Author: John Winkelman

April 2023 Books and Reading Notes

John Winkelman

April was a mediocre month for reading. I don’t know if it was post-COVID brain fog or general stress, or just a heavy work project maxxing out my brain capacity. As you can see, I read two short books at the beginning of the month, then the third one took almost three full weeks to complete, then a short book of poetry to round out National Poetry Month. Maybe May will be better.

Acquisitions

Issues 19, 20, and 21 of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine

  1. Pulphouse Fiction Magazine #19
  2. Pulphouse Fiction Magazine #20
  3. Pulphouse Fiction Magazine #21

Reading List

Books

Book read in April 2023
Book read in April 2023
  1. Kim Yi-deum (Ji Yoon Lee, translator), Blood Sisters [2023.04.02]
  2. Pablo Neruda (William O’Daly, translator), Book of Twilight [2023.04.07]
  3. Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow, Chokepoint Capitalism [2023.04.26]
  4. Reina María Rodríguez (Kristin Dykstra and Nancy Gates Madsen, translators), The Winter Garden Photograph [2023.04.29]

IWSG, April 2023: The First One

John Winkelman

Maple buds against a clear blue morning sky.

Oh, what a month was March. The hours seemed to fly by, but the days dragged. The weather is much improved, though the warmest day of the year so far was back in February.

I have a new project at work which, while not demanding any more time than any other project, is taking vastly more mental energy than I am used to, so writing over the past month has been sparse.

April is National Poetry Month! As with the past several Aprils, I attempt to write a poem a day for the month, while primarily reading poetry, just to keep my head in that space. So far I have written four poems, which brings my total for the year to, uh, four.

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group question for April 2023 is:

Do you remember writing your first book? What were your thoughts about a career path on writing? Where are you now and how is it working out for you? If you’re at the start of the journey, what are your goals?

I have written six books over the past decade, thanks to NaNoWriMo. Of those six, two (one literary fiction, one magic realism/weird fiction) are completed first drafts. The rest are in various stages of “in progress” or “abandoned.”

It goes without saying, therefore, that I have not yet published any books of my own writing.

I have never expected to make a career out of writing books, or indeed any other kind of writing. The few pieces I have had published (short stories, poems) were not published at paying markets. This is fine. I used to run a small publisher, and I know how these things go.

But I suppose a “career” is not necessarily the same thing as whatever we do for our main, or even secondary (tertiary, etc.) source of income. This eases the pressure on writing by loosening time constraints and making those self-imposed deadlines more like guidelines. This works both for and against us, as I am sure all of you have discovered at one time or another.

As for writing goals, it is difficult right now to make long-term writing plans. I have a great many stories and poems bouncing around in my head, but finding the quiet time to put those words to paper is not as easy as it was five years ago. I am a little older every year, and when given the option between half an hour of writing and half an hour of sleep, sleep will win every time.

Then again, April is finally here and today the outside temperature is expected to be above 70°. That would make today the warmest day of the year so far. I don’t know about you-all but warmer weather just makes everything easier.

Even writing.

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March 2023 Books and Reading Notes

John Winkelman

March was a quieter month than usual, as winter dragged on and on and on, sucking the energy out of the world and making it difficult to stay awake during my usual reading times.

Point of interest: This is the first month, since I started tracking things back in 2015, in which I have only acquired one book or book-like object. The previous record for smallest monthly haul was 3.

Acquisitions

The Boston Review #2023.1: Speculation

  1. Boston Review #2023.1: Speculation [2023.03.04]

Reading List

Books I read to completion in March 2023.

Books and Journals

  1. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Writing Across the Landscape [2023.03.13] – This was an interesting read. Ferlinghetti wrote beautifully about the many places he visited, and I enjoyed seeing how his artistic eye evolved over the five decades captured in this book. Highly recommended. May cause wanderlust.
  2. E. Catherine Tobler, The Kraken Sea [2023.03.15] –
  3. Jordan Kurella, I Never Liked You Anyway [2023.03.18] – A modern-day re-imagining of the story of Eurydice and Orpheus. I loved it!
  4. Shenaz Patel (Jeffrey Zuckerman, translator), Silence of the Chagos [2023.03.19]
  5. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #38 [2023.03.21] – As always, this was an excellent issue. I think my favorite story was A.B. Young’s “Vain Beasts.”
  6. David Albahari (Ellen Elias-Bursać, translator), Checkpoint [2023.03.23] – This was a weird, brilliant, discomforting read. The cover blurbs are right: Definite hints of Catch 22, Waiting for Godot, and (in my opinion) a little bit of Blood Meridian. Checkpoint is absurd and weird and ultimately futile.
  7. Neon Yang, The Ascent to Godhood [2023.03.26] – This was pretty good. Not quite as good as the first two novellas in the series, but I have yet to be disappointed by any of Yang’s work.
  8. Xu Zechen (Eric Abrahamsen, translator), Running Through Beijing [2023.03.28]

