July/August Newsletter: Events with Tony Daniel, Gwenda Bond, Christos Gage, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, and Drew Magary, and the 2016 Manly Wade Wellman Award goes to...

July/August Newsletter: Events with Tony Daniel, Gwenda Bond, Christos Gage, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, and Drew Magary, and the 2016 Manly Wade Wellman Award goes to...

Posted on 2016-07-28 at 18:13 by montsamu

Vol 6 No 7. Thursday, July 28, 2016: Oh, what’s another newsletter coming out near the tail end of the month? At least this time I’m going to go ahead and call it now: there won’t be another newsletter going out until September.

First, though, while there are events tonight and tomorrow and this weekend that deserve your attention, it’s only once a year that I get to pass along North Carolina science fiction and fantasy news at this level: The 2016 Manly Wade Wellman Award goes to…

Charlotte author John G. Hartness for his novella Raising Hell. Presented at ConGregate during an awards ceremony on Saturday, July 16, this is the third annual award, voted on by the combined membership of North Carolina science fiction and fantasy conventions (illogiCon, ConCarolinas, ConTemporal, and ConGregate), covering works published in 2015 written by North Carolina authors. In his acceptance speech, Hartness expressed his honor at being included among his fellow nominees this year: Darin Kennedy (for The Mussorgsky Riddle), Ursula Vernon (for Castle Hangnail), and Gail Z. Martin (Vendetta and War of Shadows) and Gail Z. and Larry N. Martin (for Iron and Blood). 115 titles were eligible, from 65 different authors. It was an incredible year of new science fiction and fantasy from the authors of our state! The news has already been picked up by both regional places like the Charlotte Observer and the NC Writers’ Network as well as by Locus Magazine and File 770, among others.

All right. Now on to those imminently forthcoming events:

• July 28 (Thursday) 7 pm — Raleigh's newly re-opened (at North Hills) Quail Ridge Books to host release party for Tony Daniel’s YA fantasy The Dragon Hammer. “Prolific fantasy author (Guardian of Night) Tony Daniel visits on Thursday, July 28, at 7 pm with The Dragon Hammer, the first installment of the saga of Wulf von Dunstig, the 16-year-old third son of a duke destined for an uneventful life as a ranger. But when destiny comes calling, there is only Wulf to answer. After a devastating invasion of his native land, Wulf must rally the peaceful valley of Shenandoah, and free his family and land from the grip of intruders controlled by vampiric evil. It’s time to grow up. It’s time to fight for what is right. It’s time to wield the Dragon Hammer. For ages 14+.”
• July 29 (Friday) 7 pm — The B&N of Durham’s New Hope Commons hosts local comics writer Jeremy Whitley for his newest graphic novel Princeless: Raven the Pirate Princess Book 2: Free Women.
• July 29 (Friday) 7 pm — The Dangerous Ladies 2.0 Tour visits Flyleaf Books: "Beth Revis, Gwenda Bond, Megan Miranda, and Megan Shepherd celebrate their latest young adult releases with a panel and book signing! Join us for a spectacular evening discussing these DANGEROUS LADIES and their amazing novels for teens! Fantasy readers, Sci-Fi enthusiasts, thrill seekers, and lovers of contemporary realism can all find something to enjoy in one of the books by these great Southern authors."
• July 30-31 (Saturday and Sunday) -- The NC Comicon presents the Christos Gage ROM #1 signing tour with an exclusive cover by Tommy Lee Edwards. Stops on Saturday include 10 am to 12 pm at Ultimate Comics Cary (with Edwards), 1:30 to 3:30 pm at Chapel Hill Comics, and 5 pm to 6 pm at Ultimate Comics Durham (with a writing workshop). Stops on Sunday include 11 am to 1 pm at Arkham Comix, and 4 pm to 6 pm at Fight or Flight Comics.
• July 30 (Saturday) 10 pm until 1 am — Midnight release parties for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at Quail Ridge Books, Flyleaf Books, The Regulator, area Barnes and Noble stores, and surely still other bookstores as well.
• August 1 (Monday) 7 pm — Raleigh's newly re-opened (at North Hills) Quail Ridge Books presents Hugo and World Fantasy Award nominated Dutch author Thomas Olde Heuvelt for his new novel Hex. “A 17th century woman accused of witchcraft puts a curse on the town before being put to death. Now in the 21st century, the townspeople must keep their secret or face death themselves. To ensure that the residents conform, a team monitors input from 24/7 surveillance. But is the town really safe, especially in the age of social media?  This new voice in dark fantasy will have you keeping your lights on if you read this at night.” (Note: Heuvelt is also at Charlotte's Park Road Books on Sunday, July 31 at 2 pm, and! at Asheville's Malaprop's Bookstore on Saturday, July 30th at 5 pm as part of the multi-author "Shared Worlds" reading and signing with Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, Tobias Buckell, Julia Elliott, Terra McVoy, Leah Thomas, and Nathan Ballingrud.)
• August 2 (Tuesday) 7 pm — Flyleaf Books hosts Drew Magary discusses his new novel The Hike. From the author of The Postmortal, “When Ben, a suburban family man, takes a business trip to rural Pennsylvania, he decides to spend the afternoon before his dinner meeting on a short hike. Once he sets out into the woods behind his hotel, he quickly comes to realize that the path he has chosen cannot be given up easily. With no choice but to move forward, Ben finds himself falling deeper and deeper into a world of man-eating giants, bizarre demons, and colossal insects.”

