off.  Quick, help me congratulate her before jealousy drowns us all - and get ready to hear plenty more of her name before we're done!

(You will also hear more about sinister cacti, big-ass balloons, cheerful tube-dogs, and a whole passel of arid autumn delights, just as soon as I get time to write about them. Pics included.)

You better watch out for those man-eating jackrabbits, and them killer cacti. 

A Happy Convergence

Holy cats, you guys.  I'm in Minneapolis for CONvergence, and I'm already so tired that I might actually die, but I am having the BEST time.  And as sloppy as this post is going to be, I can't let even one more day go without doing a news update.

1.  The DFW Teen Writers Workshop is happening again!  We haven't done one of these since I became a member in 2012, so this is my first one, and I am BEYOND excited.  It's a free six-week workshop for 9th to 12th graders, kicking off on July 12th (and I would be stoked about it even if they hadn't invited me to teach the session on critiquing!)

Anyway, if you have a kid who loves writing or needs to be kept out of the pool halls this summer, please click over and check it out - it should be a fantastic experience for everyone.

2.  One Night in Sixes got a terrific review from Michael MacPherson over at GeekChicElite.com.  To say I'm on cloud nine would be a huge understatement.  I can't even tell you what it feels like to get a Tweet out of the blue from some brand-new person who read your book and loved it.  I just can't even.

Oh, but here is what I CAN say: GCE is a new site that's covering a huge array of nerd-tacular subjects, and blowing up like you wouldn't believe.  From an interview with the cast of Sailor Moon to a review of Disney's new Figment comic and news about the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack, they already have a terrific variety of articles up, and I'm way interested to see what they do next.  And not just because they obviously have amazing taste in fantasy novels.

3.  Books have officially made it stateside!  They are a real thing now - and they look GREAT.

And like... this is one semester of art history and a whole lot of over-tired emotionality talking here, but I get soggy every time I look at this picture.  It was taken just this afternoon (my amazing agent Jennie took delivery of the books for me and invited a whole passel of us over for dinner at her house, where we opened the box and had much rejoicing.)  And it was SUCH a great evening - that perfect mix of awesome weather, old friends, new friends, and fantastic food.  But more than that, this right here is how I always want to remember this whole writing gig.  Like, the books are there because of the people in my life, photographed with the people (bare toes, tasty nibbles, and happy times included!), and are there at the bottom of the shot because ultimately they are subordinate to those people. 

Like, those cute glossy little paperbacks literally would not exist without some of the people who were at dinner tonight, and a whole lot more who weren't, and as much time as I have spent / will spend on promoting the book, I never want it to be bigger or more important than the people whose invisible fingerprints are on literally every page.  (And man, if you think I sound over-sloppy about this now, you are not even going to be able to handle me at the launch party.)

Anyway, bed now, game face on tomorrow.  Please holler if you're around the con this weekend - it's my first time here, and I would love to meet some new northerly friends!