Spring Never Arrives All at Once

by on April 6, 2025 at 3:44 pm
Posted In: Blog

The weather has been on a roller coaster lately, just like it ends up every spring here in Wisconsin. For the last several weeks the temperatures have gotten nice and warm on Friday only to plunge back into the cold on Saturday. This week, with temperatures in the fifties, we’re finally having a nice Sunday. Spring never arrives all at once. It turns up for moments and then retreats.

Frankly, I think it’s just determined to mess with me.

I had a lovely time yesterday participating in the Critical Thinking Witch Collective‘s April Brew. I haven’t done anything with them since CritWitchCon 2022, and I’m so glad they asked me to join in for this event. They’ve asked if I wanted to do stuff a few other times, but I can get myself a bit overwhelmed in the fall when CritWitchCon comes around, so this was actually super nice. It helps that the topic was one I felt comfortable dropping in on without feeling like I needed to shore up my sources.

Because I’m neurotic like that and even if I know a topic backwards and forwards I’m not comfortable speaking on most of them in public without preparing five pages of notes. The secret to the podcast is that I can have my sources up on screen just next to my camera, so if I ever have any doubts, I can just see the original data. It’s hard to do that in an impromptu panel where the subject can go off in a different direction at any given moment.

Anyways, my particular flavor of crazy aside, it’s gorgeous out right now, so Crysta and I are thinking about taking a lovely drive in the country. It should be nice — the sun is shining, the weather’s lovely, and we have a full tank of gas. We used to take drives like this all the time, but have fallen out of the habit.

I think it will be lovely.

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I’m Actually Doing Conventions this Year!

by on April 2, 2025 at 10:39 am
Posted In: Blog

So I’m finally in a good mood with yesterday’s electoral wins, so I thought I’d post about some fun stuff instead of how the world is on fire for once. As some of you know, I’ve been trying to slowly ease myself back into doing cons, and last year I did three. This year, as you recall, I already did Evercon last month, but that’s just the beginning of my calendar.

I have four more shows that are booked and locked for 2025 so far, with the likelihood of a fifth. So that means in total I will be doing about twice the number of cons in 2025 than I did in 2024. We’re effectively getting back to my pre-COVID schedule, even if the shows I’m booking are sometimes very different. It’s nice to get out there again though, to engage with folks, and to be a part of the community again.

Before we get to in person events, I want to remind folks that this Saturday morning, April 5th, I’m doing a virtual event with the Critical Thinking Witches’ Collective. For their April Brew, which starts at 11am Eastern/10am Central, I’ll be on a panel that should start about a half hour in with a few other folks where we’re going to talk about book publishing. You can register for free if you want to attend! It should be really fun.

Anyways, here’s my current schedule for the rest of the year (so far):

I’m really excited for this schedule (and, again, I’m looking to add to it). Is it exactly what I wish I was doing? No – but it’s still pretty good so I’m definitely not complaining.

2020 was supposed to be my year of conventions, but obviously the world fell apart (and a lot of those shows didn’t survive). Ironically at the time I was looking to shift to promoting Nerd & Tie over just my own stuff (as UnCONventional had just wrapped), but I’ve since written multiple novels so I’ve been slipping back to myself. Ideally we’d be doing Nerd & Tie tables too, and I’m hoping to expand to that… but for now? It’s nice to find my footing again.

Wow it’s nice to feel occasionally hopeful.

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Win or Lose, We Will Keep Fighting.

by on March 31, 2025 at 10:43 am
Posted In: Blog

Tomorrow, April 1st 2025, we have a massively important State Supreme Court election here in the state of Wisconsin. It will decide the balance of the state supreme court, and it’s vitally important that we get Susan Crawford elected. Elon Musk has literally poured millions of dollars into Brad Schimel’s campaign, and we are fighting for our lives here. I’ve already voted, and if you haven’t yet and you live here… make sure you do.

But no matter what happens tomorrow, no matter what the result is, the fight is far from over. ICE agents are grabbing people off the streets, our public institutions are being systematically destroyed, and our international and diplomatic relations with historically close allies are just, honestly, fucked right now. Today is Trans Day of Visibility, and trans and queer rights have been under steady attack by the right. As a nonbinary person and member of the trans community, I’m genuinely scared for a lot of my friends right now.

