“In my head are a bunch of squirrels. They’re hyper-caffeinated, and at a rave. As long as they’re all dancing to the same song, it’s ok, but sooner or later one of the little buggers loses his glow stick, and it devolves into complete chaos.”

The opening quote was from a panel I chaired at Tulkon last week; I was trying to explain how my mind works, and prepare the audience for the inevitable moment where I would completely lose my train of thought.

I did, as a matter of fact, lose my train of thought. Several times. The audience — most of whom are familiar with me trying to be extemporaneous from the twice-weekly LiveStream — laughed and rolled with it.

The quote apparently struck a chord with Cedar Sanderson enough that she decided to illustrate it, above. Yes, that is a fox at a rave, crowd-surfing on a bunch of squirrels.

Tulkon was a rampaging success for us. Very much fun, and lively. We’ll definitely be going back. Apparently the Big-Arsed Book Launch Room Party for the North Texas Troublemakers at Tulkon is well on it’s way to becoming a legend. If someone claims to have been there, ask them to produce their duck.

Herself was awarded her Master’s degree in English this weekend. Yay!

Astrolizards was launched the last week of April, and — unfortunately — seems to be performing the worst of the three colouring books. Cedar would like to do a fourth around the story of Squeaks, and I’m tentatively for it, but I don’t want her to lose money, so I’m mulling the idea.

Ghosts of Malta, on the other paw, took off. Holy gods, did it take off. I hope we have a couple left after Tulkon, because the National Library of Malta was gracious enough to accept my offer of a copy; and I have to present another to the Maltese Consul-General down in Dallas sometime along in here.

Speaking of presenting copies, I was talked into presenting a copy of it to David Weber during his Guest of Honor Q&A at Tulkon — I would have been content with a drive-by book-flinging, but he very kindly insisted that the copy be signed. Very nice man, and his wife is a fire-cracker.

We have enough stories for the second anthology — Knights of Malta will be launched at FenCon — and we’re still accepting short story submissions (anthology[dot]malta[at]gmail[dot]com). If we have enough, we’ll launch a third anthology … sometime early 2023.

Due to the intersection of evil friends and good bourbon, there will be an as-yet un-named anthology revolving around “space cowboys”, which we’ll be accepting short story submissions for after FenCon, to be launched … sometime early in 2023. Probably after the 3rd Malta anthology (if we have enough stories for a third anthology).

Speaking of, I need a t-shirt that says: “Any Agreement To Head An Anthology Is Only Binding If I Was Sober When I Agreed To It”, because some of y’all are Bad People.

I have a short story I’m banging off to Kelly Grayson sometime today or tomorrow for his up-coming anthology, and another later this week to Jim Curtis for the upcoming Haunted Library anthology benefiting our local library (lot of anthologies going on right now).

My next public appearance (gods willing, and the creek don’t rise) will be LibertyCon — the North Texas Troublemakers will be having another party there, and it promises to be at least as epic as the one at Tulkon. Y’all might want to bear that in mind.

That should be everything caught up. I’m off to write.

LawDog