What's that? I share a contributor credit with such famous speculative fiction writers as Elizabeth Bear, John Scalzi, Chuck Wendig, Mary Robinette Kowal, Alaya Dawn Johnson, and Jim C. Hines?

You bet I do! The Ad Astra 50th Anniversary SFWA Cookbook came to be when a few fellow illustrious Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America members decided it was high past time for another cookbook to come forth from our midst. Cat Rambo and Fran Wilde volunteered for editing duties and managed to gather up 150+ recipes along with some bonus specialties with ingredients that may be hard to find...

I'll let the Foreword speak for itself to give you a better idea of what this cookbook entails:

Within the science fiction and fantasy community, writers work wherever they can find a table, often among friends, virtual and face to face. It's a blend of friendship and business, of celebration and craft. It's messy sometimes. It's beautiful.

In celebration of fifty years of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Ad Astra: The 50th Anniversary SFWA Cookbook has collected recipes old and new from writers across the span of its membership. But this is more than just a cookbook. What you hold in your hands is a historical document. You'll find a history of SF/F entertaining that goes back more than fifty years. Some of it is funny; some (like the bash cake/Mars colony cake), is itself a historical document; some of it is conversations between multiple writers. Some of it is written in fanciful, or ... colorful language.

Here be Dragons.

Not everyone we wished to include are within these pages. But many are. We hope many more are to come in the future cookbooks.

The introduction to my Seared Peaches with Prosciutto and Basil definitely qualifies as one of those fanciful entries. It is a tribute to the speculative fiction writers and fans of the Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina, which is where I began my fiction-writing career and where I developed wonderful friends and support from among many talented fellow key-pounders.

You can get your hands on this very unique, and very fun collector's item of a cookbook straight from the SFWA website here. Click to order through Paypal. Spiral-bound print is $19.95 and e-book is $9.99. I'd recommend the print myself.

Ad Astra is available for the same prices from Amazon as well.

All proceeds from the book are going directly to the SFWA Legal Fund, which is used to help SFWA members with court costs when the need for writing-related legal action is necessary--most of us don't make much in this gig, so the legal fund can be a career saver when our work needs to be protected.

Enjoy this fun collaboration, and I'll enjoy my moment of glory being among this fantastic group of recipe contributors.

About a month ago, I took part in Winter Tales, a reading of holiday-themed works by local authors that was hosted by the Orange County Public Library in Hillsborough. Poems, essays, stories, and songs were all shared that evening, and now we have video of each reading! I'm embedding them all here so you can enjoy the event as we did.

First, because this is my blog, I'm sharing my reading of a personal essay, "Treasures in Cardboard Boxes." It's a reflection on losing a mixtape of Christmas carols and on growing up a little different from your family.

http://youtu.be/RASxC6VbDnw

Next is "Winter Sonnet," a poem by James Maxey, the organizer of the event. It is a quick, sweet listen about celebrating winter with his wife.

http://youtu.be/0n8d_4kxufM

Also from James is a personal essay, "Christmas Dismemberment," about receiving presents you don't really want as a child.

http://youtu.be/JyMesp5iZxM

The evening began with a reading of a drabble, a 100-word short stories, by Mur Lafferty, the first of which was "Zuzu's Bell" about Lucifer on his birthday.

http://youtu.be/FvO5Xr4mYWY

Mur's second reading was "750,000 of Your Friends Like This," a futuristic, cynical, yet fun take on the Christmas Carol revisions in the future. Sorry it's a bit lower quality than the rest of the excerpts.

http://youtu.be/rXQn3qydFhU?t=4m47s

Alex Granados gave less of a reading and more of a storytelling, sharing an adventure with in-laws called "Death By Big Screen TV." It's a great portrayal of his father-in-law and his can-do-anything attitude.

http://youtu.be/DWLtPhQDqq4

Last, but not least, are two songs from Gray Rinehart. The first was inspired by his time in Greenland and is titled "Winter Simplifies the World."

http://youtu.be/NcuFopdrE3Y

The second song is light-hearted and FILK, meaning it's a play on science fiction or fantasy works. This is "Tauntauns to Glory," a fun tribute to the majestic tauntauns of Star Wars.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6RS-YAgk2U&feature=share&list=PLQpBV0kAm077EazC-jrPE5iaGkhIn_-5j

And thus concludes these Winter Tales. Hopefully, they brightened yours, wherever it may be.

Would you like to know how good of a year 2012 has been so far? This is the second time I've had to replace one of my planned bragging posts with a just published one instead!  Let's hope this is a trend that continues.

This week, I'm directing you to an essay I wrote for our local independent newspaper, sensibly named the Independent Weekly, or the Indy if you're a local. The Front Porch column is open to readers to send in 500-word essays on any topic, and it's often a great place to get a sense of what others in the community are thinking about or just taste a little slice of someone's life. This week, it's my life you can dig into, or at least my opinions on the running craze and the constant fundraisers around us. Here is your teaser:

On Facebook, I complete the circle of life every day by reading the status updates of friends and acquaintances. Births, weddings, deaths, more births: They're all there on display. Lately, it seems, there's a new element of living that I'd previously neglected. I'm talking about races, the running kind—anything that ends in "-athlon," "-K" or red-faced racers clutching their stomachs as they breathlessly pass a finish line.

