It’s here! It’s here! Call the neighbors and wake the kids! It is finally time for the AuthorPalooza Conference! It will begin on Friday, October 4th and run through Sunday, October 6th. The excitement begins Friday evening at Brazos Bookstore, located at 2421 Bissonnet Street, Houston, TX 77005. There will be a presentation by Houston Poet Laureate, Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton. She will lead us in an activity for performance poetry. Ms. Mouton will also be the Keynote speaker Saturday morning.
Then there will be a book launch for the Journey Into Time anthology. Both the Houston Writers Guild and Women in the Visual and Literary Arts collaborated on this project. It will be great to congratulate the writers who were chosen to be included in this year’s edition. The three winning writers will be announced as well as those who are receiving Honorable Mention.
On Saturday and Sunday all of the fun moves from the bookstore to the Student Center at Rice University. After hearing the Keynote Speech by Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton, there will be break out sessions with conference presentations. Also, on Saturday, there will be a few agents as well as acquisition editors available for pitch sessions. Please check the conference registration information for details on scheduling.
Sunday the conference will close out with a presentation and then a craft workshop led by Fern Brady. She will lead us in a Renga competition.
For more information about this exciting conference, please check out the Houston Writers Guild at https://www.houstonwritersguild.org/writersroom. You will also be able to register for the conference there.
I look forward to seeing everyone this weekend!
Until next time.….
Are you ready to see some beautiful art work and hear some good literature? It’s all happening this Friday night, September 20th, at the opening Reception highlighting some of the best collaborative works from the wonderful women of Women In The Visual and Literary Arts (WiVLA). This event will take place at the Sabine Street Studios located at 1907 Sabine Street, Houston, 
It’s the end of August. Yes, I know that summer doesn’t officially end until the autumnal equinox on September 22nd. However, now I am having to pay attention to road signs like this. I have to go around the long line of cars filled with parents waiting to pick up their bundles of joy from school and I have to be careful not to run over any of the bundles of joy that might be crossing the same street that I am driving down. Even when I was one of those bundles of joy going to school back in my hometown, I always felt that the beginning of school was the “real” end of summer.
Of course, I went to schools without any air conditioning. Beginning in Kindergarten through my senior year in high school, I sweated through the beginning and ending of every year. And that was before global warming! Egad! This is what everyone is dealing with now. Even riding around in a car that has air conditioning, I am reminded that I will melt quicker than the Wicked Witch of the West if I step outside. You may notice that the outside temperature in my car reads 102 degrees. That was after parking in the shade for a couple of hours. Soon we all run the risk of turning into lizard people where we sun ourselves on rocks and lick our eyeballs. Why yes, I do read a good bit of science fiction these days. Why do you ask?
Now is the time to begin talking about my favorite holiday. I’ve been waiting since the 4th of July to start talking about it. With the arrival of fall, I start planning for, dreaming of, and pining away for Halloween! Actually, I have been planning and dreaming and pining about October 31st ever since November 1st But now it is close to the time when my skeleton friends can sit outside on the balcony and walkways of my home. They can watch all of the neighbors and interact with all of the other Halloween decorations. Here is a picture of some of my friends as they sit at home deciding what the theme should be this year. Skeleton Barbie joined us last year. I’m wondering if she is too passe’ for this year. There are many decisions to be made and finalized very soon. It would be nice if the temperature dropped below 100 degrees before we start decorating.
If I wanted to use my new found word in a sentence I could say that “The Paris Olympics are so brat.” Since, as of this writing, the 
The other brat fact that I found out about Paris is that the opening ceremonies will take place along the Seine (that river that flows through Paris). This route is lined on both sides by Bouquinistes. These are literally book stores and stalls. The French are very proud of their books and literacy. I wish we had a river like that where I live. I wonder if all the booksellers have as many books on Halloween and ghost stories as I have? Maybe I need to go over to Paris one day and check that out. But I will wait until after the Olympic crowds have all gone home.
