FenCon, NTAB, and Howard Days

So I’m behind on posting about FenCon which was the weekend of February 23rd to 25th. I absolutely love attending fan conventions, especially as a guest panelist where I get to interact with fellow authors, as well as artists, musicians, performers, scholars, and experts on science fiction, fantasy, horror, speculative fiction, poetry, art, and other subjects, and provide an entertaining and informative experience for the audience. Conventions are like a family reunion for those of us who have been attending for years, like myself, because often we only see our friends when we are at the conventions, once or twice a year. It’s always great to see old friends and make new ones. I started going to fantasy/science fiction fan conventions in 2011, which was the year that I first had one of my stories published. I was on some great, enjoyable, discussion panels this year with some really awesome people. If I listed all the wonderful moments and people at FenCon this year, this blog post would be three times as long, so I’ll spare you the long winded details. I met with many awesome old friends and made a lot of new ones too. You know who you are and I appreciate every one of you. I do have to give a shout out to a couple of people however: Michelle Muenzler a.k.a. “The Cookie Lady” for her offerings of free home baked cookies to everyone throughout the entire convention. The Earl Grey and the ginger honey cookies were my favorite. Also Rhonda Eudaly, FenCon Chairperson for inviting me to be a guest panelist at FenCon. I’ve know both of these amazing individuals who are excellent authors for years from the various conventions and other events we’ve attended together. They are always friendly and fun to be around.

I’ve been keeping a scrapbook of memorabilia from all of the cons I’ve attended over the years. It is fun to look back at the badges, panel schedules, and other things I’ve collected. If you are interested in FenCon, the website is at http://www.fencon.org

I got some awesome items for my scrapbook at this year’s FenCon from the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker table in the vendor room, courtesy of Mark Finn & Janice Schange. Check out the NTAB at http://www.northtexasapocalypsebunker.com for Mark’s blog and other cool and fun content. I spent four quarters on two 20 sided dice disbursed out of a gumball machine and got my favorite colors, blue and black. I bought a couple of Mark’s RPG books, Gobsmack, and Gobshite, (system neutral role playing game supplement rules for creating goblin characters and non-player characters) and the anthology The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, from editor and author Adrian Simmons, who had his books for sale at the NTAB table and who I got to hang out with a bit during the con and after party. I also was given two free books from the NTAB library book repatriation project, which they were giving away as a “mystery” book with each purchase that was wrapped up so you didn’t know what you were getting until you opened it up. I’ve known Mark for many years from previous conventions and Robert E. Howard Days and he’s a good friend. This was my first time meeting his wife Janice, as they had only married in April 2023. While Mark was away from the NTAB table doing panels, Janice determined my random goblin name using the tables in the Gobsmack book and the results of my 20 sided dice rolls. I got Zung Rubbones for my goblin name, which Janice said sounded like some kind of goblin porn star. Hilarious! I got an NTAB button, some stickers, and some cool activity pages. In March I decided to join the NTAB Bunker Essential Support Team (B.E.S.T.) as a member of the DEPARTMENT OF BUNKER OPERATIONS DIVISION with the Bureau of Special Projects. (Which sounds like I’ll be doing some kind of secretive C.I.A. type covert intelligence shenanigans.) What it really means is that by paying a membership fee I am privy to certain member exclusive NTAB content, products, and get a B.E.S.T. member packet with buttons, stickers, a guidebook and other cool swag. Fun stuff indeed.