NEWS AND NOTES

• Lana Barron did the music composition and sound design for the fantastic-looking forthcoming live action recreation of Futurama, "Fan-O-Rama"; see a promotional video here
• Some release date movements for NC author books, from 2016 to 2017: Mur Lafferty's Six Wakes has moved to January 31; P. T. McHugh's next "Stones" book is now slated to be released on March 7
• Speaking of Mur, Storium has announced that the online storytelling game world "Heaven" based on her "Afterlife" series is now available; Mur will also be part of Storium Live at GenCon in Indianapolis on Thursday, August 4 along with fellow Durham author Richard Dansky (author of the Storium world Squatchtown)
• The Enchanted Alley reviewed Stuart Jaffe's Immortal Killers, the first in his new "Nathan K" series
• Among the other various news and online coverage of ConGregate, WFMY News has a fun little look inside video online
• The inaugural Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy anthology from series editor John Joseph Adams and guest editor Karen Joy Fowler includes a notable stories list which includes NC authors Helena Bell, John Kessel, Julie Steinbacher, and Alyssa Wong; Dale Bailey had both a notable story ("Snow") and a story selected as one of the 20 best and published in the anthology, "Lightning Jack's Last Ride". Congrats!
• Speaking of Alyssa Wong, she was on a recent episode of the Writing Excuses podcast talking about Imposter Syndrome
• Jeremy Whitley is interviewed about his "Choosing Sides" storyline in Civil War by Black Girl Nerds
• Disney and Ellen DeGeneres are "moving ahead" on the film adaptation of Pittsboro author Ursula Vernon's Castle Hangnail, as reported by Variety
• L.C. Fiore's The Last Great American Magic is reviewed in the News and Observer; also his latest story collection is among among the finalists for the 2016 Moon City Short Fiction Award
• Speaking of awards, I missed in the last newsletter that Lady Soliloque was nominated for the North Carolina Awards in Literature
• Leigh Statham "demystifies the world of WattPad" in a guest post on Emily Colin's blog
• Durham author Jay Posey (Outriders) was interviewed both at The Geeked Life and (by Mur Lafferty and I) on Carolina Book Beat
• Charlotte author John G. Hartness revealed the cover of a new book in his Black Knight Chronicles series, Man in Black, forthcoming August 15
• Richard Butner and Sycamore Hill workshop get a shout out in an Electric Literature's interview with Ted Chiang
• Durham author and game writer Wes Platt has a new Patreon to fund "work on the second in a series of 'greatest hits' ebooks featuring collaborative storytelling from the past 18 years of OtherSpace"
• Speaking of crowd-funding, the Kickstarter campaign for Alienish: How Fast Can You Master an Alien Language? closes on August 3; Garner artist Gabriel Dunston’s work is featured in the project

NEW BOOKS AND AUDIOBOOKS

The Dragon Hammer by Tony Daniel (Baen), beginning a new young adult fantasy series, in which “the sixteen-year-old third son of a duke in an alternate Viking-like medieval America must face invasion by confederates of a colonial Roman empire based on vampiric blood slavery.” — Killing Machine: Nathan K, #2 by Stuart Jaffe (Stuart Jaffe) “When a brilliant hacker calling herself Robin Hood steals proof of a corrupt Senator and hides it away, those who will be exposed go on the warpath after her. Nathan K is her only hope to survive the relentless attacks and escape death.” — Arctic Dawn (The Norse Chronicles #2) by Karissa Laurel (Red Adept Publishing) “Alone and exhausted after her month-long sojourn as a shooting star, Solina Mundy flees to southern California to lie low, recuperate, and plot a survival strategy. The one person she trusts to watch her back is her best friend, Skyla Ramirez. But Skyla has been missing for weeks.”