So, on July 9th I celebrated a half a century of life. I prefer to say it that way rather than use the number 50; just feels more significant when you call it a half a century. For a life marker of such powerful importance, it was a very powerless birthday.
I am about to say something I have never said before. It’s really not like me, here goes: I miss June! I typically spend every summer just waiting and waiting for the fall season to return. I like fall. That time of year is nice. It means that eventually cooler weather will return. Lots of stores sell Halloween decorations (Oh, by the way there is a rumor on Facebook that Joann’s has started putting out some already! )
As soon as the calendar flips to July, there is another “friend” to worry about. Hurricane Beryl. This is a big storm that does not appear to play well with others. He also does not stick with his own rules. He all but promised that he would not enter Texas. Now, hurricane warnings are popping up all along the Gulf Coast. I suppose Beryl is proud of himself, because he is breaking all kinds of records like earliest major storm in the Gulf, the biggest storm ever (or so it seems, Category 5 is big). This morning I learned that it is now headed for South Texas and Houston is included in the cone of uncertainty. Egad!
For starters, I would like to wish everyone a Happy Summer Solstice! I hope you have plans to enjoy the beautiful sunshine and summer weather. This really is a beautiful day. The only little catch in all of my current happiness is that we here in Houston have just named our first tropical storm for the season. His name is Alberto. Also, there are other weather-related spots moving up on both the Gulf Coast and over by Florida. We may have more tropical storms next week. Usually we don’t see this much activity until August or September, but that was before the days of global warming. Fortunately with this first storm, it struck southwest of us, but was big enough to give a good soaking. I hope our luck holds out for the duration of Hurricane Season. I really don’t think I’m in the mood for a hurricane this year and I hope Mother Nature agrees with my request.
In between tropical storms, there are days like today. Sunny and warm. It may be too hot to exercise outside, but you can still have a nice time walking to your favorite pool or gym. Keep in mind that no matter how hot the weather is this year, it will only get hotter next year. There’s a pleasant thought that should keep you up at night. Still feeling cheerful? In the meantime, enjoy all of the beautiful flowers that cover our landscape this time of year. If you get up early enough, you might be able to walk a little bit before the heat of the day and risking heat stroke. Or maybe a friend can drive around with you to admire the colorful nature blossoms through the window of an air conditioned car. The flowers with their beauty are literally all around us.
Now, here is the most important factor about Summer Solstice and it does not involve flowers or Stonehenge or anything like that. Rather it is now time that we can start an official count down to Halloween. The days now begin to get shorter and shorter. At some point, hopefully before the spookiest day, temperatures will cool down. I don’t mind allowing approximately three months for hot weather; however, in September I start getting very antsy for my collection of witches, skeletons, grim reapers, bats, and other mysterious creatures that scream out “Boo!” In truth I have already started planning my Halloween decorations that will go outside my house. As you can see in this picture, some of my skeleton friends are helping me. I don’t have to worry about decorating the inside of my home, because that remains decorated and haunted all year long.
“cool kids”. Most of the classes took place in the Boulder Book Store which means I returned home with more books than I started out with. And since this was before the pandemic, I could run around the bookstore with wild abandon looking at as many examples of the printed word as possible. It was a great trip. Since that summer, I have continued to attend Max Regan’s Exciting Summer Writing Intensives. Zoom is not as exciting as streaking around a bookstore in person, but it works. This summer I will be joining again via computer technology. The good part is that there are other writers here in the Houston area and we plan on meeting together for zoom classes and writing sessions. Don’t worry, if we need a bookstore fix, there is always Brazos Bookstore just a mile or two down the road.
One of the things that makes a book stand out is receiving awards. Competition is fierce, especially in the award programs that are the most prestigious. So when I woke up to an email declaring United Vidden the winner of the Science Fiction category in the Independent Author’s Awards by Literary Global I was over-the-moon happy.
Now, this is not the first award that United Vidden has won. My debut novel has won a couple silver medals, several five-star reviews from professional reviewers, and an endorsement from the Dr. Who official franchise site. But this is the first time it is the number one winner in its category.
Mostly though, this just makes me happy.