Little Pieces

I got something fun in the mail this month. Howard Tayler, of the Schlock Mercenary webcomic series, released a fun jigsaw puzzle. It features some iconic worlds from hard science fiction crossed with magical fantasy. It was a fun and sometimes challenging puzzle (expanses of stars don't offer a lot of clues for how they fit together). Looks like there are still some on the shelf at Topatco if you like jigsaws.

In other news, I'm attending a writing workshop this month, organized by a group called Writer Unboxed. It's fun. I get to meet other writers. I hear interesting talks about the craft of writing. And I don't have to leave home. It's all virtual, through a platform called AirMeet, and it's the closest experience to an in-person conference I've had, and I've been doing online meetings since the early '90s. (The community I was a part of practically invented online conferencing and certainly invented the lynchpin technology – the World Wide Web.) This conference has the milling around meeting other people while waiting for the session, the breakout tables to have conversations. The sessions have organic Q&As, applause and laughter and other feedback, and the ability for the speaker to invite audience members "up on stage" to be a part of it. I'm really hoping this takes hold and replaces the sterile Zoom conferences we've become used to these past few years.