Directive 17: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller by Scott Nicholson (Haunted Computer Books, July 7), Book 4 in his “Next” series — Serafina and the Twisted Staff by Robert Beatty (Disney Hyperion), sequel to Beatty’s Biltmore-set debut Serafina and the Black Cloak. — A World Without You by Beth Revis (Razorbill) “Seventeen-year-old Bo has always had delusions that he can travel through time. When he was ten, Bo claimed to have witnessed the Titanic hit an iceberg, and at fifteen, he found himself on a Civil War battlefield, horrified by the bodies surrounding him. So when his worried parents send him to a school for troubled youth, Bo assumes he knows the truth: that he’s actually attending Berkshire Academy, a school for kids who, like Bo, have ‘superpowers’.”

BULLSPEC.COM

• The Exploding Spaceship reviewed Nightshades by Melissa F. Olson, Time Siege by Wesley Chu and The Ghoul King by Guy Haley, and The Dragon Hammer by Tony Daniel and The Conclave of Shadows by Alyc Helms
• Paul Kincaid’s From the Other Side, June 2016: Brexit, Stephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett, Charles Stross, Simon R. Green, Peter Newman, Mark Lawrence, Jenny T. Colgan, and more

-Sam

UPCOMING EVENTS

28 (Thursday) 7 pm — Raleigh’s newly re-opened (at North Hills) Quail Ridge Books to host release party for Tony Daniel’s YA fantasy The Dragon Hammer. “Prolific fantasy author (Guardian of Night) Tony Daniel visits on Thursday, July 28, at 7 pm with The Dragon Hammer, the first installment of the saga of Wulf von Dunstig, the 16-year-old third son of a duke destined for an uneventful life as a ranger. But when destiny comes calling, there is only Wulf to answer. After a devastating invasion of his native land, Wulf must rally the peaceful valley of Shenandoah, and free his family and land from the grip of intruders controlled by vampiric evil. It’s time to grow up. It’s time to fight for what is right. It’s time to wield the Dragon Hammer. For ages 14+.”

29 — NC author book release day for Heaven Sent – a Quincy Harker Novella (Quincy Harker Demon Hunter Book 5) by John G. Hartness (Falstaff Books).

NEW: 29 (Friday) 7 pm — The B&N of Durham’s New Hope Commons hosts local comics writer Jeremy Whitley for his newest graphic novel Princeless: Raven the Pirate Princess Book 2: Free Women.

NEW: 29 (Friday) 7 pm — The Dangerous Ladies 2.0 Tour visits Flyleaf Books: “Beth Revis, Gwenda Bond, Megan Miranda, and Megan Shepherd celebrate their latest young adult releases with a panel and book signing! Join us for a spectacular evening discussing these DANGEROUS LADIES and their amazing novels for teens! Fantasy readers, Sci-Fi enthusiasts, thrill seekers, and lovers of contemporary realism can all find something to enjoy in one of the books by these great Southern authors.”

30 (Saturday) 5 pm — Asheville’s Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe presents SHARED WORLDS reading & signing. “MC’d by Shared Worlds founder Jeremy L.C. Jones, this event will feature authors Jeff VanderMeer, Ann VanderMeer, Asheville’s Nathan Ballingrud, Tobias Buckell, Julia Elliott, Terra McVoy, Thomas Olde Heuvelt and Leah Thomas, who will each be reading from their personal favorite passages for an event that promises to be strange, fast-paced and even a little competitive. Now in its ninth year, Shared Worlds is an interdisciplinary program for middle and high school students that emphasizes problem solving, collaborative creation, and experiential learning through the exploration of speculative fiction genres.” (Yes, Asheville’s a drive, but this one’s worth listing!)

