July and August newsletter -- including events tonight (Friday) and Sunday

1 — Local editor new anthology: Raleigh author and anthologist John Kessel’s latest anthology (co-edited with James Patrick Kelly) to be released: Digital Rapture: The Singularity Anthology from Tachyon Publications.NEW: 3 (Friday) 5 pm -- Tthe North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences hosts a screening of three short films based on the work of the late Ray Bradbury. The event starts at 5 pm, with the films to start at 7 pm. More info: http://naturalsciences.org/programs-events/first-friday-goodbye-ray-bradburyNEW: 4 (Saturday) 7 pm -- Regional event: Asheville's Malaprops Bookstore hosts Shared Worlds writers Tobias Buckell, Karin Lowachee, Will Hindmarch, Ann and Jef VanderMeer, and Nathan Ballingrud for a SF/F extravaganza.5 (Sunday) 2 to 4 pm — Chapel Hill’s Flyleaf Books hosts the 2nd Bull Spec summer literary sf festival with South Carolina author T.C. McCarthy (Germline, Exogene, and the forthcoming Chimera) and Virginia author Michael J. Sullivan (The Riyria Revelations). Last year was a veritable Steampunk Cabinet of Curiosities. This year, it’s a mini Orbit regional author-palooza. Spread the word: /2012/07/30/event-flyer-for-sundays-flyleaf-books-reading-with-t-c-mccarthy-and-michael-j-sullivan/

NEW: 13 (Monday) 7 pm -- The Regulator Bookshop -- Anna North will read from and sign copies of her novel America Pacifica. Eighteen-year-old Darcy lives on America Pacifica, an island in the Pacific that refugees from the West Coast have retreated to after a second ice age. For Darcy, life with her make-it-work mother is made up of seafiber clothes and dinners of jellyfish. When Darcy’s mother doesn’t come home one night, she kicks of a search that pulls her from the small life she knows in Little Los Angeles to a harrowing adventure far bigger than she could have expected. Anna North’s writing has appeared in publications like The Atlantic, Jezebel.com, and The Paris Daily Review. She is a senior editor at BuzzFeed.com and lives in Brooklyn.  Reading with Anna will be her friend Kristen-Paige Madonia, whose new YA nove, Fingerprints of You,”deftly depicts the nuanced conflicts of early motherhood and the search for identity.”

14 — (Ex!) Local author new collection: Raleigh author Kij Johnson’s fiction collection At the Mouth of the River of Bees to be published by Small Beer Press. Kij will be back in the Triangle in October for a reading event — see below!

NEW-NEW: 24 (Friday) — Ann Patchett visits Duke for the DukeReads summer reading program’s discussion of her novel State of Wonder. Watch live online at 10 am on Friday, August 24. More info: http://dukealumni.com/learn-travel/dukereads

NEW-NEW: 25 (Saturday) — Ultimate Comics will be celebrating its ninth anniversary with “a HUGE party! We will have food and drinks…“

31 – September 6 — Durham’s Carolina Theatre’s Summer Classics Film Series concludes withSam Raimi’s ARMY OF DARKNESS and John Milius’ CONAN THE BARBARIAN: http://www.carolinatheatre.org/films/summer-classics-film-series

SEPTEMBER 2012

4 — Local author new novel: Raleigh authors Clay and Susan Griffith conclude their Vampire Empire series with book 3, The Kingmakers, after 2010′s The Greyfriar and 2011′s The Rift Walker, from Pyr Books. More info: http://clayandsusangriffith.blogspot.com/

NEW: 8 (Saturday) — Bookmarks Book Festival in W-S with Sherrilyn Kenyon: http://www.bookmarksbookfestival.org/

NEW: 13 (Thursday) at 7:30 pm — Local authors Clay and Susan Griffith at Quail Ridge Books on Thursday September 13 for the conclusion of their Vampire Empire trilogy, The Kingmakers.

NEW: 13-16 (Thursday to Sunday) — SparkCon in Raleigh, with poetry, art, music, and other programming tracks “filling downtown Raleigh with a 4-day creative explosion”. More info: http://www.sparkcon.com

14-16 (Friday to Sunday) – The Escapist Magazine presents the first Escapist Expo at the newly renovated Durham Convention Center, with game designers, writers, comics, music, and more. Bull Spec will have a table, so stop buy and say hello! More info: http://www.escapistexpo.com/

NEW: 15-16 (Saturday and Sunday) — Durham’s CenterFest Arts Festival in downtown Durham, with a large variety of local artists, photographers, makers, and performance art. More info: http://centerfest.durhamarts.org/

NEW-NEW: 19 (Wednesday) at 7:30 pm — Andy Duncan at North Carolina State University for a reading event. Location TBD.

