Christopher McKitterick

Forgive me, religious-patriarchal figure, it's been more than a month since my last update. What have I been up to since my last confession?

• Spent the first two weeks of June teaching the Speculative Fiction Writing Workshop at KU's Center for the Study of SF, a residential program that consumes pretty much every waking hour.


• Did my thing at the Campbell Conference, which this year honored Frederik Pohl and discussed "Science fiction in the real world." We also presented the Campbell (best SF novel) and Sturgeon (best SF story) Memorial Awards.


• Taught the Intensive SF Institute during the second two weeks of June, also residential (except for a few locals). Final projects should be piling in today. To all of you wonderful scholars and workshoppers who spent your June with us and are home now: I miss everyone so much!


• Wrote another few thousand words on The Galactic Adventures of Jack & Stella:
  
  It's ALMOST DONE - and Book 2 has reached 4000 words.


• My essay on "Frederik Pohl: Mr Science Fiction (A Love Story)" just came out in the current issue of Foundation - The International Review of Science Fiction.


• I'm hard at work on a new Jupiter story (the follow-up to "Jupiter Whispers") for an upcoming anthology edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt. Including this one, I plan to finish (or revise) at least three stories this month and send them out for consideration.


• I'll be quoted in the next issue of Popular Mechanics magazine (!) about the top SF novels.


• Oh, and I gave a bunch of talks and interviews for NPR's Up to Date show, the Lawrence Free State Festival, KU Endowment, the Lawrence Journal-World, SciFi4Me (part of their livestream of the Campbell Conference), and one (plus the usual stuff) at the Campbell Conference.

So I've been way out of touch with the world. Took most of last week as a sort of stay-cation. MUCH NEEDED.

How's your summer going?

Chris

I realize that, like many, I've grown lazy about posting cool stuff I find on the internets, using the quick-and-easy Facebook method of sharing instead of posting a proper entry here. So here are a few recent links:

First up: Next Tuesday at 7:30pm in Lawrence's Free State Brewery, I'll be leading a conversation on "Science Fiction: Mythologies for a Changing Age." If you'd like to attend AND eat dinner, I encourage you to get there a bunch early, because the place usually fills up for these events, leaving standing-room only for those who arrive on time. If you just want to hang out and drink one of Free State's fantastic beers, well, come on down when we get started. Details here.

Today, between 4:27 and 4:42, the Cassini spacecraft out at Saturn will take the second-ever photo of Earth from beyond the Earth-Moon system. (The first was the famous "Pale, Blue Dot" shot that Voyager snapped.) The Americas, mid-Atlantic Ocean, and parts of Western Africa will be in the shot. Sure, it'll only be about a pixel wide, so your pretty face will be, um, rather tiny, but this is HISTORY! Get outside and wave at Cassini and Saturn today!

Gunn's upcoming (August 2013) novel Transcendental just got a starred review from Kirkus Reviews that calls it "Gunn's best in years - quite possibly his best ever." What a nice birthday present, wouldn't you say? Beyond being Author Guest of Honor at this year's WorldCon, he just had a collection of essays published, was Guest of Honor at the 2013 SFRA/Eaton Conference, and will see at least two more books published before his next birthday. If only the rest of us could be so awesome at any age.

Earlier this week, I submitted the fourth essay due to various people this summer. This frees me up to write, y'know, MY OWN stuff! Of course, mostly I've been recuperating from the month-long Science Fiction Summer program here at KU - which, don't get me wrong, I love, but being a residential thang where a guy needs to be "on" about 18 hours a day, sucks up a ton of creative juices. Even so, The Galactic Adventures of Jack & Stella - still planning to get it and my previous novel out to the agent later this month.

In related news, I've nearly finished updating my Hot-Rod Newport to using a complete MSD electronics package, including Atomic fuel-injection system, digital distributor, and capacitive-discharge ignition. I'm setting it up to be able to digitally control not only the fuel and spark, but also the timing. This afternoon, I hope to give it a try... *fingers crossed*

This makes me SO HAPPY: Pizza in Space video. Ad astra, little pizza slice!

Today's moment of nostalgia: Pac-Man as existential horror story, by the online comic, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

And I leave you with this, me wearing my new scooter helmet (full description of safety mods to come):


Have a great weekend!

Best,
Chris

Here's what I've been up to over the past week or two:

Visited Free State ComicCon

This is always a blast. Picked up a pile of graphic novels (and an awesome T-shirt of John Brown, Superhero).

Later that week was the "Weird Edition" of Super Nerd Night at the Jackpot.