Ostensibly, it's both the method of choice to raise money for every known charity and the trendiest way to announce a transition from out-of-shape blob to exercise hound. Watching from the sidelines, it's a little bewildering . . .

For the rest of the Front Porch, either pick up a free copy of the Indy at pretty much any coffee shop and many local businesses or head over to the web version. Thanks for reading!

Hello there, fine blog readers! Last week, I did my first reading as part of Bull Spec's Issue #5 launch. My short story, Bother, is featured on the cover, and I got the pimp spot of the evening--by which I mean, I read after 7 other fabulous speculative fiction writers and editors did their things that I wish I had recorded to share with you, too! I didn't expect a recording at all, but that dastardly husband of mine pulled out his cell phone camera and . . . it wasn't that bad! So I'm sharing it with you today, and I hope you enjoy hearing the first few pages of the story. If you do, pick up a copy of Bull Spec now! If you're local, it's at the Regulator and both Durham Barnes & Nobles this week and will be expanding to the locations listed below the video in the next few weeks. If you're not, then order it here.

Becca Gomez Farrell at Quail Ridge Bookstore from ben farrell on Vimeo.

Tips for polishing up my reading presentation are very welcome. Hope you enjoyed it!

Locations where Bull Spec #5 is or soon will be available:

The Regulator Bookshop (Durham, 9th Street) Sci-Fi Genre Comics & Games (Durham, 3215 Old Chapel Hill Rd between University Dr and MLK Blvd) Quail Ridge Books & Music (Raleigh, 3522 Wade Ave at Ridge Rd) Internationalist Books & Community Center (Chapel Hill, 405 W Franklin St) Chapel Hill Comics (Chapel Hill, 316 W Franklin St) Foundation's Edge (Raleigh, 2526 Hillsborough St) Storyteller's Books (Wake Forest, 100 E. Roosevelt Ave) Capitol Comics (Raleigh, 3027 Hillsborough St) Flyleaf Books (Chapel Hill, 752 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd) All Fun & Games (Apex, 958 US Highway 64) Ultimate Comics (Durham: 9th St; Chapel Hill: Farrington Rd) Barnes & Noble of Cary (760 SE Maynard, Cary Commons) Barnes & Noble of Durham - The Streets at Southpoint (8030 Renaissance Parkway) Barnes & Noble of Durham - New Hope Commons (5400 New Hope Commons) All Booked Up (Apex, 104-B North Salem St) Northgate Books (Durham: Northgate Mall) North Carolina: Barnes & Noble of Greenville, NC (3040 Evans Street) New York: Forbidden Planet NYC (NYC, NY) Pennsylvania: Golden Eagle Comics (Reading, PA)

I am way behind on all my travel posts, but I’m hoping to get that taken care of in the next few weeks. Here’s one on a trip the husband and I took to High Point, NC, for the 35th Stellarcon. “Now old enough to run for president!” was the unofficial slogan. This was my third speculative fiction convention, and Ben’s first.

What did I think? It was fun! Stellarcon convinced me to sign up in large part because I was amazed that such a small conference offered so much programming. As an author, I’m most drawn to the panels on writing-related aspects that I need more guidance on, but I also really enjoyed the fan-based panels, though I only attended two. One was on love for New Who and the other was a celebration of that glorious genre called B-movies.

A sci-fi/fantasy convention, you say? Where are the crazy pictures? Well, since you asked . . .

Klingon Karaoke!

Apparently, this is a Stellarcon tradition, with a Klingon and an Enterprise crewwoman hosting the event. I sang a little No Doubt—pretty badly since I didn’t remember the verses to Spiderwebs. Sigh. Other singers had more success.

The esteemed Klingon MC singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

On Day 2, Ben and I went for a walk around High Point, as I’d never been there beyond stopping to take a picture there during the Giant Furniture Adventure. I was surprised by many of the awesome buildings High Point has that are definitely worthy of a shot or two.

The Convention Center.

A nice, new-looking bus station.

The Forbidden City . . . in High Point?!

A nice statue of John Coltrane. There’s a plaque nearby that plays excerpts from several of his works.

Loved this ship-shaped building.

This is a familiar NC sight.

That evening, we headed to the costume competition, which is always a highlight for me of these events. Here were my favorite costumed competitors.

I don’t know who this was supposed to be, but you have to love a wizard with a clawed wand..

Oh, Arthur Dent. Who doesn’t love you?

A Dharma worker—don’t let him know you’re looking!

A lovely Star Wars costume.

I couldn't leave out the creepy clown from New Who.

And yes, that’s Raven again, looking like the smashing steampunk character he is.

I’ll post some more pictures on our photo site eventually, but I’m even farther behind updating there. Oh, the torment of sharing too much personal information over the interwebs--my digital life can never keep up with my real one.