Short Prose

  1. Ellen Rhudy, “The Remaining”, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #38 [2023.03.08]
  2. James L. Cambias, “René Descartes and the Cross of Blood”, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #38 [2023.03.19]
  3. Nicole Kimberling, “Comfort Food”, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #38 [2023.03.19]
  4. Emily B. Cataneo, “Bears at Parties”, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #38 [2023.03.20]
  5. A.B. Young, “Vain Beasts”, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #38 [2023.03.20]
  6. Sarah Monette, “The Oracle of Abbey Road (Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night), Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #38 [2023.03.20]
  7. Joanna Ruocco, “Stone, Paper, Stone”, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #38 [2023.03.20]
  8. S. Woodson, “Lime and the One Human”, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #38 [2023.03.21]

AI and Art: What Goes In Is What Comes Out, At Most

John Winkelman

Back in January, I participated on two AI Art-themed panels panels at ConFusion 2023. I discussed these panel briefly in my ConFusion 2023 follow-up post, but I wanted to add some thoughts here, specifically around ChatGPT and the use of computer generated content in the context of writing.

When it comes to ChatGPT creating content, whether that content be fiction or nonfiction, it does what all of these tools do: remixes previously existing content. I make no claims about whether the thing created by an algorithm is “art” or “creative” or even “new,” but what the new content does not do is transcend its input.

ChatGPT and similar tools are trained by scanning and (hopefully) contextualizing all of the text on the internet. While ChatGPT has (or had) safeguards in place to counter the large amount of hate speech endemic to the modern internet, it still has literally centuries or even millennia of content in its input stream. A great deal of that content is regressive or even revanchist by today’s sensibilities.

And since these machine learning tools can not imagine the new, they will continue to remix the old. Even as new, human-created works become available, this new data is miniscule compared to the vast troves of work on which these tools have already been trained. And a sizeable portion of the new inputs from these tools will be previous output from the same tools, resulting in a sort of solipsism which quickly becomes untethered from any human creativity or input, thus making a large portion of the output of those tools useless except as a point of curiosity.

Additionally, here are a few points of reference:

  1. That which is called “AI” in these contexts is not artificial intelligence as it is generally understood, but is variously either neural networks, the output of machine learning tools, pattern-matching algorithms, or (usually) some combination of the three, and in all cases the output is the result of running these tools against input which was generated, overwhelmingly but not exclusively, by humans.
  2. The landscape of AI-generated art, which includes text, music, and visual arts, is rapidly evolving.
  3. Opinions on the use of AI in the arts, as well as the effects of AI generators upon the profession and livelihood of artists, are wide and varied, and continue to evolve and gain nuance.

Some more links on this general topic:

February 2023 Books and Reading Notes

John Winkelman

February was a good book month. Three of the five arrivals were from Kickstarters, and two of those were from Kickstarters over two years old. The rest were new purchases. Reading-wise, my reading list for the year caught up with my acquisition list, and I expect it to stay that way for the rest of the year, unless I either get sick of reading (not likely to happen) or I indulge in some serious emotional-support book buying.

Acquisitions

Book which arrived in the month of February 2023

  1. Jaymee Goh (editor), Don’t Touch That – A Sci-Fi & Fantasy Parenting Anthology [2023.02.04] – This one was a long time coming. I backed it back in July 2020, and of course COVID continued to happen, so the production of this anthology was, well, fraught. But it is finally here, and it is beautiful!
  2. Red Pine (translator), Dancing with the Dead – The Essential Red Pine Translations (Copper Canyon Press) [2023.02.09] – This is a reward from a recent Kickstarter run by Copper Canyon. I have been a fan of Bill Porter, and of Copper Canyon, for decades, and this is a beautiful volume.
  3. Julie Nováková, Lucas K. Law, Susan Forest (editors), Life Beyond Us (Laksa Media Groups) [2023.02.18] – Another long-delayed, eagerly-anticipated, and joyously received Kickstarter reward. I backed this book in April of 2021, and it arrived on a beautiful, unseasonably warm Saturday afternoon. I am very much looking forward to diving into this one.
  4. Jordan Kurella, When I Was Lost (Trepidation Publishing) [2023.02.22] – I met Jordan at ConFusion 2023, where he and I and my partner Zyra hung out at the bar, talking and enjoying being back at the convention. I thought his name looked familiar, and it turns out he has a story in an anthology (A Punk Rock Future) I picked up a couple of years ago because another friend had a story in it. Small world!
  5. Jordan Kurella, I Never Liked You Anyway (Lethe Press) [2023.02.27] – Another of Kurella’s works, this one a short novel, which is already near the top of my TBR pile.