Chased off a Home Invader

At 4:10am on Saturday night (or Sunday morning, whichever you prefer), the doorbell went off. Being a light sleeper, I woke instantly, if not clear-headedly, heart pounding within my ribcage, wondering, "WTF?!" A few seconds later, it rang again. Worried that a friend was in trouble, I set about searching for pants (found some stretchy shorts in the dark), glasses (no luck), and dagger (beneath the pillow, natch), and then headed downstairs. This is when the doorbell began ringing in eanest, as the visitor pressed it repeatedly for at least a dozen times. Now my concern turned to irritation and a bit of worry, because my friends wouldn't do that, would they?

Downstairs, I found my phone. No missed calls, so not a friend. Unfortunately, the front-door motion-detector light was turned off, making it tough to see outside very well (no Moon, either), so I inched the front curtain open. The doorbell-ringer had left. Whew.

Just then, I heard the back sliding-screen door open. Here's when I went all HOLY CRAP INTRUDER! The ensuing adrenaline cleared out any remaining sleepiness. The back-yard motion-detector light on the garage was unplugged, I learned later (probably my own fault from turning it off with a long stick), and the back-door light is switch-only (and off at the time), so no light back there, either. I peeked around the corner in the kitchen as the man - a little taller than me, I judged, and wearing bulky clothing - tried to open the sliding-glass door. Because of last year's adventure with locking myself out (this involved a drill, lock-puller, chisels, hammers, Sawzall, and such), the back door doesn't have a lock but is instead blocked; ironically, this is much more secure than a simple lock, so the door only slid an inch or so before hitting the rod in its runner. He put his hand INSIDE THE HOUSE, searching for a chain or something, I suspect, then pushed the door again.

Pissed off now, I turned on the overhead kitchen light. The intruder-dude CONTINUED TRYING TO GET INSIDE. Unfortunately, the sliding-glass door is virtually impossible to see through when it's dark outside and the overhead is on inside, so all I could see was a hand. CREEPY. At this point, it was time to go upstairs and fetch something more menacing than a dagger.

In the back bedroom where I store the menacing stuff, I discovered that, naturally, chernobylred had slept through all this. I turned on the light, informed her what was going on, found what I was looking for, and went back downstairs. En route, I also found my glasses.

When I reached the kitchen, he had left.

chernobylred, being more level-headed than I, asked, "Shouldn't we call the police?" Uh, yeah, good idea. Ahem.

They arrived within minutes. A cruiser rolled past on the street out front, lights off like a land shark, while another pulled into the alley with lights everywhere. Two police walked the alley with flashlights as bright as the sun, and another walked through my yard. The intruder was gone.

I gave them my report and discovered that they had found a suspicious man nearby on a bicycle. Of course I couldn't give any description, but if that was him, perhaps he'll be more cautious in the future. As in, NOT TRYING TO BREAK INTO HOUSES.

My theory? The doorbell-ringing was to find out if anyone was home. If someone meek had answered, he might well have busted inside for nefarious purposes, but I bet he'd have run away. I think he wanted to find an unoccupied house, break in, and steal stuff. I wish I'd gotten a good look and we could finally catch - assuming it's the same guy that's been robbing neighborhood houses - this serial burglar.

I'm double-locking the doors now and sleeping with more-substantial equipment within reach. Oh, and now all the outside motion-detector lights work.

Wrote a New, Um, Thing, Plus Jack and Stella

At last Thursday's Write Group, I finished a new piece of writing. My first sub-1000-word work in a long time! Now some polishing and off it goes.

Oh, and is coming along nicely. Over the past week or two I've written another couple thousand words. Best of all, I worked out parts of the plot-arc that were shaped more like nebulae. Also wrote a scene for the next book in the trilogy (I think it'll be three...).
The Galactic Adventures of Jack and Stella progress:

Went to the Kansas City Renaissance Festival

Since the KC RenFest opened three weekends ago, I've gone three times! Different goals each time, naturally, with next time being a group trip to the Barbarian Battles region, where I intend to pummel my friends with foam swords. This last weekend, I caught a whole bunch of shows and finally rode the bungee-trampoline. HOLY COW was that fun! I aimed for the sky, and reached a good 30 feet or more toward it. The combination of trampoline below and gnarl of bungees attached to each side of a climbing harness = HUGE AIR. I leaped so high that the bungees were actually pulling me down, and upon hitting the trampoline, I sank in knees-bent several feet before it launched me back up.

A MUST-DO BLAST FOR ALL!

This was a day when I intentionally wore jeans, not the kilt. Ahem.

