It is important to find hope, wherever you can find it, and nurture it rather than crush it. Hope can carry you through the tough times. And we are going through some of the toughest I’ve ever seen.

There are quintessential virtues, load-bearing ideals that we can build upon. Build what? Everything. A person. A story. A society. Literally everything.

A partial list of these virtues includes: honesty, integrity, empathy, compassion, and generosity. There are more virtues, some more arguable than others, but the ones I’ve listed are the ones I hold dearest, and the ones most core to my personality.

Why am I talking about this?

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve seen terrible things. The murder of representatives by political activists. The arrest of elected officials, perpetrated by the new American Gestapo. Illegal, immoral actions involving the national guard and marines. Crushing, despotic behavior by a would-be tin-pot fascist, on the backs of greedy, opportunistic people that claim to love my country but demonstrate through their actions a profound hatred of the foundation and ideals that this country was built upon.

Maybe I’m naive, and this country was always built upon hatred and greed. But, there is an ideal I grew up accepting, which is better, more noble than the aspirations of the people in charge today. To that ideal, I will continue to hold true.

It’s through the quintessential virtues that we can look at the actions of those in charge and make our judgement. Is what they are saying true? Are they doing what they said they would do? Are they working for the interests of people other than themselves, and are their actions compassionate? Are they providing for those that cannot provide for themselves?

These are the questions you can use to judge your own actions, as well as the actions of those that are supposed to be working in the public interest.

Those that are operating without virtue are the villains of our story. They can easily be identified by what they are saying and doing.

And this is where hope comes in. My hope is in the belief that those acting for their own interests are not as powerful as those that band together for the common good. My hope is that this time of darkness and deceit will be vanquished by people waking up to a renewed appreciation for truth and goodness.

I attended the No Kings protest and saw a lot of people outside, raising their voice against the cartoonishly evil people in power. Those of us that favor a free and despot-free America outnumber those that wish to cosplay Nazi Germany.

Before Trump and Musk and RFK Jr and the rest of Trump’s junk-drawer-of-a-cabinet started dismantling the country, the system was broken to its foundation. Inequality is baked in. Perhaps the only way for us to build a better system is for things to get so bad that we break down the entire structure and rebuild from the ground up.

Do I believe that will happen? Not really. But I can hope and dream, and maybe if enough other people also wish for us to aspire to a better version of ourselves, one in which we invest in our people, use technology to prop people up instead of take advantage of them, and one in which the quintessential virtues illuminate the way in which we administrate and grow our country… maybe in my lifetime, we will make a better place for everyone.

But to get there, we have to support each other, stand up against the people that would oppress us, and remain hopeful as we hold ourselves to a higher standard.

That all sounds great, but what do actually do?

For my part, it means I need to keep writing, both my blogs and my fiction, and keep my eyes open for opportunities to help. It means attending protests. It means listening to people that are different to me. Maybe… just maybe… it means running for local office and getting directly involved in public service.

This is all I can do at the moment. Write the words, and put them out into the world. Try to make some sense of what is going on, and if I have the strength, find a way to hope.

Earlier today, dog murderer and director of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, gave a press conference in LA where she said that she and the Trump administration were not going anywhere, but would stay as long as they needed to in order to “liberate” the city from its socialist and “burdonsome” mayor and governor. You know, the people that were elected.

At that point, Alex Padilla, U.S. Senator from California and ranking member of the Senate’s immigration subcommittee, raised his voice to ask a question. It was a disruption, certainly, but he didn’t shout, lunge, or incite violence. He called from across the room, and was then physically removed, thrown on the ground, and handcuffed.

Here’s video, from Fox no less, which shows exactly what I just described:

Fox, of course, puts their own spin on it, describing Padilla as screaming. And the Fox audience in the comments are eating it up.

Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House of Representatives and grinning, professional Trump-ass-kisser, immediately called for Senator Padilla to be censured.

