As 2024 comes to a close, I realize that, due to the unfortunate delays in completing the cover art for Aleyara’s Descent and Other Stories, my only professionally published work in 2024 has been the Star Trek Adventures campaign Synthetic Diplomacy, plus its associated essay (yes, I get paid for those). My only fiction publication ..read more

I’m back home and recovering from my trip to the Shore Leave Convention at its new location, the Wyndham Lancaster Resort and Convention Center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The drive out was clear and uneventful. Since I’m no longer able to stay with my cousins in the DC area the night before, and since I don’t ..read more

Well, just hours after I posted my Shore Leave panel schedule without the full descriptions, the convention site posted the full schedule: Schedule So now I can offer more detailed descriptions of my panels: Fri 5:00 PM, Cornwall: Sci-Fi for Young People—Where is it? There seems to be a dearth of science fiction for children, middle grade, and young adults, outside of Star Wars tie-ins and SF-adjacent dystopian novels. Jenifer Rosenberg, Mary Fan, Christine Norris, Christopher L. Bennett, Michael Jan Friedman Fri 6:00 PM, New Holland: The Marvels Let’s chat about the characters of Carol Danv ..read more

Well, 2023 has been a slow year for me in some ways, a big year in others. I’m still in a drought where tie-ins and other contract work are concerned. As it happens, the owners of the company that owns GraphicAudio (my Tangent Knights publishers) sold that company so they could buy Simon & Schuster (my Star Trek prose publishers), and that apparently led to a lot of waiting-and-seeing that slowed down acquiring new projects until it was all done, or at least that’s the vague impression I’ve gotten. On the other hand, my inheritance from my late Uncle Clarence has proven unexpectedly sizeab ..read more

The hotel in Hunt Valley where the Shore Leave convention has been held for as long as I’ve been going (which has been under several names as it’s changed owners repeatedly over recent years) has finally been closed entirely, so the convention has had to find a new home. The new locale is the Lancaster Wyndham Resort and Convention Center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and there’s more info about it on the Shore Leave site here: Hotel Information Lancaster is about 66 miles north-northeast of Hunt Valley, Maryland. It’s a slightly shorter drive for me if I go directly from/to Cincinnati, more c ..read more

It’s been a slow year for new releases by me, but my third Star Trek Adventures campaign of 2023 has just come out, and thanks to STA continuing to expand its license to incorporate new series, it’s my first time writing something that ties in to Star Trek: Picard. Star Trek Adventures: Children of the Wolf A mission to resettle Romulan refugees into a sector with a troubled history leads to a discovery that may cause even more problems. Difficult decisions lie ahead if you wish to avoid more conflict.  Your ship has been tasked to assist in the massive effort to evacuate and resettle ci ..read more

Okay, I’m back home after Shore Leave. The car worked fine both ways, with no problems. There were moments when I heard a repetitive noise from the tires that made me worry after my blowout last year, but when I stopped at a gas station to check, the tires were fine. It must’ve just been something in the texture of the road making that sound and making me paranoid. I had a nice uneventful trip, avoiding nearly all the rain that had been predicted. Baked a frozen pizza the night before, so I had leftover pizza for lunch and dinner on the road. (Cold pizza is surprisingly good.) Spent the night ..read more

The Shore Leave folks have posted the schedule for next weekend’s convention here: Schedule Since I don’t have much coming out this year to talk about, my own participation in the panels will be slight, entirely on Friday, July 7: 4pm Star Trek Discovery, a New Era of Trek Salon B Rigel Ailur (moderator), Derek Tyler Attico , Christopher L. Bennett , Kirsten Beyer , Kelli Fitzpatrick , Dayton Ward The panel will discuss how DSC has broken new ground, its legacy, and the other shows it launched, like Star Trek Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and Strange New Worlds. 5pm What Happened to the Sta ..read more

Big news today from the Star Trek Adventures role-playing game! Modiphius has gotten the rights to add Star Trek: Lower Decks to its gaming universe, as revealed today on StarTrek.com: https://www.startrek.com/news/star-trek-adventures-brings-the-action-to-the-lower-decks A hardcover campaign guide for creating Lower Decks-style campaigns will be out in the summer, but there’s some digital content releasing today, including a Season 1 character pack containing statistics for a range of LD characters and the U.S.S. Cerritos. And I had the privilege of writing the first Lower Decks-style standal ..read more

My newest Star Trek Adventures product is out, and it’s free! Star Trek Adventures Mission Briefs: Ancient Civilizations The Galaxy is ancient beyond easy comprehension – on the order of a million times older than Human civilization. Uncounted civilizations have risen and fallen before the dawn of recorded history of any Federation world. While most of their remains have long since vanished, many have left ruins or artifacts that endure to the present. Other ancient societies live on, wielding technologies or mental abilities vastly beyond our own, though not always in a form recognizable to ..read more