Saved a Baby Snake

I was working in the garage today and discovered that one of the sticky traps I put down in there to capture horrid things like Brown Recluse spiders had captured what looks like a baby Brown Snake. It was still alive, but barely moving. Only about eight inches long, thin as a pencil at its thickest, with a teeny pointed tail and wee face with long, black, nervously flicking tongue. It was stuck upside-down on the glue trap, face first, looking like it was trying to eat the cricket stuck there.


Click the image to see the Great Plains Nature Center's website.

I felt so bad! I looked up how to humanely free a critter from the trap, and it seems that vegetable oil will do the trick. So I trimmed the glue trap down to near the snake, then drizzled olive oil (the only oil I could find in the house) along both sides of its body. I set it down in the shade in the grass upside-down so that the snake would be upright, then soaked the back (paper) of the trap, too, thinking it would loosen the glue faster.

Went back out after an hour, and the snake is gone. Hooray! Go free, little Brown Snake, and eat bugs and snails!

Conclusion

Sorry I haven't posted much in the past week. I've been busy with teaching, writing, and so forth. Hope you're well!

Best,
Chris

A couple of posts I made over the weekend that I don't want you to miss!

How to Save the World, with a great video from Jeremy Rifkin and an essay by me about empathy and how we must exercise our empathy or lose our humanity. It's the most important thing I can write about.

Library Journal wrote a review of Transcendence - a very nice one!

Now back to grading.

Best,
Chris

Gosh, I haven't made a life update for a while. Had an amazing week or so! Including:

• Book release and after-party tonight, Friday Nov. 5! Release is at Jayhawk Ink in the KU student union, with the after-party at my house from then until late. Hope to see you there!


• Just got my auto-deposit from the feds. Paid the mortgage & bills and will help pay for tonight's party supplies!


• Discovered I've been granted Special Graduate Faculty status for a renewable 5-year term. Woohoo! Now I can be instructor of record for grad classes, grad theses, and so forth, rather than needing to get another grad faculty member to input grades for me. It also means I can develop new grad classes - such as creating a line number for the summer SF Writing Workshop so that our grad students can get credit for it.


• Discovered that my position is being made a permanent budget item. This means no more year-to-year funding nonsense. Woohoo!


• I discovered a little brown bird who had flown into my sliding-door window. Not a happy moment, poor thing on its back, kicking and trying to flap its wings. When turned over, it flopped over onto its back again. Brought it to the vet to have the poor thing put down. Here comes the good news: The nurse who removed it from the towel in my backpack said the bird stood in her hand. Hooray! She's bringing it to Operation Wildlife for rehabilitation.


• My stepsister just had a baby! I'm an uncle again!

This is a good week! And here's what's new over the past month:

• Charles Beaumont films & talk next Tuesday, Nov. 9. Don't miss it!


• Astro-Porn of the Day: Jupiter, Andromeda Galaxy, and Orion Nebula Brighten an Election Night.


• We had an election and I asked, What the fuck has Obama done so far?


• Several pumpkins were massacred at my Halloween party.


• Weather-Porn of the Day: "Chiclone" over the Midwest


• James Gunn and I flit off to Morgantown, West Virginia, where Jim gives a talk on Isaac Asimov and we're treated to all manner of gentility by WVU.


• I haz a finished cover!


• I reach a weight not seen since my undergrad years.


• Quest for the Tires, wherein I go through absurd contortions on my quest to reshoe my Crossfire. And spend a fortune.


• Post: Astro-Porn of the Day: Solar Eruption is awesome.


• Robin Wayne Bailey, Susan Satterfield, and I gave this year's KCSFFS spec-fic writer's workshop at the Writers Place


• Made a health update on my eating and exercise progress. Semi-paleo eating and regular exercise FTW!

I hope your month is going well!
Chris

It's been a long time since I needed to write one of these, so thin has my posting been. Without further ado, a collection of recent posts:

• Wherein I post a writing update.


• Covetness-inspiring videos of Jay Leno's Garage.


• Wherein I cheer about the spring semester's student teacher/course evaluations.


• Three incredible discoveries that prove we live in amazing times.


• Photo-essay of "What I did on my summer vacation."


• Astro-Porn of the Day: Is Betelgeuse about to blow?


• Oh, and I went to ConQuest and had a blast!


• Astronautical Porn of the Day: the X-37B secret Air Force space plane.

Chris

Let's see; this week I -

• Graded 145,050,352 papers (approximately).


• Sealed a couple of leaks in the house's roof.


• Patched a couple of leaks in the Saab's convertible top.