That’s bad. Everything about this is bad. The military should not be deployed on American soil to attack American citizens. ICE shouldn’t be allowed to kidnap people and violate their right to due process. The head of the Department of Homeland Security should not be threatening a continuous military invasion of a California city.

All of this makes me mad. All of this should make you mad.

A sitting Senator raised their voice to question a military coup and is violently thrown to the ground. The party that screams “state’s rights” is comfortable deploying military in defiance of the state’s elected officials. The administration that is comfortable putting stipulations on natural disaster relief has no problem spending $134 million deploying the military to a place where peaceful protests are going on.

They lie and say that L.A. is in chaos. It’s not. ICE and the military presence are escalating tensions.

Fucking ICE. It shouldn’t even exist.

This short sums up my feelings about immigration and illegal aliens perfectly.

ICE is a terrorist organization, running around with their faces covered and without uniforms. Taking people without due process is a terrorist act, to families and to communities. Standing against them is morally right and correct — and also scary as hell.

I read about what happened with Padilla and then struggled through the rest of my work day. It’s so hard to just go about my business as if everything is normal. I want to do something. But what? I can’t quit my job, buy a gun, and take matters into my own hands. I’m not a superhero in an action movie. I’m an old man, a little overweight, with high blood pressure, a broken tooth, and eyes that are starting to go bad.

I’ll go to the protest on Saturday, but what else can I do, really? Run for office? I can’t get more than 350 people to follow me on social media. I never have and never will win a popularity contest.

I struggled through the day, and just a little while ago, I read that Israel has begun air strikes in Iran. Israel tried to kill the entire Iranian leadership, and it sounds like they had some success. Iran will retaliate. This is not a situation where cooler heads will prevail.

It is not unlikely that nuclear weapons are going to go off in The Middle East.

This is… too much. It’s too much.

There is just under a dozen of you that see these posts of mine. You mostly see things the way I see them, but a handful of you are more conservative than I am.

We are more than our political parties. We are more than the color of our skin, the reproductive organs in our pants, the amount of dollars in our wallets. We are people, all of us, children of God, Whoever you imagine Them to be. We are made from stardust, we breathe the same air, and the same blood pumps through our veins.

If we are going to survive these times, it is together. We have to find the things we have in common, find the values that we share, and move together to create a future that we can all live in.

If you’re reading this, I ask that you do the following:

• Look at the news yourself. Maybe what I’ve said so far is hyperbolic, or maybe I’m misinterpreting what my eyes and ears are clearly telling me. Just look for yourself, without the spin, and try to come to your own conclusions. Try to do it without letting the political filter cloud your vision.
• Look at the people around you, specifically the ones you disagree with. Ask yourself what you and the other person might find in common. Find the common ground and hold onto it. If things get as bad as I fear they might, we all need to hold onto each other and lift each other up.
• Look into your heart and ask yourself what you’re willing to live with. Then ask yourself what you’re willing to do about these times we’re living through. I’m still planning on peacefully protesting in Sacramento this Saturday. If you’re disagree with the protests, so be it. But please consider why so many people are willing to go out in the streets, and what the alternatives to protest may be.

Melissa and I are sitting in the airport, about 5 hours early for our flight. We have our laptops setup near our gate, and a bit of time to either read some slush (Melissa) or poke at our next novel (me). Before I get to the fiction, I want to capture my closing thoughts and feelings on The Nebulas.

I think I connected with people at this event better than any event in recent memory. Several really cool people. I hope to see them again at future events. Maybe Worldcon? Who knows?

I moderated a panel yesterday morning. The panel was about perseverance as a writer, and I structured it so that we talked about both persevering in creativity as well as in our careers. I had some great panelists, and I listened and asked follow-up questions. It went very well, and several people offered me compliments.

People bought some of my books from the Book Depot, and a couple people bought my books at the book signing. I fully expected to be bringing all of them home today, but I only have about half what I arrived with.

