It seems to be the general consensus that the last twelve months has cumulatively amounted to a pretty shitty year. It’s definitely had its moments, and most of them have seemed bad. On a personal front we as a family have had some down times in 2016, but we’ve also experienced some profoundly incredible moments.
Writing wise I’ve also had some disappointments this year with work not getting published as originally planned; but that’s all part of the game. The year finished strong with two new books published that contained some of my work. So keep a look out for:
Quatermain: The New Adventures Vol. 2 – that contains my new short story “Stones of Blood,” that takes Quatermain from the streets of London, and an encounter with a certain young consulting detective, to the battlefields of the first Boer War in search of diamond smugglers.
Outside In Boldly Goes – that includes “Trouble in Tombstone” – An alternate report of the events of the classic Star Trek episode Specter of the Gun.
Some of the other highlights of 2016 have included (in no particular order):
- My weekly blog post series at the OpenText Blog, as well as a new monthly column at CMS Wire.
- A return to doing movie reviews for RevolutionSF
- Fun times at various conferences and conventions including the Content Marketing World, Lavacon, DX Summit, Peoria Comic Con, Comicpalooza, Armadillocon, and WizardWorld Austin.
- Guesting on several podcasts such as Batman vs James Bond, Pros@Cons, White Rocket and more.
- Having two of my stories recorded as Audio Book versions on Audible.
- and of course writing a lot of stuff that’s still in the pipeline that will be published next year.
Talking of next year I’ve decided to drop the (mainly) monthly Ramble format for this newsletter and instead I’m planning on diving back into my archives to present some behind the scenes stuff, as well as some insights into current projects, on a (hopefully)more frequent basis.
Look out 2017 – it’s going to be fun.
Alan J. Porter - Writer 