I’ll be heading out to ICFA 40 in Orlando next Wednesday to present my paper, “Story Promise: The Implicit Contract Between Writer and Reader” (’tis on Saturday, at 10:30am). This’ll be both my first ICFA and my first public presentation of a paper. I’ve done readings before, though they’ve tended toward small-scale, maybe-twenty-at-most crowds primarily made up of friends or friends of friends. The closest I’ve ever come to an academic paper presentation were the few I attended at WisCon about five years ago.

No idea what to expect, and it’s got me both terrified and thrilled. I’ve also never been to Orlando–or Florida, for that matter. I’m looking forward to the rather sudden change in weather. In Chicago today, it’s a high of 15°F, though it feels like 2°. In Orlando it’s 61°, and today is the coolest day this week.

In other news, my new bookmarks came in! Since none of my bios in the anthologies have my website, I figured I needed something to point people here, but business cards (I feel) are the first things to end up in the trash after a convention. Bookmarks, however, serve dual purposes: they do promo while simultaneously being something useful. Since I’m only published in anthologies right now, I don’t have a snazzy book cover to throw on there, so the dragon in my header image found another home. Bookmarks bought through GotPrint.com, which offers rather affordable printing options.