Reading List

Books and Journals I Read In the Month of February 2023

Books and Journals

  1. Marlon James, Moon Witch, Spider King [2023.02.17]
  2. Catherine Stein, The Courtesan and Mr. Hyde [2023.02.20]
  3. Hieu Minh Nguyen, Not Here [2023.02.21]
  4. Jason Gillikin (editor), Surface Reflections [2023.02.22]
  5. The Lakeshore Review #1 [2023.02.24]
  6. The Lakeshore Review #2 [2023.02.26]
  7. Valérie Mréjen (Katie Shireen Assef, translator), Black Forest [2023.02.27]

Short Prose

  1. Colleen Alles, “Visitor’s Pass”, Surface Reflections [2023.02.22]
  2. Tiffany Amo, “Sea of Diamonds”, Surface Reflections [2023.02.22]
  3. Allison Hawkins, “Penelope Butterfield’s Comprehensive Guide to Self-Annihilation”, Surface Reflections [2023.02.22]
  4. Robert Charles Kubiak, “Christmas Play”, Surface Reflections [2023.02.22]
  5. Morris Lincoln, “Conversion Therapy”, Surface Reflections [2023.02.22]
  6. Melanie Meyer, “Half the Kingdom”, Surface Reflections [2023.02.22]
  7. Andrew Ronzino, “Acquired Taste”, Surface Reflections [2023.02.22]
  8. Andrew Ronzino, “The Last Day”, Surface Reflections [2023.02.22]
  9. D.L. Rosa, “Edward”, Surface Reflections [2023.02.22]
  10. Colleen Alles, “The Only Private Place”, The Lakeshore Review #1 [2023.02.23]
  11. Dominic Bryan, “The Lies You Tell Yourself”, The Lakeshore Review #1 [2023.02.23]
  12. Maggie Hill, “Only the Drunk Can Sleep”, The Lakeshore Review #1 [2023.02.23]
  13. Jonathan Lindberg, “Star Man”, The Lakeshore Review #1 [2023.02.24]
  14. Julia Poole, “Coming Clean”, The Lakeshore Review #1 [2023.02.24]
  15. Phillip Sterling, “Last Resort”, The Lakeshore Review #1 [2023.02.24]
  16. Laura Cody, “Either One Step Forward, or Two Steps Back”, The Lakeshore Review #2 [2023.03.24]
  17. Byron Spooner, “Elvis Walks the Earth”, The Lakeshore Review #2 [2023.02.26]
  18. Susan Weinstein, “Sweet Halloween”, The Lakeshore Review #2 [2023.02.26]
  19. Wally Wood, “Dropout”, The Lakeshore Review #2 [2023.02.26]

IWSG, March 2023: I Wish I’d Written That

John Winkelman

The past month was kind of hectic due to a new project at work coinciding with my girlfriend and I, after three years, finally contracting COVID. It wasn’t serious for either of us, thanks to both of us being fully vaccinated and boosted, but it was a boring two and a half weeks of being stuck in the house waiting for the home and PCR tests to come up negative.

Fortunately, we had the cats to keep us entertained.

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group question for March 2023 is: Have you ever read a line in novel or a clever plot twist that caused you to have author envy?

Well, I mean, YES!!!!!!! All the time. Almost every book I read has a turn of phrase, a scene, a twist, or something like that, which makes me say, “Well, dang! I wish I wrote that.”

The first one that comes to mind is a scene from Neil Gaiman‘s most excellent American Gods. One of the characters, let’s call him “MS,” is killed, and a few of the other characters hold a sort of wake for him, trading stories back and forth. After a little while MS is there, laughing along with the other characters and adding his own comments to the stories. It is handled so subtly that I had to go back and check that I was reading what I thought I was reading. The scene was so well written that there was no sense of disconnect, just a realization that “Well of course MS is going to show up at his own wake. That’s the kind of person [sic] he is!”