NEW: 21 (Friday) at 7 pm — Brent Weeks at Flyleaf Books on Friday, September 21 for the second book in his Lightbringer series, The Blinding Knife.

NEW: 24 (Monday) at 7 pm — Steven Erikson at Flyleaf Books on Monday, September 24 for the first book in his new prequel trilogy in his Malazan storyline, Forge of Darkness.

NEW-NEW: 26 (Wednesday) at 7 pm — Flyleaf Books hosts Forbes technology reporter Andy Greenberg for his new non-fiction novel THIS MACHINE KILLS SECRETS: How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World’s Information.

NEW-NEW: 29 (Saturday) — Durham’s Sci-Fi Genreis moving to a new location on Westgate Drive, and has scheduled its grand opening for Saturday, September 29th. More info: http://scifigenre.com/moving.html

OCTOBER 2012

1 (Monday) 7:30 pm — Quail Ridge Books hosts Michael Chabon (the author of The Yiddish Policeman’s Union and The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay) for a reading and signing event of his forthcoming non-genre novel, Telegraph Hill. More info: http://quailridgebooks.com/event/michael-chabon-telegraph-hill

9 (Tuesday) 7:30 pm — Kij Johnson returns to the Triangle for a reading and signing of her forthcoming collection from Small Beer Press, At the Mouth of the River of Bees: Stories, at Quail Ridge Books. More info: http://quailridgebooks.com/event/kij-johnson-nebula-winner-new-stories

NEW: 22 (Monday) 7 pm — Jasper Fforde at Quail Ridge Books on Monday, October 22 for his young adult fantasy novel The Last Dragonslayer.

NEW-NEW: 29 (Monday) 7 pm — Clay and Susan Griffith at Flyleaf Books on Monday, October 29 for a reading and signing of The Kingmakers (see above for more info on the book and another reading at Quail Ridge Books).

NEW: 31 — Local author new novel: Alex Granados’s Cemetery Plot to be published by Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing. Taglined “The apocalypse isn’t all it’s cracked up to be”, the novel’s described as: “When Vanessa Hawthorne woke up at the end of the world, she expected to be one of the undead… and to have company. Instead Vanessa wakes up in a near-future America where graveyards are as plentiful as strip malls and a real-estate tycoon is after her for the technology she doesn’t even know she hides. CEMETERY PLOT is a farcical romp through a future where the undead are part of a money-making scheme, and the past and future collide to bring together an undead medium with the three people responsible for the end of the world. Throw a mad scientist into the mix and you have a time-traveling apocalyptic prophecy for the modern money-obsessed world. The CEMETERY PLOT is nearly 50,000 words. It’s a science fiction/horror satire perfect for anyone from young adults to adults.” Granados will be on The State of Things on November 2, with signing throughout the triangle in November (see below).

NOVEMBER 2012

NEW: 4 (Sunday) 2 pm — Alex Granados reading and signing Cemetery Plot at McInty’re Books in Fearrington Village in Pittsboro. (See above for book info.)

NEW-NEW: 7 (Wednesday) 7:30 pm — Quail Ridge Books hosts Greensboro author Orson Scott Card for Ruins, the second book in his Pathfinder series from Simon Pulse (young readers/young adult).

NEW: 9 (Friday) — Granados at The Storetellers Bookstore in Wake Forest, during the town’s Art after Hours event.

NEW: 13 (Tuesday) 7:30 pm — Granados at Chapel Hill’s Flyleaf Books.

NEW: 15 (Thursday) 7 pm — Granados at Durham’s The Regulator Bookshop.

17-18 (Saturday and Sunday) — NC Comicon at the Durham Convention Center: http://nccomicon.com/

TBD — Local author new novel: J.L. Hilton’s Stellarnet Prince, sequel to January’s Stellarnet Rebel, to be published by Carina Press

JANUARY 2013

11-13 (Friday to Sunday) — illogiCon 2 will be held at the Embassy Suites of Raleigh-Durham/Research Triangle on January 11-13, 2013, with writer guest of honor Tim Powers and webcomic guest of honor Garth Graham, and toastmaster Mark L. Van Name: http://www.illogicon.com/

JUNE 2013

NEW: 27-30 (Thursday to Sunday) — ConTemporal 2013 at the North Raleigh Hilton, beginning with the Thursday evening guest of honor dinner and continuing as this Steampunk-themed convention is back for a second year. More info: http://contemporal.org/

END