But we fight. We stand up. We survive.

If we accept defeat, we are handing victory to those who want us dead. By living and fighting, we carry on to the next day and then the day after that. I know I posted it right after the election last November, but there’s a pretty famous Joe Hill quote everyone should keep in mind: “Don’t waste any time mourning. Organize!”

Go out, hug your friends. Build a local community if you can, and get involved in your local politics. Make sure you call your Reps and Senators every day if you can, and for pete’s sake fucking vote.

We can make it as long as we don’t stop fighting.

Remember that on April 5th at 11AM Eastern/10AM Central you can join me for the Critical Thinking Witches’ Collective’s April Brew virtual event! Attendance is free, and you can register here!

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Moving Forward as Best We Can

by on March 29, 2025 at 4:58 pm
Posted In: Blog

It’s hard to tell how vulnerable to be on the internet anymore. How safe it it to be so exposed. Twenty years ago I’d just pour anything I was feeling into this space. While I filtered things for other people’s privacy, I never filtered my own feelings.

But I stopped at some point, and this turned into a place where I just promoted my projects and gave generic, general updates. It meant I posted less and less, and I know I’m trying to turn that around. When you make stuff like comics and books and try to talk about them and promote them online, there’s a pressure to be positive constantly. Like when you’re actively trying to provide paths for escapism for people, a lot of people get unhappy when you drag reality into things.

But things are stressful.

Sometimes we’re just holding ourselves together with tape and string, and hoping no one notices. Besides the massively important Wisconsin Supreme Court election on Tuesday (vote Crawford by the way), the outside world isn’t the only pressure. My grandmother is going into hospice, and that brings its own set of stuff. I’ve got a family of people who are all concerned about everyone else’s well being, and not enough people taking care of themselves.

And, like, for the record, I am fine. I will be fine. We have a lot of fighting to do, and I have no intention of giving up. But, like, shit is stressful, y’know? And I think it’s important to acknowledge that stress. I write these things not because I need support, but to acknowledge that they exist. To say “sometimes things are hard and we’re all human.”

Because we are.

And me move forward as best we can.

Remember that on April 5th at 11AM Eastern/10AM Central you can join me for the Critical Thinking Witches’ Collective’s April Brew virtual event! Attendance is free, and you can register here!

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Conundrum.

by on March 27, 2025 at 4:39 pm
Posted In: Blog

Conundrum.So I’m just going to come out and say it: My favorite episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation is “Conundrum.” It’s episode fourteen of season five, and I just deeply love it.

I don’t know if it’s because I literally just assumed Erich Anderson’s Commander McDuff was a random Enterprise officer of the week (which we saw quite often during the show) when I watched it as a kid during the original run, so the twist actually worked on eleven year old me. I don’t know if it’s because I just like a good “everyone has amnesia” story. I don’t even know if it’s just because it’s a good Ro Laren episode. I don’t know if it’s just because we learn that Starfleet doesn’t give a crap about lasers.

I just like it. It’s neat.

And I rewatched it last night, and feel that it holds up — which is why I found it deeply weird that the folks who wrote the episode actually think it’s not that good. My favorite episode of the entire seven season run of the show was a failure according to the folks who wrote it.

And maybe, as a writer and creator, I should remember that.

Like the hardest part of releasing creative works to the public is that often, after a while, I’ll start to judge those things far more harshly than when I first made them. Or I’ll compare it to the potential I thought an idea had in my head. And if I don’t reach that potential, I’ll think of it as “bad” — when it might just be slightly different than that idea. I have one hundred percent published stories that I thought were just sort of okay and later had someone tell me how much it meant to them to read it.

*cough*I Hate November*cough*

So I should make sure I remember Conundrum. That one of my favorite things to rewatch is considered one of those failures by its creators. That the things I make might have value, just not in the way I originally thought they should.

It’s just sort of how things work out.

Remember that on April 5th at 11AM Eastern/10AM Central you can join me for the Critical Thinking Witches’ Collective’s April Brew virtual event! Attendance is free, and you can register here!

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