Friends, family, and readers in LA!

Saturday afternoon, come find me at the mass autographing event at the 2019 SFWA Nebula Conference, free and open to the public (that means you!).

Copies of Wings Unseen will be available for purchase, but you can also bring your already purchased copies, and I will *finally* sign them for those of you I haven't met up with yet. I'll also have bookmarks....and some time to hang about 3:30 to 5:30 at the Village across the street...

• Saturday, May 18th from 1:00PM — 3:00PM

• Warner Center Marriott Woodland Hills – Grand Ballroom

• 21850 W Oxnard St, Woodland Hills, CA 91367

Featuring over 100 Authors! (I'm starring the most well-known ones I know)

*John Joseph Adams

Michael Anderle

Marie Andreas

Liz Argall

Barbara Barnett

Gregory Benford

TJ Berry

Laura Blackwell

Brooke Bolander

Joseph Brassey

*Jonathan Brazee

Rhett C. Bruno

Rob Buckman

Michael Cassutt

Mike Chen

Curtis C. Chen

Gwendolyn Clare

P. Djèlí Clark

*Neil Clarke

*Tina Connolly

John Peyton Cooke

Dan Cray

S.B. Divya

* Cory Doctorow

Meghan Ciana Doidge

A.K. DuBoff

Andy Duncan

*Scott Edelman

Eva L. Elasigue

* Meg Elison

Isaac R. Fellman

Sheila Finch

Susan Forest

Richard Fox

Laura Frankos

* Sarah Gailey

* William Gibson

Laura Anne Gilman

Rebecca Gomez Farrell

W. L. Goodwater

A. T. Greenblatt

Sally Wiener Grotta

A. J. Hackwith

*Joe Haldeman

Rachel Hartman

Erin M. Hartshorn

Kate Heartfield

Alyc Helms

Barbara E. Hill

José Pablo Iriarte

Xia Jia

L.S. Johnson

James Patrick Kelly

* Jeffe Kennedy

Scott King

* Mary Robinette Kowal

* R.F. Kuang

Derek Künsken

* David D. Levine

Henry Lien

Jenn Lyons

Terry Madden

PJ Manney

* Lee Martindale

Alastair Mayer

* Sam J. Miller

Mary Anne Mohanraj

Tina LeCount Myers

Larry Niven

Karen Osborne

Chrome Oxide

Douglas Phillips

Palmer Pickering

* Sarah Pinsker

C.L. Polk

Daniel Potter

* Lettie Prell

* Cat Rambo

* Rebecca Roanhorse

* Kelly Robson

* Lawrence M. Schoen

Caitlin Seal

Peng Shepherd

Elsa Sjunneson-Henry

* Dave Smeds

Rosemary Claire Smith

* Melinda M. Snodgrass

Caitlin Starling

Shanna Swendson

* Rachel Swirsky

Christine Taylor-Butler

Lauren C. Teffeau

R J Theodore

Natalia Theodoridou

* Harry Turtledove

Nicole Valentine

Greg van Eekhout

R.R. Virdi

Juliette Wade

E.D. Walker

Wren Wallis

M. Darusha Wehm

Yudhanjaya Wijeratne

* Fran Wilde

* Connie Willis

Gwendolyn Womack

William F. Wu

Christie Yant

Caroline M. Yoachim

Joe Zieja

And more! See you there. Full details here: https://nebulas.sfwa.org/nebula-mass-autographing-announced/

I am thrilled to be sharing my experience as a debut author with the Litquake and greater Bay Area literary community at this panel. It takes place on Sunday, 4/14, at 2:15 pm, at Z Space in the Mission.

"Debut Authors: Fame and Fortune in Five Easy Steps" will feature myself and fellow debut authors, Lauren Markham and Huda Al-Marashi ,as we discuss just how we made it to our debut years and what we learned after our first books came out. Sarita Cannon, associate professor of English at San Francisco State University, will be our moderator to guide us through sharing the sometimes exhilarating, sometimes mystifying experience of getting to this point in our careers.

