Friday Quick Updates, Monday edition: James Dashner, Chris Hardwick, NC Comicon, and Gabriel Dunston's Kickstarter for Purgatory Pub

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Friday Quick Updates, Monday edition: James Dashner, Chris Hardwick, NC Comicon, and Gabriel Dunston's Kickstarter for Purgatory Pub

Posted on 2013-11-04 at 20:14 by montsamu

Monday, November 4, 2013: I’m late this month with the newsletter to be sure, and have at least one more thing to put the finishing touches on before I can click “send” — that being the annual holiday gift guide to the year in NC speculative fiction. But until then, some quick updates to get to:

  • As today was the first Monday of the month, I was on Carolina Book Beat again for the monthly focus on NC speculative fiction, this time with guests Diana Bastine and Debra Killeen. If you missed it live, look for the podcast in a week or so, and in the mean time you can catch up with their previous appearance on the show, in 2011.
  • Did you make it or miss it? Some recent events to round up: Lemony Snicket at Quail Ridge Books, The Festival of Legends' Unseelie Eve, and Duke's "Race in Space" conference to close October, then on to HonorCon and other conventions, including at least one local representative (Mark Van Name) at this year's World Fantasy Awards in Brighton, United Kingdom, where both the World Fantasy Awards and British Fantasy Awards were announced. For the latter award, the BFA for best anthology went to Magic: An Anthology of the Esoteric and the Arcane, which includes the short story "Buttons" by Charlotte author Gail Z. Martin, so congratulations to Gail!
Meanwhile, the current news and events for this week:
  • James Dashner, the author of the bestselling Maze Runner trilogy, visits Quail Ridge Books on Wednesday November 6th at 7 pm for his new book, The Eye of Minds.
  • The Nerdist's Chris Hardwick, also the host of AMC's The Walking Dead talk show The Talking Dead, will have a standup comedy show at the Carolina Theatre of Durham on Friday November 8th.
  • Speaking of the Carolina Theatre of Durham, they're hosting a ComiQuest Film Festival this weekend (Nov 8-10) in conjunction with NC Comicon (Nov 9-10 at the adjoining Durham Convention Center, with a free pre-party on Friday, and a special event with Neal Adams at Ultimate Comics on Wednesday evening). See this Ultimate Comics Facebook note for the full details.
And two more events this Saturday (November 9th) in medium- and far-flung places:
  • The Charleston Young Adult Book Festival, YALLFest, in Charleston, SC. With guests Lev Grossman, Leigh Bardugo, Libba Bray, Rae Carson, David Macinnis Gill, Lauren Oliver, Veronica Roth, Veronica Rossi, Victoria Schwab, and many others. More info: http://yallfest.org/
  • The First Annual Peak City Book Festival will take place on November 9th, 2013 from 11 am to 5 pm at The Halle Cultural Arts Center in Apex, North Carolina.
Whew! But one more thing before I let you go, and that's this:

Bull Spec art director Gabriel Dunston has two weeks to go on his Purgatory Pub (Book 1) Kickstarter, where he’s already collected pledges of $1500 towards his goal of of $3500. The first of a five book graphic novel series on the afterlife, Purgatory Pub asks “What do the Angel and Devil on your shoulders do when they are done harassing you?” and answers “They go to a bar and talk about you.” There’s a 2-chapter PDF preview available as well, so go check it out!

-Sam

Posted in Friday Quick Updates