NEW: 30-31 (Saturday and Sunday) — The NC Comicon presents the Christos Gage ROM #1 signing tour with an exclusive cover by Tommy Lee Edwards. Stops on Saturday include 10 am to 12 pm at Ultimate Comics Cary (with Edwards), 1:30 to 3:30 pm at Chapel Hill Comics, and 5 pm to 6 pm at Ultimate Comics Durham (with a writing workshop). Stops on Sunday include 11 am to 1 pm at Arkham Comix, and 4 pm to 6 pm at Fight or Flight Comics.

30 (Saturday) 10 pm until 1 am — Midnight release parties for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at Quail Ridge Books, Flyleaf Books, The Regulator, and surely other bookstores as well.

31 (Sunday) 2 pm — Charlotte’s Park Road Books hosts Hugo and World Fantasy Award nominated Dutch author Thomas Olde Heuvelt for his new novel Hex. “A 17th century woman accused of witchcraft puts a curse on the town before being put to death. Now in the 21st century, the townspeople must keep their secret or face death themselves. To ensure that the residents conform, a team monitors input from 24/7 surveillance. But is the town really safe, especially in the age of social media?  This new voice in dark fantasy will have you keeping your lights on if you read this at night.”

AUGUST 2016

1 (Monday) 7 pm — Raleigh’s newly re-opened (at North Hills) Quail Ridge Books presents Hugo and World Fantasy Award nominated Dutch author Thomas Olde Heuvelt for his new novel Hex. “A 17th century woman accused of witchcraft puts a curse on the town before being put to death. Now in the 21st century, the townspeople must keep their secret or face death themselves. To ensure that the residents conform, a team monitors input from 24/7 surveillance. But is the town really safe, especially in the age of social media?  This new voice in dark fantasy will have you keeping your lights on if you read this at night.”

2 — Local author book release day for the 20th Anniversary Edition of Redliners by David Drake (Baen, August 2) with an all-new introduction by the author.

2 — NC author book release day for The Swarm by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston (Tor Books) the first volume in a new Ender’s Game prequel series set in the Second Formic War.

2 (Tuesday) 7 pm — Flyleaf Books hosts Drew Magary discusses his new novel The Hike. From the author of The Postmortal, “When Ben, a suburban family man, takes a business trip to rural Pennsylvania, he decides to spend the afternoon before his dinner meeting on a short hike. Once he sets out into the woods behind his hotel, he quickly comes to realize that the path he has chosen cannot be given up easily. With no choice but to move forward, Ben finds himself falling deeper and deeper into a world of man-eating giants, bizarre demons, and colossal insects.”

5 (Friday) — Chapel Hill’s Forest Theater hosts the debut of Paperhand Puppet Intervention’s 2016 show The Beautiful Beast. “At the Forest Theatre, Chapel Hill, NC: Aug 5-7, 12-14, 19-21, 26-28. Sept 2-4. Labor Day: Sept 5. Matinees Sun: Aug 21, 28 & Sept 4. All shows begin at 7pm with a 6:20 pre-show, except for matinees that start at 3pm with a 2:20 pre-show.”

5-7 (Friday to Sunday) — The Carolina Theatre of Durham’s Retro Film Series presents a special screening series of the original Star Wars Trilogy.

NEW: 6 (Saturday) 1 to 5 pm — Durham’s Atomic Empire celebrates its 10 year anniversary and its origins as “Sci-Fi Genre Comics and Games” with door prizes, retro games, and, of course, cake! As my contribution to the “wayback machine” of memories here, here’s the video of my interview with co-owner Jennifer Bedell and then-store manager Zachary Boyd about Sci-Fi Genre, in Sci-Fi Genre, from back in early 2010.

8 (Monday) 10 AM — Carolina Book Beat with Mur Lafferty and Samuel Montgomery-Blinn welcomes Hillsborough author John Claude Bemis to talk about his recent young reader fantasy Out of Abaton: The Wooden Prince.

9 (Tuesday) 7 pm — Flyleaf Books hosts Adam O’Fallon Price discusses his debut novel, The Grand Tour. (Fiction.)

NEW-NEW: 12 (Friday) 7 pm — Greensboro’s Scuppernong Books (304 S Elm St) hosts Edmund R. Schubert for a reading and signing of his new science fiction collection This Giant Leap.

