ArmadilloCon 2026

shlomi on September 16, 2026

Dara Kountz, spouse, and Shlomi Harif — and books!

The latest ArmadilloCon in Austin was a blast. The QuickSilver Quills Collective was there in force, as were many, many books and wares for sale in the Dealer Room.

I collaborated with Elizabeth Moon on the upcoming novel, Horngard, due out October 6th. She was here as well, with T-shirts in lieu of books, as they’re not done printing them yet! We were on a panel on co-writing, and much laughter was had. As was advice equally appropriate to critique groups in general: Be gentle with feedback, create a safe place to give and receive feedback, leave egos outside, and remember to laugh. I can’t wait to work with Elizabeth again.

I’ve got three manuscripts in play at the moment: Last Run, a post-apoc SF story, Zepps, a SF thriller, and Induction, a spicy SF thriller. It’ll be interesting to see if anything comes out of this. My WIP is a hard SF.

Zepps was interesting to do edits: one member of our collective is a rocket somethingorother (I want to say scientist, but he keeps swatting me down on that. Victor). Cue me spending some quality time with Claude to work out the science of airships and CO2 processing, to ensure that what I write can theoretically be possible in 2151–provided Claude doesn’t kill us all before then.

More anon…

WorldCon in the rearview…ArmadilloCon Ahead!

shlomi on September 5, 2026

WorldCon was a sip at a firehose in terms of contacts, and a wonderful opportunity hob and knob with fellow authors and the odd agent. I’ve already registered for WorldCon 2027 in Montreal, and hopefully will be on more panels next year.

Now…ArmadilloCon 2026 (48th year!)… There are about 25 students in the writers workshop, which I’m running, along with about 14 instructors and panelists. The usual schedule of events–one speaker, one panel–has morphed into two speakers, as the ArmadilloCon Guest of Honor, Micaiah Johnson is joining author (and collaborator) Elizabeth Moon.

It’s been a lot of work, complicated by me being out of action for two months earlier this year. The great thing about a convention is that it’s not a lone-gunman effort: There’s a team, and there are folks stepping in to help if necessary (I’m looking at you, Nick).

My critique group, QuickSilver Quills (formerly White Gold Wielders) will be there in force, with a table (two, actually) in the Dealer Room, and a reading slot on Saturday. I’ll probably end up on a few other panels as well.

I’ll have pix and a short recap next week, after the sturm und drang of the week and weekend.

WorldCon Schedule!

shlomi on July 30, 2026

AKA LACon V, But Whatever

The schedule is up and, barring being added to more panels, this is my (paltry) schedule. I’m going to see what I can do in terms of scaring up publicity for Horngard, as that’ll be published (eep!) a couple of months later.

Here’s my rubric:

The Jewish Horror one is interesting because, in my traumatized opinion, the whole Shmuley Myers series is one, long, drawn out horror show. But I’ve got From Generation to Generation (ebook/audio), a Jewish “Lazarus” tale with enough personal history trauma to make it qualify a bit as a horror piece. Speaking of which, if anyone’s interested in free listener codes and is willing to write a review, just contact me and I’ll see if I can make that happen.

I’m guessing the second will be an AMA, but I don’t know if anyone’s going to be moved, at the end of the Con, to come see… We’ll see.

It’s been a while

shlomi on July 4, 2026

Life has a way of slipping time through one’s fingers; it’s time for an update.

Writing: The book I’ve been a collaborator on, Horngard, is off to the publisher. It was a blast working with Elizabeth Moon and, after I post this, it’s back to the manuscript for whatever comes next; she’s published some short story collections, and I hope to be in a future one.

The annual Agents and Editors Conference, sponsored by Writers League of Texas, was an interesting three days. It’s not my first time attending, nor the first time pitching to an agent, but I spent some time people-watching others and soaking in where they were in their careers. My pitch went well, I thought, and I submitted my query + pages for their assessment. I’m going to need an agent anyway if certain projects come up.

On. personal note, I spent a couple of weeks in the hospital, and a couple of weeks recovering. All is well–now. Ah, the joys of aging!

Adding Short Stories and Audio Books!

shlomi on January 21, 2026

Maggie Weber strikes again! Consent is now joined by Shloshim, Shut Eye, and Joy on Audible. next short story in my collection is now out. Listen to it here!

Blood of Leeches is a new ebook, currently enjoying (for the split second) a #1 rating:

I’m currently soliciting for an audiobook producer (aka a narrator) for the story.

Consent Now Out as an Audiobook!

shlomi on October 30, 2025

Consent is a science fiction short about, frankly, revenge as a PTSD cure. I don’t encourage it and, having had PTSD for decades, there’s a reason this story is in the fiction instead of self-help genre.

Maggie Weber was the producer (voice and sonic layout) of the book, and she’s working on a few more short stories from my collection. (She’s also a human and dog mom, clothing upseller (check out her book), prolific youtube…and apparently someone who doesn’t need to sleep).

ArmadilloCon 2025

shlomi on September 15, 2025

It was a busy weekend in Austin. ArmadilloCon also hosts a writers workshop on the Friday before the Con, then a whirlwind of panels, meetups, and connections between authors, readers, and industry professionals. Like last year, White Gold Wielders, a critique group originally based in Austin, met to attend and sit on panels, hawk books published by its members, and have the rare opportunity to meet in person.

The WGW Critique Group Contingent

(Can’t you tell we had a professional do the group picture?)

From left to right:
* Me
* Elizabeth Moon
* Christianne Lupher
* Paige E. Ewing
* Courtney Ritz Lednicky
* Tom Thompson
* Iolo (David Warner)

Check out our website for other folks’ profiles. And news. And events!

The WGW Books for Sale Table (and a few WGW denizens)

ArmadilloCon offers a writing workshop every year, where submitted short stories (or portions of a larger work) are critiqued by a small group of peers and two instructors. I’ll run it next year and am excited to see the submissions. There’s also a prompted flash fiction contest. More on all that next spring.

WorldCon Seattle

shlomi on August 19, 2025

This was my first one. Got to hear Larry Niven, have a brief chat with David Brin, and shake hands with one of the authors who brought me into science fiction: Robert Silverberg. I read Across a Billion Years in middle school, and loved it so much that I only remembered returning the book to my grade school library twenty years later. Brilliant YA.

I had a very short hit list of panels, and there was no way, short of cloning, for me to get to every one I wanted. I should have researched the panel participants to qualify the panels better; some were much less interesting/ informative than I’d hoped. Lesson learned. There were good surprises as well: in a panel on self-publishing advertising, where panelists talked about click-throughs and their experiences, no other than Gail Carriger, she of the Parasol Protectorate. She dives deep into data analytics to publicize her books. Brilliant.

The con suites and outside parties sponsored by various groups were also interesting; meeting other authors in different places in their writing careers was cool — it helped calm some of the impostor syndrome that haunted me. Haunts me.

I ended up standing in the (one-hour-long) registration line with Kirsten Gong-Wong, the managing editor of Locus, and her spouse. It’s amazing how much one can learn from standing in line.

I also met with Joshua Bilmes, head of the Jabberwocky Agency, and one of his agents, regarding a contract. More on that when it’s public. The life of an agent, with all the attendant conventions and authors to meet, is exhausting. Wall-to-wall meetings, it seems.

I’ll be going to the LA Worldcon next year; I’ll be better prepared to get the most out of it.