This description does scant justice to the scene.

Another is Mary Oliver‘s poem “The Poet Goes to Indiana” from her collection Why I Wake Early. In particular, this section:

…and there was once, oh wonderful,
a new horse in the pasture,
a tall, slim being-a neighbor was keeping her there—
and she put her face against my face,
put her muzzle, her nostrils, soft as violets,
against my mouth and my nose, and breathed me,
to see who I was…

Remarkable! In the fifth line, “soft as velvet” would have worked, but it would have been mundane. Ordinary. There are a million things as soft as velvet. But soft as violets? That is something unique, and enduring.

I could go on and on. Almost everything I read has at least one sentence which is noteworthy (and hopefully more than one, but not always). The moments of awe and revelation are infrequent, and valuable in their rarity.

(Also rare, fortunately, are the lines, plot twists, and scenes which make me think, “Thank the heavens I didn’t write that.” Uncommon but not unknown.)

I will repeat one of my guiding principles, as related by author Karen Lord: “Read well.” Reading well is as much a skill as writing well.

 

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and supporting insecure writers
in all phases of their careers.

 

January 2023 Books and Reading Notes

John Winkelman

Starting in 2023 I am combining my annual book acquisition list and my monthly readings lists into a single monthly post. Ideally my rate of reading will be greater than my rate of book acquisition. This month, however, I went to ConFusion, and while I did not grab as many books as I usually do, I still picked up four new titles.

Acquisitions

Acquisitions for the month of January 2023

  1. Hieu Minh Nguyen, Not Here (Coffee House Press) [2023.01.08] – I picked up Not Here on a whim, during a visit to Books & Mortar.
  2. Adrain Collins and Mike Myers (editors), The King Must Fall (Grimdark Magazine) [2023.01.10] – This is from a Kickstarter.
  3. Sheree Renée Thomas (editor), Sorghum and Spear (Outland Entertainment) [2023.01.12] – This is from a Kickstarter
  4. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #46 [2023.01.16] – Published by the excellent Small Beer Press.
  5. Catherine Stein, Eden’s Voice (self-published) [2023.01.21] – Acquired from the author at ConFusion 2023
  6. Catherine Stein, The Courtesan and Mr. Hyde (self-published) [2023.01.21] – Acquired from the author at ConFusion 2023
  7. Rami Ungar, The Pure World Comes (self-published) [2023.01.21] – Acquired from the author at ConFusion 2023
  8. Todd Sanders (editor), The Librarian (Air and Nothingness Press) [2023.01.21] – Acquired from one of the authors, Storm Michael Humbert, at ConFusion 2023.
  9. Shalash the Iraqi (Luke Leafgren, translator), Shalash the Iraqi (And Other Stories) [2023.01.24] – This is an arrival from my subscription to And Other Stories
  10. Johanna Hedva, Your Love Is Not Good (And Other Stories) [2023.01.24] – This is from my subscription to the catalog of And Other Stories.

Reading List

Books and Journals I read in January 2023

Books and Journals

  1. Dreamforge #1 [2023.01.02]
  2. Poetry [2023.01.03]
  3. Nicole Sealey, Ordinary Beast [2023.01.04]
  4. Kathe Koja, Velocities [2023.01.12]
  5. Ananda Devi (Jeffery Zuckerman, translator), Eve Out of Her Ruins [2023.01.15]
  6. Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel (Jethro Soutar, translator), The Gurugu Pledge [2023.01.23]
  7. Ho Sok Fong (Natascha Bruce, translator), Lake Like a Mirror [2023.01.31]

