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Happy (belated) Turkey Day! Hope everyone’s pants still fit them! XD If you are still recovering from your food coma, I suggesting grabbing a cup of coffee and sitting down to read about three more participants we are honored to have this year: Errick Nunnally, Lisa Hertel, and Leigh Perry!
Visit Errick on their Facebook, Twitter or website.
What is it about Boskone that makes this the convention you choose to attend each year?
Or if this is your first Boskone, what attracted you most to Boskone this year?
Both casual and professional, access to participants, low-key, well-run, reasonable cost… A lot of things! I know quite a few people regularly in attendance and it has been a pleasure making this sci-fi emphasized event a regular convention to attend. Plus, I get to meet creators I admire AND I got to meet my favorite sci-fi writer, David Gerrold, one year. I even had the pleasure of serving on a panel with him. I wish I found myself in California with any regularity so we could chat in-person again. Damn it, Boskone, thanks for reminding me… *sob*
What topics are you most looking forward to talking about at Boskone?
Super-powers and stuff. I mean, we generalize it by saying “superhero,” but my latest novel isn’t exactly about heroes in the costumed, organized sense. Ergo, I am looking forward to talking about such things! I think “people with abilities” crosses all genres and that’s a conversation worth having.
Bonus: Up for a challenge? Give us a haiku or limerick about Boskone!
There once was a con called Boskone,
Who’s location happens to be Bos-tone.
I dropped a friend off one year,
Saw a car marked F451 in the rear,
and knew I better get my ass into there.
If you could be a fly on the wall during any scene or event in literature of film, which scene would it be and why?
Just about any of the insane stories that Harlan Ellison is tangled up in. Oh, to be present for such scandalous bombast… Or maybe on the set for the filming of THEM. But, y’know, without the racism of the 1950s. Ugh, this is a hard question, y’all.
Authors: Fans often ask authors to talk about their favorite main characters, but what about the side characters? Who is one of your favorite sidekicks or secondary/tertiary characters who have had a lesser role in your work?
Artists: Fans love looking at the portfolio of artwork and asking artists about some of their most well known images. Which of your images, that receives less attention from fans, do you hold dear? What is it about the creation of that piece that makes it so special for you?
Filkers: Listeners often know your most popular music. Which of your other, less well-known songs, affects you deeply? What is it about that song that speaks to your creative spirit?
In my novel, Blood For The Sun, the secondary character, Seth, has a complex relationship from the past with Alexander, my main character. They’re entangled somewhere between loyalty and love and I thought he turned out to be a very fine, subtle character to write. Seth’s love and loyalty to a woman, Constantina, that Alexander loved but couldn’t safely be with because she’s already involved with a powerful leader, Curry, that both Seth and Alexander work for. Compounding the problem is that Alexander’s mental problems have erased the fine edges of memories that held both Seth and Constantina. It’s a personal conflict and I was very happy with how it turned out.
What will you be working on in 2020? Any new releases or dates that fans should be looking forward to hearing about?
I’ll be working on a re-release of my first novel, Blood For The Sun, and it’s sequels. I’ll also be penning an international thriller about fleeing Afghanistan and dodging a shady security outfit–no supernatural or sci-fi aspects. Challenge accepted!
If you could bring any object or device into the real world from fiction or film, and it would work perfectly, what would you choose? Why would you choose that item?
The replicator from Star Trek: The Next Generation so that no one would go hungry.
Lisa Hertel is an artist at Western Avenue Studios in Lowell, the largest artists’ colony on the east coast. She works in clay, watercolors, alcohol inks and encaustics (painting with wax), and more. Visit her there for monthly first Saturday open studios, or take a class; see her website at http://www.cogitation.org for more information, or search for “The Cogitation Zone.” In her spare time, Lisa helps run literary SF conventions. She used to be a pharmacist before becoming a professional artist.
Visit Lisa on their Facebook, Twitter, or website.
What is it about Boskone that makes this the convention you choose to attend each year?
Or if this is your first Boskone, what attracted you most to Boskone this year?
