Thought I’d take a minute to clue y’all in as to our travel plans for the year.

January 17th-18th. Chattacon (in Chattanooga, Tennessee, get it?). A sizable regional convention that holds a special place in my heart because it was the first convention I ever attended, back in 95 or 96 I believe. It was there that I first met Terry Bisson, John Kessel, Stan Robinson, Michael Swanwick, Paul Park and Andy Duncan (though Andy I didn't meet so much as share the burden of being the only two attendees for most of the "literary track" programming items.) Heady company for a country boy just starting out down at the old baloney factory.

This year I'll be on a panel with my pals Andy D. and David Coe, along with Greg Keyes, whom I don’t know, but look forward to meeting. Topic of the panel is “In Defense of the Fantasic” which presumably means someone will be on hand to attack it. I’m also scheduled to do a reading. Y'all come. They got free beer in the con suite (ah, Southern conventions.)

February 8th-14th. San Miguel de Allende! We'll be making a vacation/writing retreat/other visit much farther south than Chattanooga, where we'll be enjoying the hospitality of Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld, who are currently in residence there, writing, I believe, about six books each. The "other" designation covers a spa day for one half of The Fortress of Words executive team and a mountain bike trek for the other half. Anybody who can guess which of us will be engaging in which activity gets absolutely no points.

May 28th-31st. Wiscon, in Madison (Madison, Wisconsin! Get it?). The best genre convention around, with good dancing, good zines, and good people. As usual, we’ll be launching this year’s “even” Say... #4, “why aren’t we crying?”.

And then a long stretch of as yet unscheduled time until...

October 28th-31st. The other big convention we go to every year is the World Fantasy Convention, this year in Tempe, Arizona. I understand that Greg is arranging for temperatures not to exceed 70 degrees F while we’re in town. Thanks, Greg! The “odd” Say... (aren’t they all?) #5, will launch there.

And that’s abut it as far as galavanting outside the Commonwealth goes, though we’ll probably sneak down to North Carolina a time or two to visit friends, and I’d like to get to New York this year if at all possible. Otherwise we plan to stick pretty close to home, save our pennies and write our books, and hopefully, next year...