I am all set to attend Robert E. Howard Days in Cross Plains, Texas, on June 7th and 8th this year. I have my hotel room booked and mailed my reservation for the Friday night awards and silent auction banquet. I’m looking forward to all the events, and fellowship with other Howard Heads, as we REH fans call ourselves. Some events that I’m especially excited about are the discussion panels, award ceremony, auction and banquet and getting to recite Howard’s poetry on the steps of his house which is now the Robert E Howard museum and a registered historical landmark. Hanging out with everyone at the pavilion in the park next to the Howard house and the Saturday night BBQ will be a lot of fun too. It’s been 10 years since I’ve attended Howard Days back in 2014 with my good friend Ethan Nahté, who introduced me to the event and many of the long time regulars attending. My return to this special event is long overdue. If you are a fan of Robert E. Howard’s stories and poetry, and have never been to Howard Days or visited the Robert E. Howard Museum in Cross Plains any other time of year, I urge you to go. This year, among the other many great Howard experts that usually attend, Jim Zub, writer for the current series of Conan the Barbarian comics will be a special guest. I’m really looking forward to meeting him and getting a few comics autographed.

Come out to Cross Plains and pay tribute to REH and his literary legacy and hang out with me and my fellow Howard Heads. http://www.howarddays.com

That’s a wrap for this entry. In the meantime, readers, I wish you and yours wellness and happiness. May fair winds fill your sails and your treasure chests always be full. Aaarrr!

Pastiche, A Retrospective by author Scott Oden

I’m reblogging this post by Scott Oden whose blog I have followed for many years. It has some great information and insight into Scott’s writing process and what it takes to write stories in the style and voice of Robert E. Howard. Take it away Scott:

Yesterday, Friend o’ the Blog Stan Wagenaar suggested I talk about writing pastiche — REH/Conan pastiche in particular. Well, as it turns out, last July I wrote my thoughts about that very thing. It’s a deep dive into the nuts and bolts of how I wrote my two licensed pastiche stories: “The Shadow of Vengeance”, […]

Pastiche, A Retrospective

Publishing Pirate Poetry In a Perilous Pandemic

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” -H.P. Lovecraft

So it has been a long time since I have written and posted anything in my blog. Life has certainly taken a turn down a dark, strange, and terrifying alley since my last post several months ago with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in the U.S.A. in the Spring of 2020. I have been fortunate to have been able to work from home all this time and continue to support myself and family and be able to isolate myself from the general public and possible exposure to the virus. Most of our necessities are able to be delivered or obtained with contact free curbside pickup fortunately which my wonderful wife Ali has been able to take care of, allowing me to focus on work and other things.

I haven’t been writing much unfortunately other than bits of poetry from time to time. However, I have been able to get three poems of mine published in an anthology which was released in October 2020. Island Terrors and Sea Horrors is edited by Ethan Nahté and features twenty short stories and sixteen poems from Ethan Nahté, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, H. G. Wells, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Alfred  Lord Tennyson, Robert Louis Stevenson, Washinton Irving, and more.

Included are my poems “Drag Me Down to the Depths of the Sea” “A Pirate Adrift”  and “Doom of Destiny” which I have recited at many events as my pirate persona Lars Shortshanks, with The Seadog Slam piratical performing troup. Ethan asked me earlier this year if I wanted to contribute to this anthology that he was putting together and if I had any stories or poems I thought would fit with the theme of the book.

I’m really grateful for the opportunity to be included amongst so many great authors. Coleridge, Poe, Lovecraft, Stevenson, and Tennyson are some of my favorite classic poetry and prose writers and I really like Ethan Nahté’s stories and poetry. I’ve recited some of his poems which are included in this anthology at some of the pirate shows at which I’ve performed. Ethan’s writing has the quality of being able to evoke a powerfully visceral emotional response from the reader, especially in his horror stories that leave one terrified, shocked, and gripping the book,  anticipating what will happen next.

Ethan and I did an interview together about the book and other topics on internet radio station tmvcafe.com with William Snider a.k.a. Zombie Zak on his live broadcast show After Rot.  Below is  the link to the archived recording of the show.

