CONvergence 2019: The Next Celebration will be premiering shortly and we can hardly wait. This year we’re celebrating renewal, reinvention, and the reboot as members spend their first year at our new home in downtown Minneapolis, the Hyatt Regency. But before we kick off this year’s convention, we thought we’d check in with the CONvergence 2018 Guests of Honor to see what they’ve been up to since last July.
In late 2018, Eleanor Arnason’s short story Loft the Sorcerer was published in The Book of Magic, a fantasy anthology including short stories by fellow CONvergence 2018 Guest of Honor Elizabeth Bear and A Song of Ice and Fire author George R. R. Martin.
Elizabeth Bear has maintained a breakneck pace of short story, novelette, and book publishing since CONvergence 2018. Among her many accomplishments in the past year, a few include publication of The Red-Stained Wings, the second book in the Lotus Kingdoms series; the short story Bullet Point featured in the new anthology Wastelands 3: The New Apocalypse; and Ancestral Night, a story about space salvagers living just inside the law…usually.
Wesley Chu has been working on a new story in the Walking Dead comic world. In The Walking Dead: Typhoon Chu takes readers on their first journey (of the series) to China, where a group of survivors band together against a wave of walkers in the most populous country in the world. He and his wife welcomed their second child, River, on June 17.
Paul Cornell’s fourth and penultimate book of the Witches of Lychford series, The Lights Go Out in Lychford, will hit shelves and e-readers this November. It’s been described by former CONvergence Guest of Honor Seanan McGuire as “Beautifully written, perfectly cruel and ultimately kind.”
CONvergence 2018 Guest of Honor Amal El-Mohtar. Photo from Twitter.
This is How You Lose the Time War, a riveting spy-v-spy/time lord/romance novel collaboration between former CONvergence Guest of Honor Amal El-Mohtar and author Max Gladstone, will be available for purchase mid-July of this year.
Video essayist and film critic Lindsay Ellis has stayed busy with her movie and television critiques on her YouTube channel. Recent additions to her repertoire include YouTube: Manufacturing Authenticity (For Fun and Profit!), Death of the Author, and How Aladdin Changed Animation (By Screwing Over Robin Williams).
Tor.com Senior Editor Lee Harris received a nomination for Best Editor (Short Form) for a 2019 Hugo Award, and saw several books he has edited receive nominations, including Artificial Condition by Martha Wells, Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor, and Beneath the Sugar Sky by former CONvergence Guest of Honor Seanan McGuire.
CONvergence 2018 Guest of Honor James Kakalios. Photo from Twitter.
James Kakalios—mild-mannered physicist by day; science consultant, public speaker, and Emmy-Award winner…also by day—co-authored an article published in the Journal of Applied Physics quaintly titled Photo-induced enhancement of the dark conductivity in nanocrystalline germanium/amorphous silicon composite thin films.
Kelly McCullough published Spirits, Spells, and Snark earlier this year, and has been regularly publishing three different microfiction series on Twitter and Facebook. Kelly is working on an illustrated book of one of these microseries, Dragon Diaries, and has launched a Patreon to support this and other works. He also continues to publish weekly Monday Meows cat blogs on his website.
Mary Jo Pehl and co-star Bridget Nelson released special-edition Mother’s Day and Father’s Day Riff Trax this spring. She also performed at the Pay Gap Comedy Tour this June.
Tamora Pierce now has officially licensed merchandise! Themed pins, shirts and pendants from her fantasy works are now available at Dual Wield Studio. Plus, you can listen in as she shares insight into her inspiration and works in a multi-part vlog by student Angie Malkoun titled The Fiction Around Fantasy & YA.
You can catch Gordon Purcell signing a new Spidey print this July 2—shortly before CONvergence 2019—ahead of the Spider-Man Far From Home premiere!
Victor Raymond was recently on the Gaming and BS RPG Podcast to talk about the OSR, MAR Barker – author of Empire of the Petal Throne, and Tekumel! He also just finished up a Bundle of Holding for the Tekumel Foundation, and recently helped to move Madison Traditional Gaming from Pegasus Games to Noble Knight Games, noting that it has gotten even bigger.
CONvergence 2018 Guest of Honor Marina Sirtis playing Fairy Godmother in a production of Jack and the Beanstalk.
Marina Sirtis spent the year starring in the London-based play Dark Sublime, portraying the fairy godmother of Bridlington Spa’s Jack and the Beanstalk, and cast in the major motion picture 5th Passenger starring other Star Trek greats like Doug Jones (Discovery), Tim Russ (Voyager), and Armin Shimerman (Deep Space Nine).
Multi-media artist Lisa Snellings has created a beautiful array of her signature “poppets,” which you can see on Twitter and Etsy.
Michael “Knightmage” Wilson with his CosBeacon award.
Melinda Snodgrass has been working on two TV series as executive producer, and the fourth book in her Imperials series, The Currency of War, is anticipated to be released later this year!
Artist and animator Vincent Truitner showcased a new series of paintings, Birth Stones, at the Beaumont Studios ArtSee in Vancouver, BC this spring.
Greg Weisman is excited to announce all-new episodes of Young Justice airing on DC Universe starting this July! Plus, he’s excited to see lots of fans later this summer at San Diego Comic Con.
Michael “Knightmage” Wilson received the CosBeacon award from Cosplay in America for his work in local cosplay communities that benefit charities.
Author and filmmaker Ytasha Womack participated in a conversation with synthetic biologist and astrobiologist Betül Kaçar titled Future Shaped by Pasts that Could have Been published this winter in the MIT Media Lab Journal of Design and Science. She also recently finished a successful kickstarter for a three-book series titled A Spaceship in Bronzeville. She was the keynote speaker at this year’s Design Futures Initiative Primer Conference in June, themed Futures for All.
Information Society recently released a new single, Bennington, featuring their signature freestyle synth-pop sound.
That wraps up our overview of OCNvergence 2018 Guests of Honor! We’re looking forward to another year of amazing Guests of Honor in just a few days. Be sure to check out their bios, then say hi to them from July 4-7, 2019 at CONvergence: The Next Celebration!
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