10 Minute Confessional Debut, Tuesday June 22

10 Minute Confessional Debut, Tuesday June 22

I’ve been working on a new play with the Pulp Stage. It’s been quite exciting to workshop new material with them. I have several plays performed by the Pulp Stage, but I’ve never written a play with them before. The process has been unlike any other workshop or critique group I’ve done! I’ve enjoyed how much 10 Minute Confessional has improved thanks to everyone in the workshop.

PULP FACTOR: A WORKSHOP PRESENTATION

Tuesday, June 22
5:30 pm, Pacific
Directed by Bobby Bermea

New short works by
Liz Argall
Jonathon Benjamin
Sharece Sellem

RSVP access only through Zoom.
To get the link, shoot the Pulp Stage an email pulpstagematt@gmail.com
Three playwrights from across the country present new short works that have gone through Way of Pulp Stage: No visuals, fierce dialogue, maximum stakes, maximum ease to follow, maximum passion… and of course, heightened subject matter.

Some challenges make
The bravest ones run
But not our fierce scribes
So let’s have some fun!

This presentation contains some expletives as well as themes of murder, emotionally abusive systems, the World War II holocaust, and the Devil. It is best suited for audiences age 13 and up.

Recently: Pelgrane Press and Comics

Recently: Pelgrane Press and Comics

I’m super excited to let folks know that I’m contributing 13th Age’s Drakkenhall: City of Monsters and Behemoths: Paths of the Koru. John-Matthew DeFoggi and Rob Heinsoo have been fantastic developers to work with and it’s been delightful developing ideas that delve into new, chewy and delicious aspects of the 13th Age world.

We Need to Talk About Mental Health now has its own dedicated page, and at long last has a transcript as well.

Since I turned in my chapters for 13th Age, I’ve been working on a longer form comics and making sure Thingswithout.com is on a steady publishing schedule. I’m not always good at sharing my comics to social media, but it’s been very gratifying to solidly have a comic published every Monday (and Patrons get early access on Friday), especially as I started a new day job in December.

Extra special thanks to my Patrons over at Patreon, you are so sustaining and fantastic. And thank you to everyone who shares my work, clicks a link, takes a bit of time out of their day to read my work. Your time is precious and I appreciate you so much.

Appearing at OR e-Con this Sunday!

Appearing at OR e-Con this Sunday!

Orycon is hosting a free virtual convention this weekend. There’s loads of things going on, and I’ll be part of three panels on Sunday 15 November hosted by Creation Station. 

  • 11 am to 12 noon: Local Food & Bee Sustainability
  • 1 pm to 2 pm: Disaster Prep/Bug-Out Bag Prep
  • 4pm to 5pm: Art from the Heart; doodling your way into comics

All of these events will be in the OR e-Con Creation Station Zoom Room https://zoom.us/j/98908145440?pwd=NkpJbTV4S21XN2wzU2V5Ly9ZSHljZz09

Meeting ID: 989 0814 5440 Passcode: 561557

It would be lovely to see you all!

Lets build a monster on Sunday at Gencon!

Lets build a monster on Sunday at Gencon!

I’ll be doing my first GenCon this year, as part of the annual 13th Age Monster Seminar! Wade Rockett will be the ill fated moderator, wrangling both audience and 13th Age folks in the form of Rob Heinsoo, J-M DeFoggi, Anne-Marie Boeve and me!

I love writing for 13th Age. Please join us on Sunday, 2 August at 2:00 PM EDT/11am Pacific, where we’ll design a new monster based on audience suggestions. Tickets are free, but you do need to register.

I’ll be interviewing Ken Schneyer this Thursday (or Friday Depending on Time Zones)

I’ll be interviewing Ken Schneyer this Thursday (or Friday Depending on Time Zones)

On Thursday, July 16, I will be interviewing author Ken Schneyer about his fantastic collection ANTHEMS OUTSIDE TIME AND OTHER STRANGE VOICES as part of his book launch. It would be splendid if you could join us.

LIVE! on Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific.

Hosted by Patrick Swenson of Fairwood Press.

Recent publications and a quick update

Recent publications and a quick update

I hope everyone is doing ok. The first half of this year has included turning in a project for an awesome roleplaying game, adjusting to these new times, and reconnecting with my creative self. More reconnecting and reviving is under way!

Getting my contributors copy for Anthems Outside Time and Other Strange Voices this year was pretty sweet! Anthems Outside time is Kenneth Schneyer’s second short story collection, and we wrote one of the stories, “The Sisters’ Line”, together. It’s available for pre-order right now and coming out very very soon!