Get your tickets here! With the code LITQ20, you can save 25%--Hooray! Our panel is part of the Litquake Writers Weekend at Z Space.

Day 1 (4/13) is on the art of writing, with panels devoted to discussing flash fiction, short story, and novel writing techniques. Day 2 is on the Pursuit of Publishing, which includes our debut author panel and discussions on traditional publishing and its continuing relevance and on how to draw in readership for your works. Each panel costs $20 for admittance and each one will provide a wealth of valuable information for writers looking to polish their craft or get to the next stage of publication.

And yes, Wings Unseen will be available for purchase and signing at the event! Hope to see you there!

Please join me at Parallel Lit on Friday, 4/12 at 8:30 pm at Paulista Kitchen in Oakland!

The awesome and amazing Meg Elison, author of the Road to Nowhere post-apocalyptic series, is founding and hosting this reading series that will celebrate speculative fiction in the East Bay. You can get tickets here at Eventbrite, but you can also pay at the door--$10 is not a bad price at all to hear this crew read our fiction and talk about our work! Plus, Paulista Kitchen is a fantastic cafe and restaurant featuring Brazilian cuisine with California influences and the delicious cashew milk ice cream of Mr. Dewie's.

Yeah, Mr. Dewie's is that good. Mmm.

No, I am not above bribing you with food photos. It's my superpower. Meg and I will be joined by (and eating ice cream with) three other badass local spec fic authors: Tim Pratt, Juliette Wade, and Caroline Ratajski. Come join us in welcoming the birth of Parallel Lit!

Fogcon 2019 starts tomorrow!

As per usual, I don't feel ready, but do I ever for conventions? This year, I'll be at Fogcon all weekend. Here is my schedule, should you care to join me at any point:

Friday, 4:30 pm, Salon A/B: It's Dangerous to Go Alone! Take This--Writer Support Networks in the Bay Area. Panelist.

Scene: The writer types alone, perhaps with a bottle of bourbon for companionship and a cat on the lap. The writing lifestyle is often portrayed as solitary, but as with all careers, writers need support to improve and to get their work seen by the wider world. Come learn what resources are available for speculative fiction writers in the Bay Area, from critique groups, to marketing, to writing classes, to kicking back and talking writer shop with others going through the creative struggle of the written word.

Saturday, 10:00 am, Salon F: Discovering Short Fiction. Panelist.

We live in golden age for short SFF, but there’s so much out there and relatively few reviews and recommendations compared to novels. How are people finding short fiction? What are some techniques the panelist can suggest for those looking to read more short stories? And what can the community do to help showcase the awesome short fiction happening now?

Saturday, noon, Lobby Bar: East Bay Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Meetup Group Craft Klatsch. Host.

Join my East Bay critique group for SF/F writers during Saturday's lunch hour in Fogcon's lobby bar to unwind from the con so far and catch up on what's been great and what folks are looking forward to next.

Saturday, 8:00 pm, Salon F: Small Houses, Big Futures--Publishing SF with Small Presses. Moderator.

While many of us dream of a Big 5 deal, there are numerous Small Press publishers that are taking risks the larger publishers can't, giving more writers access to the market. But that access comes with smaller (or no) advances and a larger proportion of labor on the author. What's different about publishing with a Small Press vs. a big publishing house? How is the experience different, for the editor and for the writer?

Sunday, 1:30 pm, Santa Rosa room: Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading. Host and Reader.

Broad Universe is one of the oldest organizations supporting female writers of speculative fiction. At conventions nationwide, Broad Universe hosts Rapid Fire Readings to highlight the amazing work of our members. Several members of the group take part by sharing short bursts of fiction that keep the reading lively and exciting.

And from there...home! Is it wrong that I'm looking forward to that last part already?

I would love to have you join me in Alameda for this author event. As I'm the only author on the agenda, I am a bit nervous about having a turnout...this is why I usually invite more authors to read with me. ;)  RSVP through Eventbrite right here, and yes, it's free. I will have copies of _Wings Unsee_n available for sale.

