Well, it’s a bit last-minute (what isn’t with me these days?) but I thought I’d let you know that I’ll be away for a few days in Hollywood, attending Writers of the Future XXV, the Silver Anniversary Edition 🙂

I’m just going as a guest/spectator this time, so it will be nice not having the butterflies of anxiety about making a speech later in the week…This is to make up for having to miss WorldCon AGAIN because of other committments (that’s TWO Canadian-hosted WorldCons I’ve missed…Grr…)

The event this year is being held at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, site of the first Academy Awards. The folks at Galaxy Press are already blogging about the week over on the Writers of the Future Blog.

Actually, just reading the WOTF blog and looking up the blogs of some of this year’s winners has me all giddy about going, reminding me of my WOTF week in 2007… I’m really looking forward to meeting the new cohort of winners–I know a couple of them read my journal of the WOTF week and have been in touch (including Mike Wood who, bless his heart, actually became a follower of my blog…one of only two, I might add 😉 And it will be great to meet up with guys like Kevin Anderson, Sean Williams, and Steve Saville again, too. I gather Rob Sawyer will be there this year, as well, which is cool since (though I see him fairly often) he wasn’t able to attend in the year I won.

And from what I understand there are a couple of Canucks amongst the winners this year, too. It will be nice to make some new Canadian SF friends 🙂

Not sure what the schedule for the week is like (not sure when the 24-hour writing marathon takes place, for example) but I know that the meet-and-greet BBQ is Thursday night and that the award ceremony itself is on Saturday night. Can’t wait! I plan to take lots of photos and I’m sure some will find there way here at some point, once I get my act back together…

So, if you’ll excuse me, I have a plane to catch…

– S.