Most excitingly I’ve been creating more comics that aren’t the Things. It’s been refreshing, and good to see how my art has evolved as I’ve stepped out of my Things comfort zone. You can definitely see an evolution as I’ve continued to explore this newer approach. These experiments have enriched the Things comics I’ve been creating (such as Pop!). There’s even a dog hanging out in the webcomic now. Comics creation in general was at a pretty low ebb the last few years, so creating Things comics more regularly the last few months has been a joy for my heart.

I’m putting a lot of my new content up on my Patreon, head over there and subscribe or become a Patron (for as little as $1 a month to see all the latest drawings and adventures!

Recent non-Things comics!

Things in the news

Today, Tomorrow and Yesterday, and the poem If You Wear a Pin has been republished in the New Bush Telegraph.

Best wishes to everyone.
Liz

More webcomics for you

More webcomics for you

I’ve been creating a lot more comics over at thingswithout.com

I decided that it was important to have kind, all ages stuff that engages with our current pandemic. It’s confronting, sometimes, to have such dear sweet characters go through the pandemic with us, but that felt the most emotionally honest thing to do.

There are a lots of dear sweet kids (and dear sweet grownups) going through this and I think it’s important for them to keep us company. There is part of me, of course, that would like to protect them from all the bad things in the world, but a pandemic is a pandemic. That said, this will still absolutely be an all ages comic. The characters might go through tough or lonely times, but it’s still the magical world of the Things, even (or maybe even more so) when there’s a pandemic.

I’ve also published an autobiographical comic about living in Seattle in the time of COVID-19 with Short Run.

Home from the Nebula conference

Home from the Nebula conference

The Nebula conference (held in Burbank this year, and will be held in Burbank again next year) was quite delightful. The quality of panels was high and it was very nice to chat to delightful friends, old and new.

I had a bit of shoulder separation to deal with, which meant early nights and taking it easy. But folks were kind towards the arm and no one was too weirded out by how sometimes I wore a sling, and sometimes I didn’t. It was so nice, and a delightful change, to have the hospitality suite on the same level as programming, the bar and the restaurant. Good for tired bones not to have to make too many decisions and have something of a central area to wander around in when decisions got hard.

The SFWA business meeting was interesting to see the machinery of SFWA steadily move on. Business meetings probably have a cumulative effect, when it comes to interesting! You get a visceral sense of effort when projects spoken about turn into projects done and projects gearing up for version two or three. It’s nice to see how SFWA has grown and matured, with room to improve, but it’s good to have a strong governance foundation to grow with.

The burnout panel was very good, with a nice mix of trad, hybrid and indie authors.

William Gibson was delightful. And, well, I’d listen to Eileen Gunn interview/in conversation with a banana (she has a skill for creating space that reminds me a little of Andrew Denton), and even better when it’s a dear friend of her’s like Gibson.

The Nebula nominee reception was delightful

And included audio performances for every nominee!

Diversifying story form, themes and aesthetics, with a deeper, more satisfying focus on Eastern culture and storytelling traditions… and have room for diversity within that. Stories that might be satisfying in Taiwan may be less satisfying in Beijing, and so on. And anytime a person casually uses Dylan Thomas’s poetry in conversation, I am delighted (thank you Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, poetic sensibilities in conversation are so joyful).

Boback Ferdowsi was delightful and Stephen Granade was an excellent interviewer. It was nice to see Ferdowsi truly in his element, speaking with enthusiasm and passion about science, engineering, space and cool possible projects. It can be a little bit awkward to have become a meme (aka mohawk guy), something to be carefully navigated. So it was delightful to see how much he came to life when he talked about science and interesting engineering projects.

Talking up: Worldbuilding in Kidlit. Final day and playing with different pens and textures. Interesting to see the storytelling decisions folks make when writing for kids!

And one solo presentation on literary theory. It made me want to read all the literary theory books (especially Damon Knight, as he’s a missing piece from my most direct influences).

Emerald City Comicon, this weekend

Emerald City Comicon, this weekend

Hello all, sorry for the terribly late notice. I’ll be on a panel at Emerald City Comicon called Consent is Sexy, tomorrow (Saturday) at 12:15!


CONSENT IS SEXY: THE ART AND THE IMPORTANCE OF PUTTING CONSENT ON THE PAGE

SAT, MAR 16, 2019

12:15 PM 1:15 PM

WSCC 3A

In today’s social climate, it’s perhaps more important than ever to include explicit, enthusiastic consent when writing an intimate encounter. Come hear our panel of novelists, comic writers, and screenwriters share their tips and tricks for putting consent on the page without losing the steam in the scene. Join our discussion of how expressions of consent can vary between mediums and share your thoughts on the best and worst examples of consent you’ve seen and read

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