Boskone was the first con I ever went to; since I was 17, I only missed a couple of them. I love it for the art show, which is one of the best; the variety of dealers; and the amazing program participants. Every year Boskone seems to get both “big name” pris who don’t go to any other convention, and interesting new people. And the program is always fascinating.
What topics are you most looking forward to talking about at Boskone?
Jon Singer, the guest of honor, and I are both potters and chemistry geeks. Jon and I have plotted up a program item on pottery and chemistry. I joke that we might be the only ones to attend, because glaze chemistry, while fascinating to me, isn’t exactly a popular subject! However, I trust Jon’s ability to make everything interesting. If we do get the item on program, I hope some people will come hear about us talking about vitrification, red glaze chemistry, lead glaze, chromium, ash glazes, cones, frits, fluxes, and flocculants.
Looking back, what was the first piece of work (whether it be from literature, cinema, art, music, video game, toy, or whatever it may be) that first made you love science-fiction and fantasy?
I’ve always loved fantasy. As a child, I had a record of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, and my aunt gave me Winnie the Pooh when I was four, and I’m sure I read it right away. I was slow to come to science fiction, though; I’d pretty much read most of the other fiction in the house when I picked up Ray Bradbury’s collection I Sing the Body Electric, and got hooked.
What will you be working on in 2020? Any new releases or dates that fans should be looking forward to hearing about?
Over the summer, I moved my studio from Lowell to Haverhill, and I’m still playing catch-up, trying to establish myself in my new location, build a new customer base, and make all the things that didn’t get made over the summer. For 2020, I’m going to be concentrating on that.
Leigh Perry is two authors in one. As Leigh, she writes the Family Skeleton series about an adjunct English professor who solves mysteries with her best friend, Sid, an ambulatory skeleton. The Skeleton Makes a Friend is the most recent. As Toni L.P. Kelner, she’s the author of eleven novels: eight Laura Fleming mysteries and three “Where are they now?” mysteries, and has published a number of short stories. Along with New York Times bestseller Charlaine Harris, she co-edited a series of bestselling urban fantasy anthologies. She won the Agatha Award for Best Short Story for “Sleeping With The Plush,” and a RT BOOKreviews Career Achievement Award for Mystery Series. She’s also been nominated for the Anthony, the Macavity, and the Derringer awards. Leigh and her husband, fellow author Stephen P. Kelner, live north of Boston with one of the daughters, a guinea pig named Clara and a whole lot of books. Visit her online at LeighPerryAuthor.com.
Visit Leigh on their Facebook,  Twitter, or website.
What topics are you most looking forward to talking about at Boskone?
I’m always interested in talking about the writing process, and kvetching about the publishing process.
Bonus: Up for a challenge? Give us a haiku or limerick about Boskone!
A Southerner came up to Boskone
Unaware that it was a cold zone
She got covered in snow
From head down to toe
And cosplayed the role of a snow cone
Looking back, what was the first piece of work (whether it be from literature, cinema, art, music, video game, toy, or whatever it may be) that first made you love science-fiction and fantasy?
The first SF I read was HAVE SPACESUIT–WILL TRAVEL by Robert Heinlein, and I was hooked.A lot of Heinlein’s work is problematic, but not this book. It’s still just an amazing piece of work.
What was your first book event or literary convention? Tell us about it! Perhaps you even have a photo to share?
Stellarcon held on campus at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. It was tiny, and I think Karl Edward Wagner was the GoH.
I entered the costume contest, dressed as a hobbit; I wandered the book room; I hung around the art show, which was very tiny but still impressed me; and I tried to get into filking and didn’t. A great weekend!
What will you be working on in 2020? Any new releases or dates that fans should be looking forward to hearing about?
I’ve got a couple of short stories I want to write, perhaps a new series, and a seventh Family Skeleton book. I’ve got two mystery short stories coming out: one in ELLERY QUEEN MYSTERY MAGAZINE and one in the anthology SHATTERING GLASS.
If you could bring any object or device into the real world from fiction or film, and it would work perfectly, what would you choose? Why would you choose that item?
Star Trek’s transporter. The idea of zooming to the other side of the world without having to go through an airport just makes my heart sing.