NYRSF Wrap-up and Picspam

photo by Sam J. Miller

Last week was super busy. First, the NYRSF reading, then a very heavy writing week, and finally, Philcon. Today, I bring you picspam from NYRSF. I’ll talk about Philcon a bit later.

On Tuesday, I drove up to NYC with my friend Melissa Maddonni Haims. We met authors Nancy Hightower (check out her amazing book, Elementari Rising, fresh off the presses!), Ilana Teitelbaum, and D.T. Friedman for some great conversation and excellent food before we all trooped around the corner to meet up with more of the Altered Fluid gang who came with Rajan Khanna. Because Rajan and I were reading together, we flipped a coin to see who would go first. Rajan won. Meantime, Melissa (a professional fiber artist and yarnbomber) got distracted… but more on that later.

I’ll admit to being nervous. Which was strange. I’d never read in this venue, which was probably part of it. But D.T. assured me NYRSF is a great place to read – and she was right.

photo by Melissa Maddonni Haims

The Soho Digital Arts Gallery was packed. Someone said 60+ people came.  Michael Swanwick and Marianne Porter drove up from Philadelphia. Friends came from Viable Paradise — Alex Shvartsman, Jennifer Melchert, and Nicole Lisa — Codex — Anatoly & D.T. —  Tor Books — including Ardi Alspach and my awesome editor Miriam Weinberg — plus my pal Sam Miller and so many more. I met new friends, and saw people I hadn’t seen since Readercon and Worldcon.

photo by Melissa Maddonni Haims

This may have been my first visit to NYRSF, but is absolutely not my last.

Jim Freund was super helpful both before and after the reading, and guest curator Amy Goldshlager was awesome. Barbara Krasnoff and Kim Kindya made everything flow so smoothly and look amazing.

Before things got started, I had a fantastic conversation with a new friend about cultural memory, diverging mythologies, and singing.

And I loved Rajan’s reading — you guys, mark your calendars for 2014, you’re going to want to check out his book from Pyr.  Airships! Floating cities! Science!

And the reading… I surprised myself by trying to sing a bit of song that I’d written into the chapter of Bone Arrow that I read. (Seriously – “Oh, wait, I’m singing?” was what was going through my head at that point.) I realized that I really should practice if I intend to sing in front of an audience. I also realized just how much singing I’d written into this story. Yeah. So, practicing, in case you all dare me to try that again.

first fanart! eeeeeee.

A bunch of ‘firsts’ happened this week. The first first is that the NYRSF reading was recorded for YouTube. I’ll link when it’s ready.  Another: Bone Arrow has its first-ever piece of fan art! Mary, a regular at NYRSF, made an amazing sketch during my reading. It was so cool to see how she interpreted the chapter I read. LOVE this. Check it out.

And Melissa… she may or may not have introduced several writers not-to-be-named to the glorious practice of yarnbombing. That was fun too. So a great night was had by all, capped by a delicious dinner at a local pub – with many thanks to Jim and Amy.

photo by D.T. Friedman (I think)