I wrote while on this conference. I’ve been struggling to get into the next Mel Walker novel, for a variety of reasons, and I made progress this weekend. I’m almost to the parts I’m looking forward to the most.

We ate good food, met cool people, and napped every day. I remember struggling with the time difference at previous events. It turns out you can just take naps and be fine.

I’m coming down from a very joyful weekend. Tomorrow, Melissa and I get back to work. I was somewhat shielded from the atrocities of recent events. I heard about ICE plowing through protesters in LA, and firing gas canisters at a 13 year old girl. I heard about these events, but it seemed like those things were taking place in an entirely different world. The one we never left, but returning to nonetheless.

The world I want to live in includes stories and friendship and uplifting people that could use some help. The world we’re returning to is violent, greedy, and isolating. I hate it here, but the right thing to do is be brave, make art, stand firm, and uplift. That was the message and the call-to-action delivered during The Nebulas ceremony last night.

I had a really great time at The Nebulas. It’s painful to leave and come back to reality, but it’s what we’re called to do.

It’s Friday afternoon, so we’re almost halfway through the event. Yesterday was Melissa’s birthday. We went through registration easily, dropped off some books for the Book Depot, and mostly hung out. I’ll tell a story about going to a burger place in just a moment.

Today, I attended a career planning workshop, which was fine. I didn’t learn a ton, other than I just need to get off my butt and query my SciFi stories. I’m still not sure why I have such a difficult time writing and sending queries. I don’t think it’s purely fear of rejection at this point. I’ve received several rejections and it’s honestly not that bad. There’s something else going on in my head or my heart, and I need to work through it.

This afternoon, I was part of a lightly attended Author Meet and Greet. Again, it was fine. The whole event can be described as “lightly attended.” Some people I’ve talked to attribute the smaller size of the conference to the recent SFWA troubles, where all of the leadership quit. SFWA exploded, not quite as catastrophically as RWA, but some of the ripples can be felt this weekend.

The people running the conference are great, though. Friendly, on top of it, and really doing their best. I don’t think it’s their fault that there are so few attendees.

This is the second Nebulas I’ve attended, and it feels very different from the first time. I remember before feeling out of place. I remember having trouble meeting people and talking to them. Now? I’m making friends and chatting with people here easily. I feel like I belong here as much as the next person.

I actually paused writing this to see if I wrote something about my first Nebulas attendance. I did. I apparently didn’t have a very good time, and felt overwhelmed most of the time. I’m not feeling that now, and while I was afraid to talk about my stories back then, I have no problem in 2025. I’ve come a long way.

BRGR

In 2016, Melissa and I came to Worldcon in Kansas City. I remember us having a good time! One of the things that stands out in my memory is walking a short ways from the convention and eating the best burger I’d ever tasted.

It stood out in my memory as having blue cheese, but the flavor profile was perfectly balanced. It was soft and crunchy in just the right ways. I remember it being amazing, and I’ve been looking forward to finding that place and getting another taste of that burger ever since finding out we were coming to The Nebulas this year.

Melissa and I decided we would go to that burger place for lunch on her birthday. With some help from another person attending The Nebulas, we found the place online. I recognized the pictures of the interior and the menu. We found it! BRGR Kitchen + Bar, and the specific burger we wanted was called a Fast Cow.

We took an Uber to the place, which was about 4 or 5 miles away.

And…

It wasn’t that good.

The blue cheese was too strong, and the burger itself was too salty. I could eat it, but it didn’t delight me like it did 9 years ago. Very disappointing. The waiter said a lot has changed over the years, and that’s too bad.

Sometimes, you can’t go back. You can only go forward.

Today, we found an Irish “gastropub” that had a very tasty Reuban. Melissa tried the shepherd’s pie and said it was very good, too. The place is called O’Dowd’s, and maybe that’ll be the place I look forward to revisiting in another 9 years. Who knows?