Host Kevis Brownson and I will have a conversation about my writing and the organizations I'm involved with, then I'll do a reading, then there will be audience Q&A, and then a signing and reception to wrap up the evening. 6 pm is early! So don't worry about sliding in a bit late.

Here's the series description: For the third year, the AAUW Alameda presents a spring series of talks featuring authors who live and write in Alameda and nearby, now co-sponsored by the Friends of the Alameda Free Library. Our February author Rebecca Gomez Farrell will discuss her novel Wings Unseen and her current writing projects.

Hope to see you there!

Catching up on appearances I've made over the past couple of years for food and fiction, and lo and behold! I never promoted my episode of the Swirl Suite podcast from last year! I love this group, or "squad" as they call themselves, of female wine and spirit professionals of color, based mainly in the DC area. Last year, they did a series, "Get to Know a Wine Blogger," and I was thrilled to be asked to take part. Surprisingly, the only subject that's out of date is that my fantasy novel, Wings Unseen, is no longer coming out but has been out for a year (pick it up on the right -->). Oh, and we're a year past that Wine Bloggers Conference in Santa Rosa as well. Details, details. Otherwise, it's a pretty fun interview!

In this 42-minute episode, you'll first listen to Sarita (Vine Me Up), Glynis (Vino Noire), Leslie (Vino 301), Tanisha (Girl Meets Glass), and Melissa (the Liquor Lady) talking about summertime humidity, Juneteenth, and Oz restaurant's Happy Hour in Arlington, VA. About eight and a half minutes, the ladies start chatting up myself and Tivon of Von Vino.

Tivon and I talk about how we got into wine blogging, how drinking it got us into wanting to record it and learn more about it. Then we all talk about the wineries we visited most recently and I say "like" way too often, as per usual. I'm a California Valley Girl - I can't help it. Great tips follow for advice to wine bloggers just starting out, our favorite happy hours (shoutout to the Libertine!), we play a word association game, and a surprising truth is revealed -- very few of us keep cases of wine at the ready! I also share some of my fiction writing process, which I'm in the depths of on two different books right now.

That direct Soundcloud link is right here. Or check out the show below on Youtube, which I queued up to right before my and Tivon's introductions. Thanks for tuning in! And thanks to the Swirl Suite Squad for having me.

This Sunday, 10/14, at 3:30 pm, I'll be on the Pursuit of Publishing: It Takes a Village Panel at Litquake!

This is my first ever Litquake appearance, and I'm excited to participate. Panel description: What does it take to create and sustain a writing community? CCA's Leslie Roberts discusses strength in numbers with Mary Volmer (Hedgebrook), Scott James (Castro Writers Coop), Casey Bennett (Lit Events for the Lit-Minded), and . . . me! I'll be sharing about my work co-helming the East Bay Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Meetup, a San Francisco chapter of Women Who Submit Lit, and two closed Facebook groups for female writers - one for speculative fiction writers across the globe and one for writers of all stripes in the Bay Area.

Some tickets will be available at the door, but a few tickets are still online for $25. That price includes three earlier panels on the same day, all designed to aid writers on their path to publication. All four Pursuit of Publishing panels will take place at the Timken Auditorium of the California College of the Arts at 1111 Eight Street in San Francisco.

Join us!

Worldcon 76 starts on Thursday, and I am excited!

And also slightly overwhelmed, so I'm glad I'm not appearing on much programming myself - it's not often that you hear a writer admit that. =D But I will be appearing on a little of it, and I'll definitely be around all weekend, so please do come say hi anytime! You can purchase Wings Unseen at Borderlands Books' vendor booth, and I'm happy to sign copies. Here's where I know I'll be:

Tuesday, 8/14

• 8 pm: SF in SF presents George R. R. Martin in conversation with John Picacio at the Fox Theater, benefiting Locus Magazine! This is not an official Worldcon event, but it is Worldcon adjacent.