Short Prose

  1. Sarena Ulibarri, “The Spiral Ranch”, Dreamforge #1 [2023.01.01]
  2. Terra LeMay, “Glass Roses”, Dreamforge #1 [2023.01.01]
  3. Barbara Barnett, “Z-Spot”, Dreamforge #1 [2023.01.01]
  4. Steven Brust and Skyler White, “Smith’s Point”, Dreamforge #1 [2023.01.02]
  5. Kathe Koja, “At Eventide”, Velocities [2023.01.05]
  6. Kathe Koja, “Baby”, Velocities [2023.01.06]
  7. Kathe Koja, “Velocity”, Velocities [2023.01.06]
  8. Kathe Koja, “Clubs”, Velocities [2023.01.08]
  9. Kathe Koja, “Urb Civ”, Velocities [2023.01.08]
  10. Kathe Koja, “Fireflies”, Velocities [2023.01.09]
  11. Kathe Koja, “Coyote Pass”, Velocities [2023.01.09]
  12. Kathe Koja, “Road Trip”, Velocities [2023.01.10]
  13. Kathe Koja, “Toujours”, Velocities [2023.01.10]
  14. Kathe Koja, “Far and Wee”, Velocities [2023.01.11]
  15. Kathe Koja, “The Marble Lily”, Velocities [2023.01.11]
  16. Kathe Koja, “La Reine D’Enfer”, Velocities [2023.01.12]
  17. Jim C. Hines, “144th Contact” (Patreon story) [2023.01.12]
  18. Kathe Koja, “Pas De Deux”, Velocities [2023.01.12]
  19. Ho Sok Fong, “The Wall”, Lake Like a Mirror [2023.01.25]
  20. Ho Sok Fong, “Radio Drama”, Lake Like a Mirror [2023.01.26]
  21. Ho Sok Fong, “Lake Like a Mirror”, Lake Like a Mirror [2023.01.28]
  22. Ho Sok Fong, “The Chest”, Lake Like a Mirror [2023.01.29]
  23. Ho Sok Fong, “Summer Tornado”, Lake Like a Mirror [2023.01.29]
  24. Ho Sok Fong, “Aminah”, Lake Like a Mirror [2023.01.29]
  25. Ho Sok Fong, “Wind through the Pineapple Leaves, through the Frangipani”, Lake Like a Mirror [2023.01.29]
  26. Ho Sok Fong, “October”, Lake Like a Mirror [2023.01.30]
  27. Ho Sok Fong, “March in a Small Town”, Lake Like a Mirror [2023.01.31]

IWSG, February 2023: Indie Book Covers

John Winkelman

Lindemayer system experiment

Happy February, O my pixel pushers and ink rearrangers!  And for those who observe the Lunar New Year, happy Year of the Water Rabbit! I am feeling re-energized after a weekend at ConFusion 2023 where I volunteered to help run the ‘con, participated on a couple of panels, and hung out with and talked to many many many great writers and artists. ConFusion is my favorite event, and a great way to start the year.

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group question for February 2023 is:

If you are an Indie author, do you make your own covers or purchase them? If you publish trad, how much input do you have about what goes on your cover?

I have played around with making covers for a couple of chapbooks, but never for an actual book, on account of I don’t have any actual books for which to create or commission cover art.

That being said, were I to commission a cover, I would make sure it was created by a human artist, with minimal or no use of any of the AI [sic] image generators (Midjourney, DALL-E 2, etc.) which have been recently in the news for, among other things, copyright infringement of the artwork on which the image generator’s base neural network was trained. Call me old-fashioned, but any art I pay for will be created by actual artist. And I say that as someone who has played around with generative art for over two decades.

More information on this issue here:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/16/23557098/generative-ai-art-copyright-legal-lawsuit-stable-diffusion-midjourney-deviantart
https://www.polygon.com/23558946/ai-art-lawsuit-stability-stable-diffusion-deviantart-midjourney
https://petapixel.com/2022/12/21/midjourny-founder-admits-to-using-a-hundred-million-images-without-consent/
https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/midjourney-founder-basically-admits-to-copyright-breaching-and-artists-are-angry

Speaking of computer-generated art, I created the above image with my Lindenmayer System Explorer. If you want to duplicate this and play around with it, enter the following bolded text into the “import/export” field, click “Import Data”, then click “render.”

{“iterations”:”4″,”lineLength”:”4″,”initialAngle”:”270″,”angle”:”30″,”angleTaper”:”0″,”lineWidth”:”2″,”lineScale”:”1″,”lineTaper”:”-1″,”lineColors”:”222222,000099,990000,999900″,”backgroundColor”:”000000″,”axiom”:”[F]+[F]+[F]+[F]+[F]+[F]+[F]+[F]+[F]+[F]+[F]+[F]+”,”grammar”:”F:[FF[F+F]F]F!fF[F-F]”}

Happy writing, everyone!

Insecure Writer's Support Group BadgeThe Insecure Writer’s Support Group
is a community dedicated to encouraging
and supporting insecure writers
in all phases of their careers.

