Category Archives: Conventions

Conventions

Kal’s LTUE 2020 Schedule

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Hey everyone.  Late post, but I’m headed to Life, the Universe, and Everything writers convention in Provo, Utah.  I’ll be a panelist again this year.  See below for my schedule.

The King of the Battle Field: An Introduction to Artillery
2PM · THURSDAY · BRYCE
Worldbuilding
Panel
How to Usurp a Kingdom
9AM · FRIDAY · ARCHES
Worldbuilding
Panel
When Life Isn’t Organic: Alternatives to Organic Chemistry for Life and Material Science
1PM · FRIDAY · BRYCE
Worldbuilding
Panel
Book Signing Event (6:30-8:00)
6PM · FRIDAY · EXHIBIT HALL B
Conventions

Kal’s Spike Con Schedule

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Hey everyone,

I’ll be at Spike Con this coming week.  Here’s my schedule:

Thu Jul 4 5:45:pm Thu Jul 4 6:45:pm Cats in Speculative Fiction
Stratus 9 Our feline friends, big and small, have always been in our tales of fear, magic, and even science fiction. They feature as pets, threats, and even protagonists. Come discuss your favorite books with cats in them and what makes a fictional cat believable.
Dr. Karen Purcell Elektra Hammond Gibbitt Rhys-Jones John M. Olsen Kal Spriggs

 

Fri Jul 5 4:30:pm Fri Jul 5 5:30:pm Kal Spriggs Signing
Autograph 3 Kal Spriggs Friday signing
Kal Spriggs

 

Fri Jul 5 7:00:pm Fri Jul 5 8:00:pm Yes, But What Are They Eating?
Stratus 9 World-building requires paying attention to all kinds of details, like government and monetary systems, climate, and more. But while food is something that every reader interacts with every day, it is often not considered during world-building. Our panelists talk about examples where authors have been successful in incorporating dietary habits into their world-building, and talk about what it takes to do it well.
Alastair Mayer K. D. Julicher Kal Spriggs Merri Halma Troy Lambert

 

Fri Jul 5 9:30:pm Fri Jul 5 10:30:pm Injury and Recovery for Character Building
Meridian E The injuries a character can sustain vary widely, as do the impacts of these injuries on the character and how well they recover. A look into reasonable injuries for various settings and how authors can use injuries to further the plot.
Anna Marasco Kal Spriggs Paul Genesse Robert E. Hampson Thea Hutcheson

 

Sat Jul 6 11:30:am Sat Jul 6 12:30:pm Playing Nice With Others: Shared Universes
Meridian E How do various shared universes work? Are contributors’ stories off to the side or integrated into the main plot? What happens when there are competing ideas of How Things Ought To Be?
Bradley H. Sinor Eric Flint Erika Kuta Marler Kal Spriggs Sue Sinor

 

Sat Jul 6 12:45:pm Sat Jul 6 1:45:pm Kaffeeklatsch with The Four Horsemen Universe
HIE Boardroom Kaffeeklatsch: From the German for “coffee” and “gossip”, an informal social gathering at which coffee or other beverages are served while chatting. Join your favorite presenters for all their insights. Seats are very limited so sign up at the Information Desk in the Sky Lobby 8am on the day of the social! Welcome to the world of Human Mercenaries in Mechs, killing aliens and getting paid. A new fandom featuring the works of Mark Wandrey and Chris Kennedy Publishing.
Kal Spriggs Robert E. Hampson Thomas Coonradt
Conventions

Kal’s 2019 Liberty Con Schedule

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Hey everyone.  I’m going to be at Liberty Con this year, but I’ve  got a bit more narrow of a window, as I’ll only be there Saturday and Sunday.

Here’s my schedule:

Day Time Name of Event
Sat 10:00AM Autograph Session (MJ Allen, Buettner, Del Arroz, Spriggs)
Sat 02:00PM Critters
Sat 04:00PM Chris Kennedy Publishing – The Year Ahead
Sat 05:00PM Author’s / Artist’s Alley (S. Osborn, Spriggs, Swann)
Sat 08:00PM Reading: Cedar Sanderson & Kal Spriggs
Sat 09:00PM Seventh Seal Press & Rob Howell present the Chris Kennedy Publishing combined Room Party and Book Launch for Alabaster Noon
Sat 10:00PM New Voices in YA Science Fiction
Sun 10:00AM Kaffeeklatsch
Sun 12:00PM Author’s / Artist’s Alley (Duntemann, J. Hunter, Ibson, Spriggs, Weyand)
Sun 01:00PM Author’s Alley (Q. Allen, J. Hunter, Malone, Spriggs)

If you’re attending Liberty Con, I hope to see you there!

