News & Blog

Gothamist ran a great article today that has tons of amazing photos taken on North Brother Island, the abandoned island just off the Bronx where the bulk of my Bram Stoker Award-nominated novelette General Slocum’s Gold takes place. In fact, there are some great pictures of the abandoned hospital where Typhoid Mary once lived, and where Sackett and his pals run into supernatural shenanigans in the novelette. Check it out. (It’s odd that the article doesn’t mention the wreck of the General Slocum on North Brother Island’s shores in 1904, though.)

By the way, did you know General Slocum’s Gold is available as a 99¢ e-book that also includes a bonus story? Well, it is!

In other book-related news, there are only three days left to win signed ARCs of Die and Stay Dead and Dying Is My Business. Head on over to Goodreads and enter to win today!

New York Comic Con was this weekend! It was an amazing experience — and also completely overwhelming. There were over 150,000 people crammed into the Jacob Javits Center (a record-breaking attendance number, apparently). Look at this shot of the Javits Center entrance hallway, and this was only Thursday afternoon:

It got considerably more crowded as the weekend went on. But even though it was complete sensory overload, I had a great time. I handed out a ton of promotional postcards for my urban fantasy series to a crowd that seemed kind of meh about something that wasn’t a video game, movie, or TV show, but hey, I got the word out and you never know. I also got to see a lot of good friends in the industry while I was there. Here’s my friend Fred Van Lente with his frequent comics co-creator Ryan Dunlavy:

I got to see a few good friends who came from out of town for the event, too, like Amber Benson, F. Paul Wilson, and Laird Barron. Here’s Laird now with Ellen Datlow:

I spent a lot of time with my friends at the Orbit Books booth, including Alex Lencicki, Ellen B. Wright, and Laura Fitzgerald. It was a good place for me to go chill out when Comic Con became too overwhelming, which was basically every fifteen minutes. Here is a picture of Laura and Ellen with author Sam Sykes:

But of course one of the best parts of Comic Con is the cosplay. There were so many amazing costumes on display this year. I have such a huge amount of respect for cosplayers, they put so much creativity and effort into their costumes, and then they put themselves out there in the public eye without fear. Here is one of my favorite cosplayers from the weekend:

I have no idea who she’s supposed to be (I think the character is from a video game?) but she was so into it and so hilarious with her war cries that I had to take a picture. If anyone knows who she’s supposed to be, let me know in the comments, okay?

Here’s someone cosplaying as Omega from the 1973 Doctor Who serial “The Three Doctors”:

Needless to say, I loved it! There was a ton of Doctor Who cosplay at New York Comic Con, and I’d say 90% of them were dressed as the 11th Doctor, complete with fez and bow tie, while 5% were the TARDIS and 5% were “other,” such as Omega, which definitely wins for originality. I’d also estimate that 99% of the Doctor Who cosplayers were women. (Tellingly, I didn’t see any women dressed as Amy, Clara, or River, just the Doctor or the TARDIS. This, I believe, is because Amy, Clara, and River are such poorly written female characters, but that’s a blog entry for another time.) Here are two girls who came in adorable, homemade costumes as the 11th Doctor (I think?) and the TARDIS:

And here is a Dalek posing with a young 4th Doctor cosplayer (with Marge Simpson checking her cellphone in the background):

You can see the rest of my photos from New York Comic Con here, including lots more costumes. I swear I didn’t just take pictures of Doctor Who cosplayers! Anyway, I had a great time at the convention, managed not to spend too much money, and will definitely be back next year. I’m just glad there’s a year between Comic Cons. It’s exhausting, and I’m pretty sure I’ll need the full twelve months to recover.

There are only 10 days left to win signed ARCs of Die and Stay Dead and Dying Is My Business!

Enter the Goodreads giveaway today!

In other news, I’ll be at New York Comic Con this weekend, starting today. I’m not on any programming, but you’ll likely see me wandering the floor in a state of perpetual amazement. If you do, please come up and say hello.

I hit two more Barnes & Noble stores today to sign copies of Die and Stay Dead, one on the Upper East Side at 86th Street and Lexington Avenue, and the other clear across town on 82nd Street and Broadway (with a lovely walk through Central Park in between). The picture above is from the Broadway store, where they actually had the book displayed on the New in Fiction table upstairs instead of just on the Fiction & Literature shelf.

But something remarkable happened while I was there. The bookseller working in the Fiction section recognized me from when I worked at that same B&N back in 1999! He even remembered that I used to own my own bookstore, and that I liked science fiction and fantasy! I was flabbergasted. Not just that he remembered me so well, but also that he was still there after fifteen years considering B&N’s normal turnover rate. It was one of those incredible small-world moments, on par with the time someone in college recognized me because we used to carpool together to kindergarten. Hand to God, that one really happened!

I must just have one of those faces that never changes.