catherineldf | Several things, all of them good, make a post! (Reply)

It has been a FULL week!

2nd Pfizer Vax achieved! I was down for a bit with a headache and great tiredness during Flights of Foundry, unfortunately, but still had a pretty good time for the the things I managed to attend.
Queen of Swords Press author A.J. Fitzwater is a finalist in 3, count 'em, 3 categories, at New Zealand's Sit Julius Vogel Awards! The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper is up for Best Collection, No Man's Land is up for Best Novella and A.J.'s essay "Queer Speculative Aotearoa New Zealand" at LGBTQ Reads is up for Best Fan Writing!
Registration is open for the Minneapolis PEN panel discussion that I'm doing next month on "What is Book Coaching?" My angle is publicity planning, but I've done bits and pieces of other things as well. You can, in fact, hire me for this so ping me if it's of interest.
And in the big picture, Derek Chauvin was found guilty, which to be perfectly honest, is a gigantic psychological weight off my psyche. Is it enough? No. Do we need to struggle harder for more justice, more equity, an end to murder by cop? Hell, yes. But we live 4 blocks from George Floyd Square and were in town for all of last summer's burning and destruction and all the events thereafter and it is truly hard and horrible to have such a closeup view of the aftermath of a terrible crime. Minneapolis and St. Paul were both ripped apart to a degree I've never seen outside of a place that's been a recent warzone and a lot of people paid a terrible price for it. I'm glad Chauvin is now one of them.

Now to tackle my annual Earth Day post so happier news tomorrow.