15 —  NC author book release day for Man in Black by John G. Hartness (Bell Bridge Books), Book 6 in his Black Knight Chronicles series.

21 (Sunday) 10 am to 4 pm — Raleigh Comic Book Show at the Hilton Garden Inn Crabtree (3912 Arrow Dr, Raleigh). Free admission.

NEW: 23-25 (Tuesday to Thursday) — The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts 2016 NIAC Symposium at the Sheraton Raleigh Hotel, 421 S. Salisbury Street. Attendance is free but registration is required. Registration can be done in advance or same-day registration can be done at the event itself. “All are invited to attend this Symposium which will introduce our Phase I and Phase II Fellows’ multidisciplinary research. NIAC concepts cover a wide range of innovations in many sciences. Many produce breakthroughs that hold the promise of accelerating NASA’s progress toward its goals of exploration beyond low-Earth orbit, missions to an asteroid and Mars and other priority areas in all of NASA’s mission directorates. Exciting keynote presentations will be given from experts in aeronautics and advanced technologies and further information will be discussed regarding the latest news about NIAC’s exciting progress and plans.” For those who cannot attend the event, the 2016 NIAC Symposium will be streaming LIVE via Livestream: https://livestream.com/viewnow/NIAC2016.

NEW-NEW: 26 (Friday) 6 pm — The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences hosts Final Fridays: Science Fiction Night with John Kessel, NASA scientists Bruce Wiegmann and Javid Bayandor from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, and more, following a special film screening: “THE FUTURE IS NOT AS GOOD AS IT USED TO BE. Ah, the ‘60s. A decade that brought us mop tops, Woodstock, and the invention of AstroTurf. It was also a decade defined by excitement about the future, culminating in 1969 with the first moon landing, and a quietly released film called “Year 1999 AD,” that tried to portray life on the brink of the 21st Century. At our first Final Friday we’ll explore what the film got right and wrong, and the difficulties in predicting future technology and culture.”

SEPTEMBER 2016

1 (Thursday) 7 pm — The Regulator Bookshop hosts Robin Kirk, “Peculiar Motion”. (Poetry.)

6 (Tuesday) 7 pm — Quail Ridge Books hosts Sabaa Tahir for A Torch Against the Night, “the highly anticipated sequel to her acclaimed debut, An Ember in the Ashes. The follow-up novel continues Tahir’s suspenseful tale of rebellion in a land of oppression and fear. . Catch up to the action with Ember, a captivating tale with “… the addictive quality of The Hunger Games combined with the fantasy of Harry Potter and the brutality of Game of Thrones.”— Public Radio International. For ages 14+.” UPDATE: North Carolina author Renee Ahdieh, the bestselling author of The Wrath and the Dawn and The Rose and the Dagger, will be joining Tahir as her “in conversation” partner.

6 — Local editor book release day for Things From Outer Space edited by Hank Davis (Baen Books)

NEW-NEW: 7 (Wednesday) 7 pm — Asheville’s Malaprop’s Bookstore hosts College of Charleston historian W. SCOTT POOLE launches IN THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS: THE LIFE, DEATH, AND EXTRAORDINARY AFTERLIFE OF H.P. LOVECRAFT. “We are celebrating the publication of In the Mountains of Madness: The Life, Death, and Extraordinary Afterlife of H.P. Lovecraft, W. Scott Poole’s new book about the iconic weird horror author. Kirkus Reviews praises it as “seamlessly weav[ing] biography and criticism … thoroughly enjoyable and highly readable.” The book follows Lovecraft through his life and into his significant afterlife, tracing his influence on modern horror filmmakers, writers, and readers.”

8 (Thursday) 7 pm — Quail Ridge Books hosts Ron Rash for The Risen. “The author of Serena returns with a suspenseful and evocative tale of two brothers whose lives are irrevocably altered by the events of one long-ago summer—and one bewitching young woman—and the secrets that surface decades later.” (Fiction.)

8 (Thursday) 7:30 pm — The Regulator Bookshop presents (at Motorco, ticketed event) Dave Barry, “Best. State. Ever: A Florida Man Defends His Homeland”. (Humor.)

9 (Friday) 7 pm — Quail Ridge Books hosts Jacqueline Woodson for Another Brooklyn, the award-winning children’s author’s first new adult book in 20 years. (Fiction.)

