Last week, I went to Readercon 24. It was amazing. I have every intention of making this now a Thing. What made it even better was the fact that one of my best friends, whom I hadn’t seen in almost two years, joined me in Burlington for the con before following me home. Sadly, Sunday was her last day with us. Let it not be another two years before we see each other.
Living so near Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park, it’s sad how rarely I go and explore. Half an hour is still prohibitive enough that I don’t go there as often as I would like, so having the excuse was fantastic. I love showing off my state.
Not much editing was accomplished since I left for Readercon, but I did do something…a bit different. Friday evening, around 8pm, the fabulous R. B. Wood (whom I met at the con) invited me to submit to The Wordcount Podcast. Friday also happened to be the day he had set for submissions to close for the new episode.
The prompt: “Being dead can be quite liberating…”
I wrote a piece of flash fiction in record time — four hours, and I am a slow, slow writer — opened up GarageBand for the first time, and somehow managed to record myself reading it. (I’m just glad it all worked.) If I’d had longer, I don’t think this is what would have come out, but it amuses me.
“Property of Afterlife, Incorporated” is in the podcast episode with four other fantastic stories from some seriously talented authors. Take a listen! (And for the impatient among you, mine starts at just about 27 minutes in.)
In related news, does anyone have any tips on bio-writing? Because mine needs help. Though I suppose it might help if I actually remembered I have a published story now and plugged the Fight Like a Girl anthology — now available for public consumption!
Melissa Burkart 
It was a FAB story. I expect more next time. 🙂 As for bios, start stalking writer sites and see what you like and don’t like. Craft from there.
RB
Thank you! It was so much fun to write and record, then hear it all together. I’ll definitely be working on that whole bio thing. This time, I just grabbed the most recent one, but I’ve never really thought too much about them (or tried not to!). Next time, I’ll have a better one.