BilmBlog500

The first convention I attended as a pro was Balticon in 1989.  Elizabeth Moon was told she'd be winning the Compton Crook Award.  I got the OK from Scott Meredith to attend and celebrate, hopped on Amtrak, and arrived in Baltimore on a very rainy Friday night.  I got added at the very last minute to a couple panels; Groo was discussed on one of them.  Elizabeth and I had breakfast on the Sunday, and I got the steak and eggs. We've gone on to represent many other Compton Crook winners and nominees, and it's always nice to return to Balticon, which I've now gotten to do for several consecutive years.  This year, the convention returns to the Inner Harbor for the first time in a while.  Wegmans, no.  Light Street Pavilion, Yes. Here's my known schedule: Friday 9pm - Pride of Baltimore room Tales from the Slush Pile co-panelists include Mur Lafferty and "Space & Time" publisher Hildy Silverman Friday 10pm - Parlor 9029 Why Ant Man and the first Thor M...

I'm super excited to be going to Norwescon this year.  It's my first time going to this convention, and my first time in Seattle in almost ten years, which is way too long to be away from such a beautiful city.  I'll have some great company.  My long-time client Tanya Huff is a Guest of Honor at this year's Norwescon, and my more recent discovery Adam Rakunas is a finalist for this year's Philip K. Dick Award for his excellent debut novel WINDSWEPT .  DAW Books, which publishes Tanya Huff and many of our other authors, is the publisher honoree.  There will be lots of other JABberwocky clients around,  and I'll be joined by my JABberwocky colleague Sam Morgan . I'm going to be on two panels on Saturday, March 26: Sat 1:00pm - 2:00pm - Cascade 9 First Page Idol Phoebe Kitanidis (M), Frog Jones, Nicole Dieker, Paul Constant, Joshua Bilmes Sat 3:00pm - 4:00pm - Evergreen 3&4 Comic Book Movies Rafeal Richardson (M), Paul Constant, J. Rachel Edidin, John L...

Midnight:  Spotlight. 11:57  I like Leonardo DiCaprio a lot, liked him from when I first saw him in Gilbert Grape a very very long time ago.  In Wolf of Wall St., in Titanic, in lots of movies.  I just wish he wasn't getting an Oscar for The Revenant. 11:53 PM I would happily see Michael Fassbender or Malcom's dad or Matt winning for Best Actor.  But this is not likely to end happily.  Steve Jobs was a great movie, and Fassbender's performance is a huge part of that. Matt Damon was too good, made it seem too easy!  Trumbo better for me than for most critics. 11:45 PM Best Actress is a depressing category for me.  Saw 45 Years, and not a fan.  And not a fan of Brooklyn, or of Carol.  Didn't see Joy.  So I guess I'll hope for Brie Larson to win, as she is touted to do. 11:38 PM Not a surprise, but I so wish something or someone else would have won for Best Director.  What can he do next year in his quest for Best Award Bait? ...

When it comes to plot-driven media like books and movies, I'm an opinionated SOB. As such, Oscar season will never be my across-the-board favorite time of year.  There will be critical darlings that aren't actually very good. Worthy movies that are just that.  Frenzies, tulip bubbles, and more.  Usually there will be a few things, but only a few, that I haven't seen; after all these years I can do a good job smelling out the movies that will leave an aftertaste. I can't remember a year with as many of those movies.  And after making a dutiful effort to catch up, only one of them was considerably better than I feared or suspected. It sure isn't The Revenant.  12 nominations for a movie I never wished to pay for, and which I could stomach for just 30 minutes when I was finally able to plan it as part of a "double feature." The plot skeleton I studied thirty years ago this week when I was handed a copy of WRITING TO SELL by Scott Meredith on my first day at h...

Movies are the one, or at least the longest, constant in my life.  I can easily recall movie moments from my teenage years, even early in.  I was twelve when I saw Star Wars, and know that I saw it in Monticello.  So Oscar night is always special to me, the High Holidays of my secular religion. But this year has an off taste for me, part #OscarsSoWhite, discussed below, and part #OscarsSoTrite, which will be discussed in another post and/or within my live blog of this year's Oscar ceremony. A year ago, I thought Selma was a worthy movie, kind of like how I felt about Gandhi when I saw that 33 years ago, and how I've felt about quite a few biopics over the years.  With Selma nominated in the Best Picture category, with its elastic number of potential nominees, #OscarsSoWhite felt abstract to me. But in 2015, two movies, Love and Mercy and Straight Outta Compton raised the bar for the genre of the musical biopic.  Considering how many appreciably triter biopics h...

I'm eagerly looking forward to being at Boskone 50 from February 19-21 at Boston's Westin Waterfront Hotel.  My road to being a science fiction fan, and thus to JABberwocky, started in the Boskone dealer's room in the late 1970s.  And I've got my fingers crossed that we're about to sell a first novel for an author I first met at Boskone a few years ago. My full schedule is below.  In addition, you'll often find me hanging around the dealer's room or schmoozing in the hotel lobby, and it's one of the best events during the year to get some good quality time with me. Hope to see you in Boston! The Perfect Pitch Friday 16:00 - 16:50, Burroughs (Westin) Pitching a story can be intimidating, especially if you're new to the field or must change agents/editors. This is your chance to find out what agents, editors, and publishers want from their current writers, from writers fresh to the market, and from writers transitioning to someone new. Hear from the pr...

The first movie I ever saw at Walter Reade's Ziegfeld Theatre was Gandhi. It was Christmas break between my first and second semesters in college.  It was a sold-out show.  There were a lot of those at the Ziegfeld in the 1980s and 1990s.  I was not one of the first to arrive, and I found my way to a seat on the far right side of the theatre, fairly near to the front.  The theatre smelled of food; Gandhi was a very long movie, and people were prepared with more than popcorn. The Ziegfeld and Gandhi turned out to be very similar to one another.  They were worthy.  You couldn't not like Gandhi, could you?  I mean, it was a long epic biopic about an incredibly important historical figure,  You could learn so much of such importance about such an important personage.  Of course, it wasn't actually a good movie.  It was a quintessential biopic. The actual filmmaking by Richard Attenborough was kind of plodding. So it was with the Ziegfeld. ...