9 (Friday) 8 pm — The Durham Performing Arts Center hosts “Weird Al” Yankovic‘s “The Mandatory World Tour”.

22 (Thursday) 7 pm — The Regulator Bookshop (The Durham Armory) Colson Whitehead, “The Underground Railroad”. Whitehead is the author of the brilliant post-apocalyptic zombie novel Zone One. Here: “Prize-winning, bestselling author Colson Whitehead comes to The Regulator to discuss his new book, The Underground Railroad, a magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave’s adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage, and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.” Note for the curious: in Whitehead’s retelling, the Underground Railroad is indeed an underground railway of tunnels and train cars. Don’t miss this! UPDATE: This will be a ticketed event, not free and open to the public as I initially reported. Two tickets come with each purchase of the book ($27.00), or tickets without a book are $10.00 each. Books with tickets may be purchased at the store, through our web site, or at the door. Admission tickets may be purchased at the door. Admission tickets may be used as credit toward a book purchase at the event.

NEW-NEW: 22 (Thursday) 7 pm — Greensboro’s Scuppernong Books hosts College of Charleston historian Scott Poole for his book In the Mountains of Madness: The Life, Death, and Extraordinary Afterlife of H.P. Lovecraft (Soft Skull Press) which “interweaves the biography of the legendary writer with an exploration of Lovecraft as a phenomenon. It aims to explain this reclusive figure while also challenging some of the general views held by Lovecraft devotees, focusing specifically on the large cross-section of horror and science fiction fans who know Lovecraft through films, Role Playing Games, and video games directly influenced by his work but know little or nothing about him.”

OCTOBER 2016

7 (Friday) 7 pm — Quail Ridge Books hosts Emma Donoghue – ‘The Wonder’. “The author of Room and Frog Music visits with a powerful psychological thriller.  Emma Donoghue shares The Wonder on Friday, October 7, at 7 pm.  An English nurse is brought to a small Irish village to observe what appears to be a miracle – a girl said to have survived without food for months.  She soon finds herself fighting to save the child’s life in a tale of two strangers who transform each other’s lives, and a story of love pitted against evil.”

7 — Durham author book release day for Now and Then We Time Travel: Visiting Pasts and Futures in Film and Television by Fraser A. Sherman (McFarland and Co, October 7).

11 — NC author book release day for The Perilous Journey of the Much Too Spontaneous Girl by Leigh Statham (Month9Books, October 11), a follow-on to The Perilous Journey of the Not So Innocuous Girl.

11 — Local author book release day for The Delphi Effect by Rysa Walker (Skyscape, October 11) first in a new series called “The Delphi Trilogy”.

11 —  NC author book release day for The Secret Horses of Briar Hill by Megan Shepherd (Delacorte Books for Young Readers) — “There are winged horses that live in the mirrors of Briar Hill hospital. In the mirrors that line its grand hallways, which once belonged to a princess. In those that reflect the elegant rooms, now filled with sick children. It is her secret.”

14 (Friday) 7 pm — Quail Ridge Books hosts Marie Lu for The Midnight Starconcluding her Young Elites series. (Teen.)

14 (Friday) 7 pm — Quail Ridge Books presents Jodi Picoult – ‘Small Great Things’ (ticketed off-site event). (Fiction.)

15 (Saturday) — The Charlotte Mariott City Center hosts Carolina Book Fest 2016 with a huge author lineup, followed by the annual “Monster Mash” dance party.

17 (Monday) 7 pm — Quail Ridge Books hosts Karim Dimechkie – ‘Lifted by the Great Nothing’. (Fiction.)

18 — Pittsboro author book release day for Hamster Princess: Ratpunzel by Ursula Vernon (Dial Books).

18 — NC author book release day for Scepter of Fire by Vicki L. Weavil (Month9Books, October 18), Book 2 in her Snow Queen Saga.

20 (Thursday) 7:30 pm — The Durham Performing Arts Center hosts astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, presented in partnership with UNC’s Morehead Planetarium and Science Center.

21-23 (Friday to Sunday) — Cosplay America 2016 at the Sheraton Chapel Hill Hotel (1 Europa Dr, Chapel Hill).

