BAM!

SFSNNJ Face the Fiction 4-10-10

So, The Duchess, my brother Sean, and I descended on the Borders in Ramsey, NJ on Saturday night to be the guest at The Science Fiction Society of Northern New Jersey’s Face the Fiction night. I always get nervous about theses things, assuming that my invitation was a mistake and that no one really wants to see me. Here’s what I imagine:

ME: Here I am! Where’s my contractually mandated keg of beer with bottle of whiskey not costing less than $10?

THEM: Uh, who are you? And . . . my god, man, where are your pants?

I mean, these folks out in Ramsey had Charlaine Harris reading not so long ago! What in hell am I doing here? We had a blast, though, as I think the videos will prove. I got to insult my brother a little, which is always fun; The Duchess got outed by a regular reader of my blog and Facebook page; the audience had apparently actually read my novels; and I wasn’t ejected by security despite setting off the security system when exiting the bathroom and exiting the store. We were invited to join various people for drinks/dinner afterwards, but sadly we had to get home to our cat Pierre, who is, as this photo demonstrates, the Unhappiest Cat in the World these days:

Cone Cat is Unhappy

We have the video that the SFSNNJ itself posted to Youtube. You’re horrifyingly close to me in this, so don’t eat lunch right before viewing, but the sound is a little muted:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvS_ZfF5hts

I have an hour of video as well, and if I can think of a creative way to post it I will (or if people want to have a virtual reading from me, I’d be happy to). Until then, enjoy!

A Good Time Had by All

Welp, went to Ramsey, NJ last night and had a great time reading and talking with the Science Fiction Society of Northern New Jersey. They’re a great group – interesting folks who asked really great questions, and I think my stumbling shtick went over well. Working on video of the event; for now here’re some photos:

Me reading fromThe Eternal Prison:

Jeff reading

Me signing some books:

Me signing books

My heartfelt thanks go out to Chris and Ann-Marie for the invitation and for organizing everything! A fuller description of the event to come, along with (hopefully) some video.

Reminder: Jeff in the Wild Tomorrow

Just a reminder that I’ll be appearing at the  Science Fiction Society of Northern New Jersey’s Monthly Face the Fiction event tomorrow, April 10, at 8pm at Borders Books & Music, 235 Interstate Shopping Center, Ramsey, NJ. (www.sfsnnj.com).  I’ll be rambling on about myself for a while, reading from the Avery Cates books, and taking questions. I expect there will be video of this event posted, but you really ought to come in person. You don’t get the full Jeff effect unless you can see just how hungover I am.

See ya there!


Some April Appearances

I’m actually leaving the Compound this month and appearing in public, and I don’t mean in bars, downing whiskies and asking people if they’ve ever heard of me:

APRIL 10, 2010, 8:00PM:

Science Fiction Society of Northern New Jersey Monthly Face the Fiction: Borders Books & Music, 235 Interstate Shopping Center, Ramsey, NJ. This event is held the second Saturday of each month and spotlights guests in various areas of genre.  SFSNNJ has had Charlaine Harris, Lincoln Child, L.A. Banks, and many others.  For a full list of guests please visit http://www.sfsnnj.com.

APRIL 27th, 2010, 6:00 pm:

Launch party for the MWA‘s newest anthology “Crimes by Moonlight” at Mysterious Bookshop (58 Warren St, NY, NY).  The party will be part of the MWA’s Edgar week festivities. My short story “Sift, Almost Invisible, Through” appears in the anthology.

I plan to be sober for both of these events, but cannot promise anything, so get there early if you want coherency. I’d love anyone who wants to come out to do so and say hi!

Voice Acting for Avery Cates

The Terminal StateWell, Avery Cates #4, The Terminal State is heading for bookstores this summer, kids, and we’ve been working on a web site for it, which is always fun. I need a little help and have decided to make it a little contest; members of the super-secret Street Team got an early wink at this, but now that they’ve had their head start (I’ve already got a couple of pretty kick-ass submissions) I’m opening it up to any one:

The web site will  include some videos I’ve been working on. The videos are tiny little clips representing 4 characters from the book. The voices for these videos are placeholders. I tried to give them some flair, but I can’t help but wonder if they could be better. I figured, why not crowd-source it?

If you’re interested, I’d like to invite anyone who wants to to submit a recording for one or more of the videos. If you think you can give it a real performance, here’s what to do:

1. Surf on over to

http://theterminalstate.com/voiceswanted.html

2. The scripts and videos for each character are there. The way the voices are in the videos are a guideline–feel free to experiment and be creative, but of course I do want something in the same ballpark.

3. Record yourself and send it to me (to mreditor@innerswine.com – please send ONLY to this email) either a WAV or MP3 file as an attachment, or as a link to the file on another server where I can download it (FTP sites are fine as long as you can give me access to them). Feel free to apply effects if you want.

4. Include in the text of your email explicit permission for me to use your voice on the web site. I’ll give credit, though I haven’t decided how yet.

If any of the entries are good enough, I’ll use them on the site. This will be entirely up to my discretion, so it’s 100% my sensibility. Feel free to pass this on to anyone if you think they’d be interested, it’s not a secret. I just wanted to give y’all first crack at it if you wanted. Have fun!

I Can’t Go, but You Should

The rather genius Evan Mandery is reading tonight in Manhattan. He is hilarious, and I wish I could make it, but I naturally forgot all about it and made other plans. Because I am an incompetent jackass.

The event is being moderated/hosted by the insufferably talented Sean Ferrell, which means it’ll be twice as entertaining. Afterwards, Sean will dance for drinks if you ask him. But only if you ask him.

Barnes & Noble
97 Warren Street
New York, NY
7:00PM

Books Giveaway Contest

It’s been a while since I gave away some signed books, but thanks to our friends across the pond, that time has come again. The UK side of my publisher has just sent me a packets of the UK mass market editions of The Digital Plague and The Eternal Prison. The differences between the US and the UK editions are subtle, but if you’re a collector it’s always nice to have every version, so I’ll give away 5 pairs (one of each) to five people. There are two ways you can get yourself a signed, personalized set:

1. Send me a screenshot via email (to mreditor@innerswine.com) of the winning screen from the Text Adventure I set up over at www.eternalprison.com. And yes, you can win the game.

2. Send me an email (again, to mreditor@innerswine.com) telling me where the phrase “In me the wonders of my hand like Lazarus” appears in the Avery Cates books.

That’s it. Note I am only accepting entries via email; any answers posted in the comments or my Facebook wall or whatever will be deleted to keep some semblance of order here. What we need is more order. Have at it, and good luck!

See Me…Hear Me…Feel Me

When you’re sitting at home writing your novel long before anyone offers you money to publish it, you don’t think about your eventual multimedia empire. or at least I didn’t. Now that the books are out there and people are buying them, all sorts of things I’d never considered are happening: Foreign translations, movie rights. . .and now, audio books!

That’s right; you can soon purchase the Avery Cates books in audio format. Right now, it looks like just The Electric Church is available for pre-order.

I offered to do the voice work myself, and pointed everyone towards my “batman” voice in the lo-rent trailer for The Eternal Prison I made. Somehow they turned me down and decided to go with a “professional” instead. Bastards.