• Revised the CSSF website to include info about the 2010 summer program.


• Made a new page on the CSSF website for the 2010 Campbell Conference.


• Met with my technical-editing student.


• Taught three, 3-hour lecture classes.


• Finally got comfortable using the Blackboard educational software to increase grading efficiency.


• Finally put away the huge pile of summer SF workshops' gear (delayed due to shoulder injury - lots of above-the-head lifting).


• Reorganized the garage, put away some clutter, and built wall-storage.


• Removed and recharged the battery for the 1984 VW Rabbit convertible so I can put it up for sale.


• Moved most of the attic storage into the new space Mike, Matt, and I created in the spring (from the Secret Room).


• Built an off-season storage rack in the new attic space and hung summer shirts.


• With Matt's help, brought home a new shed from Sears to store some garage items and make more room for working in the garage.


• Using a branch-cutter (for tree saplings) and weedwacker (for weeds), cleared a space in the overgrown area in the back yard to construct the shed.


• Laid out designs for the shed's foundation and for weather-proofing the carport for winter.


• Using a chainsaw, removed five tree-stumps. There were a few moments when I thought, "Gosh, I probably shouldn't be doing this alone" as the blade bounced out of a stump toward my leg. Hands are STILL tired from holding the machine for nearly an hour. Surprisingly, the shoulder is doing okay.


• Finished and revised an essay for Abyss & Apex Magazine.


• Updated Kij Johnson's website and sent her the stuff needed to enable her to continue updating it herself.


• Dealt with more insurance stuff re: accident.


• Dealt with Kansas state tax FUBAR; ordered federal tax transcript to fix it.


• Dealt with a FUBAR at my doctor's office - they'd sent a bill to collections by accident. Oops! >:-|


• Watched the Lawrence Zombie Walk - it was HUGE! Several zombies slammed into the plate-glass window of the Winchester... er, Harbour Lights, where Matt, Matt₂, Nate, Noggle, and I were seated. Met a new darts-throwing buddy named Nicholas, and we talked about epistemology and hope and writing. He bought us several beers on account of my winning each game :-D


• Made more progress on a new story.


• Did more outlining of my next novel.

And generally enjoyed life.

Now, to bed! Good night, and I hope your week went well.

Chris

I've been trying to be better reading and posting to LiveJournal, but life is still so busy and full of anxiety, so I'm still pretty behind. Please drop me a note here if I've missed something important.

• Sprained my ankle (update: all better now, though walking funny has made my other ankle sore *sigh*).


• Green supercar! and a discussion about how electric cars can reduce the need for new power plants (no, really).


• Astro-image of the Day: Martian avalanches!


• Amanda Baggs on autistic communication.


• how the Neocons gave rise to Iranian power.


• Astro-image of the Day: Saturn's moon Rhea has a ring!


• Great Bush video & Colbert's commentary on the "Protect America" blahblah.

And how are you?

Best,
Chris

Continuing a new tradition, here's what I've posted in my LJ over the past week for those, like me, who miss a lot of posts:

• Astro-image of the Day: Lunar eclipse [tomorrow, Feb. 20! - don't miss it!]


• Astro-image of the Day: youngest and brightest galaxy ever photographed


• Democracy takes another hit


• it's NOT "security vs. privacy"


• Want stuff? I got stuff! [eBay sale ends tomorrow]


• getting to know you meme


• a ray of hope from Congress [a positive update to "Democracy takes another hit"]


• Astro-image of the Day: Rho Ophiuchi dark cloud

Best,
Chris

Hi folks -

I'm going to try something new each week: a quick review of the week's posts. I've seen others do this and found it quite handy - especially for those who live in different time-zones or who miss posts made over a weekend. It'll also help me reflect a bit on recent history. So without further ado:

• Astro-image of the Day: Lunar eclipse next week. Don't miss it!


• Supercar! My ruminations about adding a 1991 BMW 850ci Dinan twin-turbo to my personal fleet. Nixed in the end.


• Apologia for making and reading so few posts lately.


• Grumbles about getting the flu. Feeling much better now!


• Astro-image of the Day: interactive 3D Cassini site. Awesome! If you haven't checked it out yet, well, check it out.


• Astro-image of the Day: New research suggests dark energy is real. 'Nuff said!


• And Eric Reynolds posts a very nice review of Visual Journeys: A Tribute to Space Art.

Okay, that's a bit more than a week; gosh, I really need to start posting more again. From now on, I'll try to do this every Monday.

Here's hoping you're doing well.

Best,
Chris