This weekend on April 13th, I’ll be at Farleycon in East Ridge, TN. It promises to be a fun time for everyone with a great line up of authors, artists, and vendors.
If you can come by and say hey, pick up an autographed book or just hang out. Either way it promises to be a good time.
Hope to see you in East Ridge this Saturday.
Keep checking back for updates on where I’ll be appearing and what I’m up to.
Connooga 2019 was a blast. Got to see some great cosplay, take part in some fun panels, and hang out with my con buddies. All in all, it was a great weekend. Big thanks to everybody that came by and said hey and picked up a book. Hope you are all enjoying the read and can’t wait to see you all again next year.
My next show is going to be River Region Comiccon. This show will be held in beautiful Montgomery, Alabama March 16-17. I know that is St. Patty’s Day and don’t worry, I’ll have a Green Lantern shirt just for the occasion.
While I’m on the subject of cool things. I recently found a Kickstarter from two of my favorite Superman creators from the 80/90s. It’s a retro-weird science/monster comic that promises to be a lot of fun. Check it out here.
Looks fun to me.
Hope to see you guys down in Montgomery and keep checking back to see where I’ll be appearing next and what’s in the works.
This weekend, I will be attending Connooga in Chattanooga.
This is a great convention with lots of fun panels and vendors. I will be selling my books in their vendor room, alongside my wife and cover artist.
However, I also will be participating in a few of their panels. First, at 4:00PM on Friday, I will be on the Scary Story Time panel where several writers will tell true or fictional tales that will keep you up. Saturday at noon, I will be hosting a Phantasm 40 Year Retrospective. These are both going to be fun events that I hope you can stop by at. If not, please swing by my booth and say hello and pick up your copies of either the Winston & Baum steampunk adventure series or Friedkin’s Curse: A Werewolf Tale of Terror.
Hope to see you at Connooga this year.
Please keep checking back to see where else I will be appearing this year.
This year for my birthday, I decided to go apple pie picking. I know some people are probably saying “what’s that?” I’ve had a few people guess that it was picking apples to then make pies with. That is not correct. You see, most of the apple houses and orchards in North Georgia make fried apple pies. So, my wife and I loaded up in my truck and hit up five such places to pick their apple pies.
Let me say that it had been a good year and the apple pie orchards were ripe for the picking this year. Below is a quick synopsis for each of the five places that we went to with a rating scale associated. I gave ratings out of 5 apples. Some of the judging criteria was on crust, filling, and taste.
Our first stop was Penland Orchards (41 Talona Rd, Ellijay, GA 30536).
That is a fine looking pie isn’t it?
Penland Orchards has a buttery crust that is not too flowery and gives the impression of standard apple pie crust. The filling was tasty, with hints of cinnamon and not goopy as most store bought apple pie filling tends to be. All in all this pie harvested 3 out of 5 apples.
Our second stop was directly across the street at Panorama Orchards (63 Talona Mountain Rd, Ellijay, GA 30536).
How’s this pie strike your fancy?
Panorama Orchards had a very pretty crust from the get go, a nice golden brown (as you can see from the picture). It is puffy, flaky, and buttery. It does not taste like standard pie crust, almost tasting like it is made from a batter as opposed to a dough. The filling did not have any of the normal pectin blended goop that accompanies pie filling. It has a good flavor that included cinnamon, nutmeg, and other spices. The apples inside were nice and soft. This pie and Panorama Orchards harvested a 4.5 out of 5 apples.
Our next stop was the Red Apple Barn (3379 Tails Creek Rd, Ellijay, GA 30540).
Penland and Panorama both made their pies onsite. Because Red Apple Barn is strictly a store and does not have the equipment onsite, they make them at another location and then sell them at the apple house.
This was a very basic style crust, not overly buttery or soft. The filling inside was your basic goopy apple pie filling. Because this pie was average, it only harvested a 2 out of 5 apples.
Stop number 4 was R&A Orchards (5505 GA-52, Ellijay, GA 30536), which has a variety of pies to choose from, but we were on an apple pie picking odyssey and stuck to the apple pie.
Didn’t get a picture of this pie.
The pie I had at R&A had a hard, crispy crust that had a floury taste to it. The filling was overly goopy but did not really deviate from a standard pie filling. Because the crust was not great, but the filling was not too goopy, R&A harvested a 2.5 out of 5 apples.
As you can imagine, I was starting to get a little full from all these apple pies. For our next stop, we made our way down the road (literally the last two places were down the road) to Aaron’s Apple House (8350 Highway 52 E, Ellijay, GA 30536).
Don’t let the label fool you, there is fruit in this, so that makes it healthy.
Aaron’s Apple House had a soft crust that was tender and added an interesting texture, not tasting like it came from a traditional pie crust dough. The filling was good, not overly sweet, having several savory qualities about it. Much like Red Apple Barn, these pies are made offsite and distributed through the apple house. This pie harvested a 3 out of 5 apples.
Our final stop of the day was Mack Aaron’s Apple House (8955 Highway 52 East, Ellijay, GA 30536).
Pretty looking pie, right?
Mack Aaron’s Apple House pie has a flaky traditional crust with a dusting of sugar either before baking or right after coming out of the oven, so that it provides some texture to it and also adds hints of sweetness. The pie crust was very good and had strong hints of cinnamon and possibly cardamon (they were subtle) but I think they were there. Because of these small touches, Aaron Mack’s Apple House harvested 4 out of 5 apples.
All told it was a bountiful harvest, but Panorama Orchards was able to take home the high score with 4.5 out of 5 apples.
Feel free to follow along and taste these pies yourselves and make your own decisions or visit some of the other apple houses in Gilmer County. I plan to visit the ones that we were not able to get to some time soon. Hope to see you out there!
As previously promised, below is the audio from the panel that I did at this year’s Hallowcon.
It was titled: Things that Go Bump in the Night – Using Classic Monsters for New Stories. If you’ve ever been in one of my panels, you know that I like to have audience participation. So, a big thank you to those that sat in and contributed and hope to see you at other cons in the future.
For those of you interested, the audio is below. Hope you enjoy!
Please keep checking back for what I’m up to.
Happy Halloween!
This past weekend was Hallowcon. It was a great show and a lot of fun. I was honored to be among a cadre of wonderful authors. Please click on their names to visit their sites.
Each of these writers have books that I think will work for most of you no matter your tastes. We have horror, splatter, noir, urban fantasy, fantasy, science fiction, and steampunk, so please check out and support these great authors.
I also had the opportunity to meet Josh “TKO” Turner and his tag-team wrestling partner Scott Lane. These guys have appeared in multiple films and tv shows as well as being professional wrestlers. What is also amazing is that they are part of two different charities: Pops for Patients and Fighting for Autism. Both of these are really good charities. Please check them out to see if you can help either of these causes and check out the two guys championing them as well.
Lastly and far from least, I had the opportunity to meet cosplayer, Alice Infinity. She was amazingly nice and continued to impress me with the versatility of her cosplay. Every time I saw her, she seemed to be in a different costume. Please check out her site.
Hallowcon was a great show and a lot of fun. I can honestly say that it was one of the most friendly and welcoming cons I’ve been to. Thanks for having me and hope to see you again next year.
I will be posting the audio from my panel from Hallowcon here in a few days.
Everyone have a safe and happy Halloween, and keep checking back for more updates.
Hallowcon is this coming weekend (October 26-28). It will be in Dalton, GA. I have been fortunate enough to be asked to be a guest along with some other phenomenal authors. Please come by, pick up an autographed book, and say hi.
Hope you are having a spooky October and hope to see you in Dalton.