Chances are, it won’t be the same. Nothing stays the same. Some things live best in our memories. Some conferences grow, or shrink. Some authors become better at talking to people. Everything changes.

It’s important to enjoy the ride.

I’m sitting in a Kansas City Marriott, about to launch into an adventure at the 2025 Nebulas. That all picks up and starts tomorrow. Today, I need to take a moment and talk about the Sacramento Book Festival and the Bay Area Book Festival that just transpired a few days ago.

Sacramento Book Festival

Going into this event, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The guys running the event did a fantastic job of promoting it, and I heard there would be around 140 local authors attending. But, it’s Sacramento. How big could the festival actually be?

It turns out, pretty big! It’s estimated that over 5000 people attended the event. And, the event made really good use the facilities, in spite them being somewhat small.

The Water Dragon table was in the smaller East room, which had air conditioning and lots of good natural light. The Graveside Press table was outside the East room, and in spite the hottest May 31st in Sacramento in 100 years, both tables did very well!

The parking was a bit of a pain. As I said before, the facilities were small. If you needed to go to the bathroom, you had to walk through the room used for presentations, which felt uncomfortable and weird. In spite that and a handful of other nuisances, the event was actually kind of amazing.

We outsold and outperformed the LA Book Festival from just a couple weeks ago. In LA, taking in the cost of the table, we lost money, even though there were over 180,000 people in attendance. In Sacramento, on the other hand, we made nearly $1,000. I think with a bigger space, the Sacramento Book Festival will be an even bigger success.

I’m looking forward to it next year. It was a lot of fun, and I was really happy to see so many familiar faces.

Bay Area Book Festival

The day after Sacramento, Melissa and I got up early and went to Berkley.

I did this event last year, in weather that was sunny and hot. I wound up severely burned last year, and so we armed ourselves with a hat, sunscreen, and attire that’s perfect to handle a really hot day. We had just had the hottest day on record for a May 31st, so this seemed reasonable. I should have looked at the weather for Berkely.

With the temperatures never really getting over 65F, and often being lower that, with lots of shade a breeze, I was not appropriately dressed for the area.

It wasn’t that bad. But as we setup, I looked around and had serious doubts about our prospects. Our space was on an off-street. The main event took place on the other side of a busy street. Given the geography, I really didn’t think we were going to get that much traffic.

Again, I was wrong. Plenty of people came by our booth, which had Graveside, Cupid’s Arrow, Water Dragon, Paper Angel, and Small Publishing in a Big Universe organized in a U shape beneath a canopy. Lots more books on display than in Sacramento. Much larger space, and easier for people to get in and look at everything.

In spite the easier access and plenty of traffic, sales were not as good as they’d been in Sacramento. We still made a profit, and Graveside Press was the big seller, but I continue to feel like the answer isn’t to put more books out on the table. I think a smaller, more focused offering is the way to get more sales. Feature the authors that are at the event, have backlog easily available on demand, and have really solid pitches and summaries for the books on the table. I think that’s the route to success.

A good time was had by all. I enjoyed promoting Arlo Z. Graves’ book, Black Rose, almost as much as I enjoyed promoting my own titles. The author attended the event, their first time doing something like that, and for their debut novel, and they were clearly having a great time. Also, Arlo Graves is a fantastic author. You should check out their book.

In Closing…

I like selling books from our table. I really like selling one of my books, because those sales carry the hope that I might entertain someone and improve their day. Mostly, I really enjoy talking with people at these events about books, stories, storytelling, the industry, and all of the other topics that come up when surrounded by so many books.

I don’t make a ton of money from these events. My writing career costs more money than it generates. But I love it, and I’ll keep doing it for as long as I can afford to do so.

Oh, and I broke a tooth while in Berkley. It doesn’t hurt at the moment. Haven’t had time to have it looked at, though. Hope that doesn’t come back to bite me. (Pun intended)