AR394 – Larry Atchley Jr and Ethan Nahté

Also noteworthy of late, I recently joined The Fort Worth Poetry Society which was established in the year 1910 and is the oldest continuously run poetry society in the  Southwest. Steve Sanders, my friend and fellow shipmate in the Seadog Slam pirate poetry performing troupe, and former President of the Fort Worth Poetry Society invited me to join at the end of last year. I had considered joining for some time, and Steve’s urging me to become a member sealed the deal so to say. I attended my first meeting with the other members in December. We all met using Zoom which is how I will most likely continue to attend even after the Pandemic is over because the meetings are held quite far from where I live and work so it will be difficult to make it there in person most months. Here’s a link to their site: https://fortworthpoetrysociety.wordpress.com/

I’ve been re-reading Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings which is something I do every few years as it’s one of my favorite fantasy books and a great influence on and inspiration of my own fantasy writing. I also have set myself the task of reading all of Robert E. Howard’s stories and poems which I started at the beginning of this year in 2021. I’ve read a lot of his work over the years but there is still much of his prolific writings that I’ve yet to read. He wrote I believe, over 300 stories and more than 100 poems so this is a considerable task to read them all, but I want to experience to entire range of his work, including historical fiction, westerns, weird west, action adventure, boxing, horror, and not just the primarily sword & sorcery Conan and Kull tales that I have mostly focused on in the past.

I am going to wrap this post up, as it’s getting quite long and I had intended on finishing and posting it a few weeks ago but things in the world and my own personal life caused me to put it off again. About those things, maybe I’ll include in my next post. Until then I bid you all to take care, stay well, healthy, safe, and in good spirits. And keep reading everything you can get your hands on.

From Pastiche to Original

Author Scott Oden reveals how his Conan pastiche writing influences his original character stories, and what sets the two apart from each other.

The Thread Between Conan and Grimnir (Tip o’ the hat to Stan Wagenaar, for inadvertently suggesting this topic) I consciously imitate Robert E. Howard in my original fiction, and I have done so since at least the late 1980s.  Some call it riding the coat-tails; others might think it a mark of depressed creativity — […]

From Pastiche to Original

Anatomy of a Pastiche, Part Three

The next post in Scott Oden’s series on writing Robert E. Howard pastiche using his iconic character, Conan of Cimmeria. Please subscribe to his blog, it’s interesting and informative. And buy his books! They are excellent reading.

Read Part One here. Read Part Two here. “I hadn’t yet seen my fifteenth winter when I sacked my first city, part of a horde that came howling out of the north. Venarium, it was called. Aye, I’ve drawn blood in cattle raids, tribal feuds, rebellions, wars between barons, and on the road of kings.” […]

Anatomy of a Pastiche, Part Three

Anatomy of a Pastiche, Part Two

Part 2 in author Scott Oden’s series of posts about writing Robert E. Howard pastiche stories.

Read Part One here. This is a long post, so grab a frosty beverage and buckle in. So, we’re skipping ahead a few pages from the opening of “Conan Unconquered”. After the establishing scene of Conan receiving the hill-men, I laid out the frame story — soldiers on the night before battle, drinking ale and […]

Anatomy of a Pastiche, Part Two

Anatomy of a Pastiche, Part One

I’m sharing another of Scott Oden’s posts in his continuing series on how to write Robert E. Howard pastiche with his most iconic  character, Conan of Cimmeria. Here Scott pulls back the veil to reveal his processes and techniques.

After my post on the Art of Pastiche, the other day, I had a discussion with Matt John, freelance author and contributor to Monolith’s Conan board game, about pastiche writing and the flavor text in games.  He had a snippet he wanted me to read over, if I had the time, to see if he’d […]

Anatomy of a Pastiche, Part One

The Art of Pastiche

I’m sharing this post from friend and fellow author Scott Oden’s blog on writing in the style of Robert E. Howard. Please subscribe to Scott’s blog and buy his books. He writes some excellent tales.