 

Thoughts on ConFusion 2023

John Winkelman

My badge and ribbons from ConFusion 2023

Last weekend I attended ConFusion 2023 with my partner Zyra, from Thursday morning through Sunday afternoon. This was my ninth ConFusion, and Zyra’s second. Her first experience was last year, still in the middle of the pandemic. 2022 was not, through no fault of their own, the best year in ConFusion’s history by a long shot. Fortunately 2023 was much improved, and though still small by the standards of many of the previous years, it was a lot of fun and felt like the ConFusions of old.

This year I volunteered as part of the Operations team and as a general dogsbody, taking care of those things which needed taking care of and lifting heavy things, as well as sitting at the Ops table in the early morning hours of Saturday and Sunday. I am used to waking up at 5:00 to feed the cats, work out, and write, so waking up at 5:00 to sit at a table in a mostly-empty hallway was not difficult, except when it came to staying awake.

I participated on two panels this year, “What do Trends in Artificial Intelligence Generated Art and Writing Mean for Artists and Authors?” on  Saturday with Jason Sanford, Rick Lieder, and Bill Higgins, and “Creativity in the Age of AI” on Sunday with Jason Sanford, Rick Lieder, and John Scalzi. I moderated the first, and Jason moderated the second. I had a great time on these panels, and will be posting about the content therein over the next couple of weeks.

The best part of conferences, of course, is the people. I spent most of my non-panel, non-Ops time hanging out in the bar area, talking to many wonderful people, and this experience filled my heart to near-bursting! Over the course of the long weekend, I spent time talking to, among others, Dave Palmer, Kathe Koja, Jason Sanford, Patrick Tomlinson, Maurice Broaddus, Rick Lieder, Jordan Kurella, ZigZag Claybourne, Saladin Ahmad, Catherine Stein, Rami Ungar, and Storm Michael Humbert. Many of these people I already knew, and the rest I met for the first time this past weekend. In both cases, my life was enriched by their presence.

I also spent a lot of time hanging out with the members of the ConFusion ConCom, talking about the history of ConFusion, the day-to-day tasks, the unexpected issues when working with hotels and bars, and the scores of other details which must be dealt with as they arise. These were fascinating discussions and only increased my respect for the volunteers who run fan conventions of all sorts.

So what’s next? At the moment I plan to be more involved with the next ConFusion in January 2024. That means that, after a few weeks off for rest and recovery, I will be sitting in on meetings with the ConCom and figuring out where I may be of the most assistance. And I am very much looking forward to this experience. ConFusion is one of my favorite events of the year, and I am happy – nay, eager – to contribute to its continued success in any way I can.

And before I forget, I treated myself to a new fountain pen, courtesy of Brad, the Pen Guy. It is beautiful to see, and a joy to write with.

The Books of ConFusion 2023

John Winkelman

Books signed at ConFusion 2023

The above is the collection of books which I was fortunate enough to have signed by their respective authors at ConFusion 2023.

First up are Zoe’s Tale, The End of All Things, and The Last Colony by John Scalzi. I picked these books up over the past several years, and finally brought them with me to ConFusion to be signed.

I picked up The Pure World Comes by Rami Ungar when a dapper gentleman in a top hat asked me “Do you like horror?” as I was browsing the tables in Artist’s Alley during some down time. Rami and I talked for a hot minute about self publishing and horror, and I walked away with a new book.

Dark Factory and Velocities by Kathe Koja, I picked up back in December, expressly to get them signed during the convention.

On Saturday afternoon, and I stopped in to Catherine Stein‘s “Author Meet and Greet” event, and ended up purchasing Eden’s Voice and The Courtesan and Mr. Hyde, which are period romances in the steampunk and gas-lamp fantasy genres. I generally don’t read romance novels, but I love the myriad *punk subgenres so this might be an inroad into a genre in which I am woefully uninformed. And we discovered that we have a friend in common, in West Michigan author Jean Davis, who Catherine knows through the self-publishing and local/regional book event scenes.

On the bottom right is The Librarian, an anthology published by Air and Nothingness Press, which was funded through a 2022 Kickstarter campaign. One of the authors, Storm Michael Humbert, was in one of the author meet-and-greets, with a table of anthologies in which he has stories.

All in all, ConFusion 2023 was an excellent venue for picking up new books, and I am proud that I kept it to only four books purchased throughout the long weekend, as I have a shelf full of books which have been signed at ConFusions past, which I have not yet read. New books shall be my reward for reading old books.

One of these years it will be me sitting at a table behind a pile of books on which are printed the words “By John Winkelman.”