NEW: 23 (Sunday) 4 pm — Quail Ridge Books hosts A. J. Hartley for Steeplejack, his first in a new YA fantasy for Tor. “Set in a 19th-century South African fantasy world, Hartley introduces a dynamic, complex and likeable new heroine who combines wits, skill and courage to face deadly challenges. Steeplejack is the first in a new YA fantasy series. We loved his Darwen Arkwright series for younger readers. If you’ve never heard him present, you’re in for a treat. For ages 13+.”

25 — Raleigh author book release day for The Flash: The Haunting of Barry Allen by Clay and Susan Griffith (Titan Books, October 25), a “crossover” novel with The CW’s Arrow.

25 — NC author book release day for Into the Fire (Night Prince) by Jeanine Frost (Avon).

NEW: 28-30 (Friday to Sunday) — Military science fiction convention HonorCon returns to the Hilton North Raleigh/Midtown with author guest of honor David Weber, authors Charles Gannon, Christopher Nuttall, Greg Cox, Steve White, and more, and special media guest writer/producer/actor Claudia Christian from Babylon 5.

NOVEMBER 2016

NEW: 4-6 (Friday to Sunday) — The NC Writers Network’s Fall Conference in Raleigh. “The Fall Conference attracts hundreds of writers from around the country and provides a weekend full of activities that include lunch and dinner banquets with readings, keynotes, tracks in several genres, open mic sessions, and the opportunity for one-on-one manuscript critiques with editors or agents. Conference faculty include professional writers from North Carolina and beyond. Held every year in a major hotel, the conference rotates annually. Registration opens on or around September 1.”

11-13 (Friday to Sunday) — NC Comicon 2016 at the Durham Convention Center with Gerard Way, Marley Zarcone, and many more.

18 (Friday) 7 pm — The Regulator Bookshop presents Community Conversation with Roy Scranton, “War Porn”. Scranton is the author of Learning to Die in the Anthropocene, and this is his first novel.

DECEMBER 2016

4 (Sunday) 10 am to 4 pm — Raleigh Comic Book Show at the Hilton Garden Inn Crabtree (3912 Arrow Dr, Raleigh). Free admission.

27 — Local editor book release day for If This Goes Wrong… edited by Hank Davis (Baen Books)

JANUARY 2017

13-15 (Friday to Sunday) — illogiCon with author guest of honor Daniel Jose Older.

31 — Durham author book release day for Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty (Orbit Books).

FEBRUARY 2017

24-26 (Friday to Sunday) — MystiCon in Roanoke, Virginia with guests of honor David Weber and Joe R. Lansdale.

MARCH 2017

7 — Raleigh author novel release day for The Moon and the Other by John Kessel (Saga Press, March 7, 2017) — “John Kessel, one of the most visionary writers in the field, has created a rich matriarchal utopia, set in the near future on the moon, a society that is flawed by love and sex, and on the brink of a destructive civil war.”

7 — Raleigh author book release day for A Rebel’s Stone by P.T. McHugh (Glass House, September 19, 2016) Book 2 in his “Stone Ends” series after Keeper of the Black Stones.

18-19 (Saturday and Sunday) — Oak City Comicon 2017 at the Raleigh Convention Center.

MAY 2017

23-28 (Tuesday to Sunday) — The Durham Performing Arts Center presents Finding Neverland, which “tells the incredible story behind one of the world’s most beloved characters: Peter Pan.  Playwright J.M. Barrie struggles to find inspiration until he meets four young brothers and their beautiful widowed mother. Spellbound by the boys’ enchanting make-believe adventures, he sets out to write a play that will astound London theatergoers.”

JUNE 2017

1 — NC author book release day for The Sweetest Burn (A Broken Destiny Novel) by Jeanine Frost (HQN Books).

JULY 2017

14-16 (Friday to Sunday) — DeepSouthCon 55 at ConGregate 4 in High Point, NC with author guest of honor Barbara Hambly.

AUGUST 2017

NEW: 5 (Saturday) 10 am to 4 pm — One-day mini-convention For the Love of Books Raleigh at the Raleigh Marriott City Center: “With each of our events our goal is to create a more intimate setting so that authors have more time with their fans and readers have more time discovering authors they haven’t read yet. By creating a smaller event, (about 20-25 authors,) we will be able to concentrate on all of the extras that make a signing fun, memorable, and relaxing.”

– END –

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