Thursday, 8/16

• 6 pm: The Borderlands Sponsor Party at Loft Bar and Bistro. This is a party only for sponsors of Borderlands Books in San Francisco. But I can take a plus 1...
• 12 am to 1:30 am: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) Hospitality Suite. I'll be on Door Dragon duty, checking SFWA memberships and IDs for entrance.

Friday, 8/17

• 1 pm to 1:25 pm: I'll be signing books at the SFWA table in the Exhibit Hall.
• 6:45 - 8:45 pm: Ghost Hunting Tour! You too can sign up for this downtown San Jose tour led by Bay Area Ghost Hunter Adrienne Foster. $15, I think.

Saturday, 8/18

• 10 am: How Would Civilization Evolve if...: How Human and Nonhumans Would Evolve Based on Their Environment - This is a panel being led by professors from my alma mater, UC Santa Cruz (banana slugs, forever!), so I'm making sure I'll be in attendance. 210 E at the Convention Center.
• 2 pm: Craft Klatsch with the East Bay Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Meetup group - This is an offsite event for members of the Meetup group that I co-helm in the East Bay. You are welcome to join us and learn more! Here's the Meetup event.
• 5 pm: Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading! I'll be one of 15 readers at this traditional Broad Universe event, where we toss tiny tidbits of fiction out into the wild at breakneck pace. Join us! Here's our poster:

Sunday, 8/19

• I don't really know how the Hugos work...but I'm planning to attend or watch a simulcast or whatever the case may be. Help me?
• Midnight - 1:30 am: I'll again be Door Dragon for the SFWA Hospitality Suite.

Monday, 8/20

• The last day of Worldcon, alas. I will likely catch some friends' readings in the afternoon then head home to Oakland and the husband and kitties.

Whew! That schedule is only of events I *know* I'll be attending, though a good many of my days are full with potential plans already. Always feel free to tweet at, Facebook message, or email me to try and find a time to get together. Or a drink at barcons, as it goes. Cheers to that!

This Saturday afternoon at 4 pm, I'll be reading at the first ever Women Who Submit Lit Reading! What is Women Who Submit Lit (WWS)? Founded in 2011, WWS seeks to empower women writers by creating physical and virtual spaces for sharing information, supporting and encouraging literary submissions, and clarifying the submission and publication process.

I helm one chapter of WWS in the Bay Area and primarily organize submission parties, where we get together and encourage each other to submit our work out for publication.  Dominica Phetteplace, who passed that duty on to me last year, decided it would be fun to have a reading for our chapter and thus, this reading was born!

Women Who Submit Lit Reading

When: Saturday, August 11, 4 pm.

Where: The Octopus Literary Salon, 2101 Webster St., Oakland

RSVP: Facebook Event

Who: Me, Dominica, Jennifer Ng, MK Chavez, and Simmi Aujli! Bios below.We're all regular members of this WWS chapter, except MK, who's starting her own chapter in Fruitvale very soon. Come for more details on that.

And just come! There may be an after party...

Becca Gomez Farrell's debut epic fantasy novel, Wings Unseen, was published in August 2017 by Meerkat Press. Her speculative short fiction can be read in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, the Future Fire, and Dark Luminous Wings. Becca also blogs about food, drink, and travel at theGourmez.com.

Jennifer Ng is a writer in San Francisco. She recently published a nonfiction book, Ice Cream Travel Guide, and is working on a novel based on her grandparents' lives in China, Peru, and the United States. Her work has appeared in Arkana, Havik, Cold Creek Review, Shut Up and Write! Zine, and Airplane Reading. In her writing, she explores identity and relationships. If she was asked about her favorite hobby at the age of 8, she would have answered “observing”, which is still a joy and an inspiration for storytelling. Read more at jennism.com or follow her on twitter: @jennism.

Simmi Aujla is an Indian-American speculative fiction writer based in the Bay Area. She is an alum of the VONA / Voices of Our Nation workshop, where she studied genre fiction. A 2018 fellow at the San Francisco Writers' Grotto, in the fall she will attend an interdisciplinary arts residency at Marble House Project. Simmi is a Brown alum and former journalist, with experience at Politico, the Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press. Keep up with her at www.simmiaujla.com.

