David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

John Joseph Adams’s new anthology The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, including my story “Letter to the Editor,” comes out Feb. 19. Story excerpts and free reads are available here: http://www.johnjosephadams.com/mad-scientists-guide/

My niece Isobel’s violin group is trying to raise money to travel from Seattle to Sweden this summer. Rather than selling chocolates or wreaths, they’re using Kickstarter. I think this is awesome and I hope you’ll kick in a few coins to help them out.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/seattlelillalag/pursuing-tradition-young-musicians-on-tour-in-swed

E-anthology Spells: Ten Tales of Magic, including my story “The White Raven’s Feather,” is now available for Kindle from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and in a wide variety of e-formats from Smashwords.com. Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and others will follow soon.

Here’s a bunch of miscellaneous news, some of which I’ve been meaning to post for weeks…

• At the upcoming World Fantasy Convention in Toronto, I will be moderating a panel called “They Call Me the Wanderer” at noon on Friday in York B&C. Also on the panel: Rajan Khanna, Stefon Mears, Robert V. S. Redick, and Patrick Rothfuss. Assuming that Hurricane Sandy aka Frankenstorm does not prevent us from arriving in time…
• My story “Wavefronts of History and Memory” was accepted at Analog by new editor Trevor Quachri.
• My story “The White Raven’s Feather,” originally published in Daily Science Fiction, will be reprinted in e-anthology Spells: Ten Tales of Magic, coming soon to Kindle.
• My story “Moonlight on the Carpet,” originally published in Aeon Speculative Fiction,, will appear on Tina Connolly’s Toasted Cake podcast.
• I appeared on the Roundtable Podcast twice in September, first in an interview and then in a workshop in which the hosts and I helped a writer workshop a story idea. I had lots of fun doing it, and I hope you enjoy listening to them!

Kate woke up this morning and asked “why don’t we ever have dreams in which everything goes right? Mine were full of lost luggage and mutant goats.” And I had an insight I’m surprised I never had before.

Your brain did not evolve to make you happy. Brains evolved for the purpose of improving the organism’s chances to stay alive long enough to reproduce. This means that your brain’s job is worry, fear, and angst — the emotions that keep you away from stuff that might kill you. The positive emotions that drive you toward helpful stuff (e.g. food and sex) are less immediately vital to survival and therefore easily overridden by the negative ones.

No wonder we’re so miserable most of the time.

This is just a quick reminder that the SFWA Pacific Northwest Reading Series is having its next events in two weeks!

On Monday, in Portland, we’ll have New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire, accompanied by local favorites Jay Lake and M.K. Hobson. Wrigley-Cross Books will be on hand again selling books and all the authors will be available to sign.

When: Monday, October 15, 2012, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Where: McMenamins Kennedy School, 5736 N.E. 33rd Ave. Portland, OR 97211

On Tuesday, in the Seattle area, Seanan McGuire will be accompanied by artist/writers Phil and Kaja Foglio and writer/editor Jennifer Brozek. The University Bookstore will be selling books and all the authors will be available to sign.

When: Tuesday, October 16, 2012, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Where: Wild Rover Restaurant and Pub, 111 Central Way, Kirkland, WA 98033

Both events are free and open to the public.

I hope you can join us! It should be a lot of fun.

See http://www.sfwa.org/for-readers/sfwa-northwest-reading-series/ for more information and to RSVP (not required, but encouraged).

For the upcoming World Fantasy Convention, in Toronto on Halloween weekend, we’re considering flying to Buffalo, renting a car, and driving from there rather than flying direct to Toronto (it looks to be quite a bit cheaper). However, we’re somewhat concerned about the possibility of snow making the drive problematic. Anyone have any experience with this drive at this time of year?