They beheld a giant of a man clad in steel plate, a scarlet cloak draped carelessly about his broad shoulders.  One scarred hand rested lightly on the long hilt of a sheathed broadsword as, from beneath a square-cut black mane, smoldering blue eyes appraised the hillmen as a lion appraises its prey.  For all that […]

The Art of Pastiche

The Short Pale Writer in the Long Black Coat at LibertyCon

“Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.” – Leo Rosten

I’ll be a guest author at LibertyCon again this year, June 27-29 in Chattanooga, TN. This is my fourth year as a guest and I love this fantasy/science fiction convention so much.  As we have done every year, The Irredeemable Order of Hellions will be having a book launch party at 10:00 PM in the Con Suite for our latest volume in the Heroes in Hell Series, created by Janet Morris and published by Perseid Press. This year we bring you Poets in Hell.

Poets in Hell, vol 17 in the Heroes in Hell series created by Janet Morris,from Perseid Press.

Here is the link to my schedule of appearances at LibertyCon this year.

Or if you prefer to just read it here:

Fri

03:00PM

Reading – Larry Atchley, Jr. and Tamara Lowery

Fri

05:00PM

Opening Ceremonies

Fri

08:00PM

Paranormal Activities Panel

Sat

12:00PM

Autograph Session

Sat

01:00PM

What’s New in Horror and Dark Fantasy?

Sat

05:00PM

What’s New from Perseid Publishing

Sat

07:00PM

Poets in Hell

Sat

09:00PM

What’s new from Iron Clad Press

Sat

10:00PM

Perseid Press, Moondream Press and Iron Clad Press Book Launch Parties; IOH and Fictioneers Parties

Sun

12:00PM

Autograph Session

 

I always have a great time at conventions, and LibertyCon is no exception. It was my very first convention that I attended as a guest author so it is very special to me. Thanks go out to Rich Groller for getting myself and a lot of our other Hellion authors on the guest list every year since 2011. There will be a few of us Hellions around at LibertyCon this year: David L. Burkhead, Jason Cordova, David Drake (from the original Heroes in Hell books published from 1986-1989 by Baen Books) Jack Finley, Rich Groller, Michael H. Hanson, John Manning, Beth Patterson, (who is also the musical performer guest this year), pdmac, and Michael Z.Williamson.

I hope to see you there. It will be a hella good time.

“I have gone into yesterday and tomorrow and both were as real as today — which is like the dreams of ghosts!”
-ROBERT E. HOWARD, Kull: Exile of Atlantis

 

The Short Pale Writer Appearing at ConDFW This Weekend

“It may be that those who do most, dream most.” – Stephen Leacock

I will be attending ConDFW in Dallas, Texas this weekend. I am scheduled for five discussion panels, a reading, and a book signing session over the course of Saturday and Sunday. I’ll be hanging out with friends and fellow authors Friday, and attending the opening ceremonies, and some panels. Come out and join me for a fun and informative weekend. Below is my schedule, but be sure to check out the ConDFW website for all the panels and events going on all weekend.

SATURDAY

Panel Room 3 – Canterbury-1pm –Horror without Focus: Writing the Apocalypse in Horror

 Panelists: C. Dean Andersson, Larry Atchley Jr., Gabrielle Faust (M), K. Hutson, Dusty Rainbolt, Brad Sinor

It is moderately easy to create a horror story where you have an obvious villain. But in this year of disaster and

apocalypse, we see the other side of Horror – where the villain is nature itself, whether by fire, flood or plague.

Our panelists discuss the Apocalyptic Horror genre and its future in a time where the future is never certain.

Panel Room 2 – Manchester-4pm –Horror vs. Urban Fantasy: Where is the Line?

 Panelists: C. Dean Andersson, A. Lee Martinez (M), Larry Atchley Jr., Stina Leicht, Gabrielle Faust, Sue Sinor

Sometimes it is difficult to find what section a particular Urban Fantasy book belongs to. It is sometimes found in

the Science Fiction/Fantasy section, but sometimes it is found in the Horror section. And to be honest, some

Horror has been Urban Fantasy before the genre really came about, like Anne Rice’s vampire series. But what

is the line between the darkness of Horror and the lightness of SF/Fantasy? Our panelists debate this dark topic

and perhaps find out what Urban Fantasy really is.

