Thanks everybody for making the April 15 NC Speculative Fiction Night such a (crowded!) success at Durham’s Sci-Fi Genre Comics & Games, including making short work of the 7-candled cake. I’ve got most of the bookstores stocked with Bull Spec #7, though a few of the further-out stores are yet to come later this week, along with (finally) the PDF version, subscriber mailings and deliveries, contributor mailings and deliveries, more review copies… I did get a few review copies out in time for late April deadlines, and SFRevu’s Sam Tomaino and Locus Magazine’s Lois Tilton have already weighed in.

May gets off to a fast start with Free Comic Book Day this Saturday — see below for more details, and as always: see you out and about! One note is that Jeremy Whitley’s Princeless event was rescheduled from its original date in April to “some time after Free Comic Book Day” in May, so keep an eye out for updates. The biggest update for me this time around is confirming all the fun that will be the Sunday, August 5 Bull Spec summer literary sf festival with Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, Tobias S. Buckell, Karin Lowachee, Will Hindmarch, and more, at Chapel Hill’s Flyleaf Books from 2 to 4 pm. I’m sure I’ll see a lot of you before then, but if not: don’t miss it!

Update: Jaime at Flyleaf Books just wrote to let me know that Kevin Hearne, author of the Iron Druid Chronicles books, will be having an event on Tuesday June 12. Another great event to add to your calendar! I added the event to and updated the current Bull Spec flyer/handout PDF. So print some, post them, hand them out. And see you there!