Oakland based Latinx writer Mk Chavez is the author of Mothermorphosis and Dear Animal, (Nomadic Press.) She is a recipient of a 2017 Pen Oakland Josephine Miles Award and her poem The New Whitehouse, Finding Myself Among the Ruins was selected by Eileen Myles for the Cosmonauts Avenue 2017 Poetry Award. She is a co-founder/curator of the reading series Lyrics & Dirges and co-director of the Berkeley Poetry Festival, a fellow with CantoMundo, a writer in residence at Alley Cat Books, and this fall she will be the guest curator of the reading series at UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.

Dominica Phetteplace is a math tutor who writes literary and science fiction. Her work has appeared in Analog, Asimov’s, Clarkesworld and F&SF. She has won a Pushcart Prize, a Rona Jaffe Award, a Barbara Deming Award and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, I-Park, and Marble House Project.

I have three readings in the Bay Area in the next few weeks, and I'd love to see you in the audience at any of them - I will, of course, have copies of Wings Unseen with me for purchase at the events. But that doesn't mean I'll be reading from my book! In fact, at the first one coming up, I definitely won't be...

R-Dub Love a special reading from the Rolling Writers! #

For R-Dub Love, I'll be sharing a story straight out of my crazy dating life in church youth group! Believe me, I have plenty of those tales...Here are the deets:

When: Saturday, July 28, at 6 pm. Where: Rolling-Out Cafe, 1722 Taraval Street, San Francisco

What: It's R-Dub Love, Rolling Writers’ evening of lit and music on romantic love. Featuring these romantics:

• Anna Allen. Anna is a femme student living in Oakland. She has performed at Lit Crawl, Quiet Lightning, and the National Black Arts Conference.
• Michael Crabtree. Michael is a singer-songwriter, a multi-instrumentalist, and Rolling Writers’ steady rolling musical soul.
• Lynn Goodwin. Lynn is the owner of Writer Advice, www.writeradvice.com, the author of _Never Too Late: From Wannabe to Wife at 62, Talent,_and You Want Me to Do WHAT? and a manuscript consultant.
• The Book of Jones (Dennis Finnegan and Johny Blood), a literary off-shoot of the Americana band, Along Came Jones. They’ll be performing at the SF Fringe Festival in September.
• Rebecca Gomez Farrell (that's me!). As a speculative fiction author and food blogger, Rebecca chases dragons and dissects wine glasses. Her first book, Wings Unseen, an epic fantasy, came out in 2017.
• Sarah HaBa. Sarah is a San Francisco-based artist. A year ago, she noticed that the titles of her paintings were becoming poems. She now studies poetry at The Writing Salon.
• Colleen McKee. Colleen is the author of five books including The Kingdom of Roly-Polys (Pedestrian Press). She yearns to become the first Poet Laureate of BART. For upcoming appearances, visit http://colleenmckee.blogspot.com/
• Carina Mifuel. Carina, a singer, writes: “Here stands a native of our Sunset dear/To sing and entertain thy gentle ear/ When silent, she explores the city's ground/In church lofts and cafés she then is found.”
• Sarah Paris. Sarah is a Swiss-American poet, writer, photographer, and former journalist. Her most recent publication is "The Traveler," a queer "shaggy-dog-chasing-ghosts story" penned by her alter ego Chris Solano.
• Sandra Wassilie. Sandra writes poetry and fiction. In 2013, she cofounded the monthly Bay Area Generations Reading Series. Her poetry appears in a chapbook _Smoke Lift_s and in several literary journals.
• Wax Moon are an acoustic duo (Paul Nelson Kimball and John Blatchford) whose simple, clear sound is built around vocal harmonies and acoustic guitar, reaching back to the folk troubadour past but planted firmly in the indie-folk-Americana present.

That's a whole lotta love. More info and/or RSVP at the Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/235822340339209/?active_tab=about

Hope to see you there! Here's some lovin'...from my sandwich maker at Hive Coffeehouse.