Tag: science fiction

  • Yesterday Today:
    SF’s Roots on View at Milford Festival

    My previous post concluded with mention of the grand finale at this year’s Milford Readers and Writers Festival and the promise of a follow up post. Here, then, are some of the talking points from our three-hour program at the Milford Theatre, a conversation that considered how science fiction came of age in Milford during the…

  • Bi-Coastal Weekend: Stories & Nightmares

    Writers do most their traveling at home. It’s inward travel, exploring memory and imagination in the creation of stories that might one day enter the real world as published stuff. But sometimes the draw of outside events cuts through the reverie, and that’s the way it was last weekend when I had writing-related gigs popping on…

  • Looking Ahead:
    This Weekend at the Milford Festival

    Sixty-four years ago, science fiction writers Virginia Kidd and James Blish moved to Milford, PA, into a home that they called Arrowhead. It was there that Virginia Kidd founded the first literary agency devoted to the sf genre and where James Blish and colleagues such as Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm wrote stories that helped…

  • Big Things Cooking in September:
    Milford Writers & Son of Monsterpalooza

    Big things are brewing this month, with the Milford Readers and Writers Festival on the east coast and Son of Monsterpalooze on the west – both on the same weekend (September 15-17) and 3,000 miles apart. Makes me wish I had a teleporter. Nevertheless, despite the distance and the impossibility of two places at once,…

  • Celebrating the Roots of the Genre:
    Pennsylvania’s Place in SF History

    Next month, I’ll be helping celebrate the roots of modern science fiction by heading east to Milford, Pennsylvania, where some of the genre’s biggest names helped establish sf as we know it today. It’s an exciting history that will be commemorated on September 15-17 at The Milford Readers and Writers Festival. I’ll be attending as…

  • Confluence: One of the Great Regional Cons

    Confluence, one of the great science fiction conventions, was held last week at the Sheraton Pittsburgh Airport Hotel. As always, it provided an opportunity for fans to connect with professionals in the field and for professionals to get out from behind the desk to spend some real-world time with folks they see all too seldom.…