 

Conventions

Kal’s Starfest 2019 Schedule

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I’ll be at Starfest this weekend, so if you’re in the area, I’d love to see you there!  I’m on two panels:

Combat in SF and Fantasy (Friday 9 PM)

A discussion of the good, the bad, and the ugly scenes of combat and action in Science Fiction and Fantasy. To include the differences between games, movies, and literature and examples of each.  Also a discussion of the morality and emotional impact both upon the audience and the characters involved

These Aren’t The Drones You’re Looking For  (Saturday 8:30 PM)

A look at modern cyber and drone warfare and delving into the future of where things are headed.  Killer Robots aren’t just in the future, they’re here and now.  We’ll talk about how to use them in writing as well as where it’s going in the future.

Conventions

April Update

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Hey everyone.  I try to post mostly positive stuff here, but the last couple weeks have been pretty rough.   Between my wife’s surgery and stuff happening with my family, I haven’t been able to focus on writing.   So I’m behind on getting Stolen Valor done and edited, which is going to push it back to next month.

On a more positive note, I’ve been invited to a books and beer event next week and I’ll also be participating in Starfest.  Both events will be happening here in Denver.

Halfpenny Brewing Company is having a meet Colorado Authors event on 24 April from 4:30 to 6:30.  I’ll be there and if you’re in the area, come by and see me or some of the other authors (and there’s beer!).  That’s Halfpenny Brewing Company, 5150 E Arapahoe Rd Unit D1-B, Centennial, CO 80122

For Starfest, I don’t have my final schedule yet, but I’ll post that on Monday.  It will be 26-28 April, at the Denver Marriot, DTC.

 

Conventions

Change of Schedule: Liberty Con

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Hey everyone.  If you haven’t heard, Liberty Con has shifted the date of their convention.  I’ll still be there (I hope) but the date is shifted from 30 May-1 June and is now 28 June – 30 June.  They’ll also be at a different hotel there in Chattanooga (Marriott rather than the Read House).  Last year the hotel situation led to some issues with space, the Marriot is adjacent to the convention center, but the convention didn’t have much of the spaces over there and there were weird restrictions on food and drink.  Hopefully they get all that ironed out, despite the short time to do so.

The change of dates makes Liberty Con back to back with Spike Con/Westercon/how-many-other-conventions-can-be-held-in-the-same-place-at-the-same-time-con (like, seriously, there’s at least 2 mini-cons and 3 official conventions, it’s sort of nuts).  My plan is to attend both, but it’s going to be a crazy week (4th of July is in the middle somewhere too…).

The only other convention I have on my radar right now is Starfest, though I haven’t heard anything from them yet about panels.  I hope to be attending, but since my wife is having surgery that month, I’m not sure how big my involvement will be.  I don’t know that I’ll have time for any other conventions this year, mostly because it’s looking to be a very, very busy year for me.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to see folks at Liberty Con & Spike Con!

 

Conventions

Kal’s LTUE 2019 AAR

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Hey everyone, here’s my AAR for LTUE 2019!  All in all, I had a great time and had the opportunities to both participate and observe some awesome panels on writing, art, book marketing, and more.   If you’re in the Western US, LTUE has got to be one of the better writing conventions you can attend.

There’s a lot of fantastic authors to meet, and enough information on just about any topic to not only help new authors, but to help experienced authors learn new things.

The people are friendly, the locale is awesome (Provo, Utah has some very scenic mountains), and it’s a great opportunity to network.

Most of my panels for the weekend were in the military science fiction theme, with panels on Rules of Engagement, Drones & Robots in Warfare, Rebellions & Revolutions, and two panels on Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers.

I dragooned James Young into several of those panels, because a couple panelists weren’t able to show.  (Sorry James, there’s consequences for heckling from the crowd when I know who you are).  The ROE panel was fun, especially with Jim Curtis, Lee Modesitt, we got to cover a lot of history of ROE and do some extrapolation of what it might look like in the future.  For the Rebellions & Revolution panel, Jim Curtis and James Young’s knowledge of history meant that there were a lot of people in the audience taking notes to go look things up.

I really enjoyed the Drones & Robots in Warfare panel, with Jim Curtis & Larry Correia.  We ranged a bit further off topic into the areas of cyberwarfare, but that’s easy to understand given the topic.  It was particularly amusing to have people from the audience commenting afterwards about how scary all the potential is… that’s good writing ideas there!

As far as panels I attended, the panels on Surgery in Zero G was fantastic, with a lot of neat medical issues in microgravity being described by the panelists.  Doctor Nik Rao’s panel on Evolutionary Biology was awesome, especially as to how it relates to alien life we may encounter (or at least write about).

There were a few faces I wish I’d been able to see at the convention, people whose schedules didn’t line up or who didn’t get invited this year as panelists.  I really hope they get that latter part straightened out, as I felt there was a bit more emphasis on filling panels with people, rather than getting panelists who both show up and who are qualified.  But all in all, it was a fun convention and I hope to attend next year as well.