MileHiCon and more

MileHiCon was a ton of fun, as always.  My favorite part (as at any con!) was hanging out with fellow SFF enthusiasts and writer-friends, but I had a few authorial highlights.  I survived my reading without choking up from nerves, I had a couple total strangers actually show up at the autograph table wanting me to sign books for them (likely only another newbie author will understand the combination of glee and surprise this provoked), and hey, an audience member even called me "Dr. Schafer" at the particle physics panel, which I am choosing to take as a sign I didn't sound like an utter moron.  (I don't have a doctorate, only a masters.  To quote Big Bang Theory...
Sheldon: This would go a lot faster if you put your trade school diploma to work.  
Howard: I have a Masters degree from M.I.T. 
Sheldon: Yeah, but you've got a can-do attitude and that's what's important.

But now I am buried once again in day jobbery, so today's post is another quickie link round-up:

• Today at the Night Bazaar, I attempt to show why reading historical fiction author Dorothy Dunnett did more for my writing than any official class could've

• Colorado writer John K. Patterson reviews The Whitefire Crossing along with Aaron Ritchey's The Never Prayer.  I heard Aaron read from The Never Prayer at MileHiCon (we were both part of the same fantasy-themed group reading) and the bit of the story I heard sounded great, so between that and reading John's review, I'm gonna have to check it out.

• Fellow Night Shade author (and former Night Bazaar denizen) Brad Beaulieu (The Winds of Khalakovo, The Straits of Galahesh) is doing an AMA tonight over at Reddit at 8pm CST - come help us mock him - er, I mean, ask him questions.   (EDIT: Reddit's having outages today due to Amazon's cloud failures, so the AMA has been postponed - date still TBD.)