Panel Room 1 – Warwick-5pm –Ragnarok and You: Using Norse Mythology

 Panelist: Frances May (M), K.B. Bogen, Katharine Kimbriel, Ren Hobt, Larry Atchley Jr.

No discussion on the upcoming apocalypse would be complete without covering Norse mythology and

Ragnarok. What you may not know is that Ragnarok does not mean destruction at all, but means “the final

destiny of the gods”. Learn more about the classics from our experts on myth and legend, and try to forget about

comic book movies based on the same topic.

Readings: 6 pm – Shanna Swendson, Larry Atchley Jr., Ethan Nahte

SUNDAY

Panel Room 2 – Manchester-12pm –Body Language: Writing Martial Arts

 Panelists: K. Hutson (M), Larry Atchley Jr., A.P. Stephens, Stina Leicht

Sure, it’s easy to describe a punch to the stomach, and a sweep to the legs. But is it anatomically possible?

And what are some moves that are legit to use? We bring some martial artists to the table and let’s see if we

can describe what they do – without a video camera.

Signings: 1 pm – Larry Atchley Jr., Anthony Brownrigg

Panel Room 1 – Warwick-2pm –Apocalypse Later? What will be Our Doom?

 Panelists: Cherie Priest, Larry Atchley Jr., Linda Donahue (M), Selina Rosen, Gloria Oliver

With all the talk of Apocalypse this year (and the past few days), one thing hasn’t been covered. What do our panelists think WILL destroy the world? Let conspiracies abound, and if the government is watching I was never here.

Also, I’m a bit behind on blogging about the last couple of conventions I’ve attended, so I’ll cover some highlights of the most recent events.

The Difference Engine was a Steampunk themed convention held New Years  Eve weekend, complete with a fancy dress ball. Musical acts for the ball included Darwin Prophet & The Chronus Mirror which upon hearing them for the first time instantly became one of my new favorite bands.

Also there was Donna the Bard, who brought many instruments with her and let audience members join her in playing some traditional folk music. Thanks Donna, for making it an interactive show, I had a lot of fun! Also performing that weekend was tribal Heidi Wunder with violinist Jennifer Sanders providing musical backing for the show. Both were excellent entertainers, and a pleasure to meet. Action, comedy performing was provided by Cut, Thrust, and Run who are always a blast to watch with their swordplay, quarterstaff whirling, and jokes. Lest I forget, the Master of Ceremonies  for the con was Peter Pixie, who was  fun and energetic to be around.

I had a good time attending the promotions table for the Irredeemable Order of Hellions selling copies of Lawyers in Hell, and Forrest Hedrick and John Manning’s  horror novel Black Stump Ridge. I met a lot of great people that weekend. The guys from geek culture website Nerdvana Inc. stopped by, and they included John and I in their write-up about the convention on their website. So our fame is spreading ! Ha ha!

Last weekend I attended the Dallas Sci-Fi Expo strictly as a patron and not as a guest. As I always seem to do at any event I go to, I met some great people and made some new friends. Particulatly artist Kathryn Crenshaw who correctly identified my costume of radio show and pulp classic character, The Shadow.  She said that her dad raised her on the old pulp classic books and comics, and that’s how she recognized my obscure outfit. She also told me that he had a vendor table at the convention, and that I should go talk to him because we probably had a lot of interests in common. It turns out that we did, and he also had the two Thieves’ World graphic novels that I had been looking for to complete my collection. He also had a lot of really great Robert E. Howard books, and much more stuff from the classic age of fantasy and science fiction. There were also dozens of tables full of collectable toys, action figures, shirts, patches, costumes, and anything else you can imagine to do with Sci-Fi/Fantasy fandom.

Anyway, that’s a wrap for the blog this time. I hope you will come see me, and all the other guests at ConDFW this weekend. I know it will be a lot of fun.