Night of the Living Trekkies

Coming soon...


"Night of the Living Trekkies"
by Kevin David Anderson & Sam Stall

Via Sea of Stories:
It’s a zombie apocalypse and only one thing matters: What would Captain Kirk do? Just as "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" blended monster mayhem with the world of regency romance, "Night of the Living Trekkies" mixes a zombie apocalypse with the enduring mythology of Star Trek. Our story follows a rag-tag group of “Trekkies” en route to an annual Star Trek convention. Arriving with homemade uniforms, glued-on prosthetics, and plastic phasers, these fanboys know more than any rational adult should know about Kirk, Spock, Next Generation, particle physics, and black holes. But when aliens release a zombie plague upon the Earth, all of this “Starfleet training” suddenly becomes a lot more relevant. Our fanboys find themselves trapped in the Botany Bay Hotel and Convention Center — and desperate to escape. And one reluctant fan will discover his inner Trekkie, rise up, and take command of the crew. Fast, funny, and loaded with countless references to Star Trek, geek culture, and science fiction conventions, "Night of the Living Trekkies" will appeal to anyone who enjoys science fiction, horror, and the comic scene.

$14.95 (USA price) - Quirk Publishing, 4 Sept 2010.

... mash-up novel, "mixing a zombie apocalypse with the enduring mythology of Star Trek," will join such Quirk Books titles as "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" and "Android Karenina". (And the author is Kevin David Anderson, not the more well-known Kevin J Anderson.)

Chekov: "Botany Bay. Botany Bay? Oh no! We have to get out of here."

Funny thing is, one of my regular haunts, the Novotel Hotel and Convention Centre at Brighton-le-Sands here in Sydney, is on the shores of Botany Bay:
www.novotelbrightonbeach.com.au

I wonder if the parody novel is set in Australia?

Sassy Sue

It's always fun to catch up with friends and acquaintances at the annual "Succeed..." literary seminar and Sassy Awards, for members of Selwa Anthony's Author Management Agency. Yesterday, it was on again. Where did that year go? (And didn't we say that ladst year, too?)

I first met Sue Williams, writer and freelance journalist, at "Succeed Some More in '94". We sat next to each other at Selwa's first gathering of authors, at a time when all attendances could fit around one table in the restaurant! For many years now, the Sassy Awards have needed a whole ballroom at the Novotel, Brighton-le-Sands, to fit everybody in.

This year, I did very well with the daytime raffle, winning eleven Ian Irvine science fiction novels. Ian told me, later, that I was now the owner of 2.3 million words! That guy is sure prolific!

Another great day and evening, but I really must do something about completing something to send off to Selwa.

Sunday's magic number: 96.7 - Ooops, and I must do something about eating naughty things, too.

More learning, growing and achieving

Unlike the last conference I was asked to speak at, I went into today's events without that heavy weight of responsibility and impending disaster. I mean, if I could fill an hour on my own last time, how much easier would it be this time? We knew our material back-to-front, if necessary. The most difficult aspect would surely be, what bits do I leave out?

My co-presenter, Cath Keane, had prepared eleven of our PowerPoint pages, I'd added my own hyperlinks to the twelfth and last slide, and we only had 50 minutes or so to fill anyway. We also had plenty of time before our session, "Young rappers", to play on the interactive whiteboard (IWB), test our hyperlinks and cache all our web pages that we were planning to visit. We also knew in advance that we had about twenty people signed up to hear our talk. Everything worked in the rehearsal and off we went to the first keynote event of Day 2 of this Early Years Conference.

Clinical psychologist, Lyn Worsley, presented her fascinating session on "The resilience doughnut: the secret of strong kids" and, while she probably didn't say anything terribly new, especially to a ballroom filled with teachers who already had solid backgrounds in early childhood education, the strength of her approach was the clear answer of "where to know?" that one could glean after having used her clever, simple analytical tool for gauging the resilience of a particular student. Wonderful!

Before we knew it, Cath and I were deep into our presentation on book raps, blogs, wikis and Circle Time. Our only hitch was that our computer connection, which had worked so perfectly in rehearsal, had been lost for the presentation. A tech person came in and got us back online most efficiently, but our live connection to the Wilfrid rap blog (on Edublogs) was no longer working. Luckily, our PowerPoint had lots of frame grabs from the site, and the links to the Departmental website and my school's wiki pages were still viable, so we carried on regardless. We finished off with a reading of my Kinder students' "Zebra with spots" fable of 2007, and a walk-through of selected pages from my school's wiki pages. I hope our presentation has encouraged more schools to start dabbling in wikis and blogs.

It all seemed to go very well, but a highlight for me was that two attendees hung back at the end to (re)introduce themselves. It was none other than Warren and Kathy, two of my colleagues from my teachers college days! They'd noticed each other in the audience of my workshop session - I'm not sure at what point they realised that I was also from the same year - but morning tea turned out to be a mini-reunion of the Class of '79 of the Guild Teachers College. We swapped anecdotes about the good ol' days and pocket histories of our lives. It was the first time we'd seen each other since Graduation Day in 1980 - very exciting, and great to know that they are doing so well in their own teaching careers. (I can see a bigger reunion coming up in the next few months! I hope.)

Next up was Peter Gould, Manager, Mathematics at NSW DET - and one of the people I worked with on numerous occasions back in my Scan editor days. Peter's keynote was "From ABC to 123: what counts in early numeracy" and - despite some frustrating glitches with the movie clip elements of his presentation - it was an invaluable reminder of the essential differences in the ways young children learn to be numerate as opposed to literate.

After lunch, I attended two more workshops, both of which (again) ably demonstrated the amazing array of teaching and learning strategies that interactive whiteboards are bringing to classrooms in the 21st century. I guess that's the main thing I'm taking from this conference: that most of today's students are already citizens of the digital world of Web 2.0. The sooner their teachers and parents play catch-up the better. Every presentation I went to was using IWBs as part of their presentation - even my presentation, and today was the first time I'd actually been able to use one! Knowing that a little knowledge is dangerous, I can't wait to get my hands on an IWB as part of my school library's facilities and let my imagination run wild. Or wilder.

This conference left its delegates with so much food for thought (and delicious food for the body - the Novotel, Brighton-le-Lands always does well in that regard), great ideas we can start using on Monday (first day back of Term Three), and some wonderful memories of networking with colleagues, old and new. Synthesising all the learning into our daily lives will take time, but I'm glad I gave up two days of my vacation to absorb it all. I'm also grateful for the very handsome, gold-embossed "Presenter" pens, which Cath and I received for doing our workshop.

Roll on Term Three...

Back on track with Sassy

Yesterday Selwa Anthony, Australian literary agent extraordinaire, held her annual all-day seminar and gala dinner for her ever-growing network of amazing authors. Once again at the Novatel Hotel in Brighton-le-Sands, Succeed, It's Great in 2008 was as stimulating as the first one I attended (way back in November 1993, Succeed Some More in '94.) The seminars take their title from a little self-help book, "Succeed With Me", which Selwa once wrote with Jimmy Thomson - and it's now available in audio by Bolinda Audio; we received a freebie in our goodie bag upon arrival!

Despite the fact that, so far, I haven't earned Selwa any percentages, she keeps inviting me back. These seminars have certainly directed me into numerous opportunities over the years but so far nothing commercial enough that would earn Selwa her percentage. Yet. Selwa continues to have faith in me, but i always feel quite humble in the talented company of Selwa's network.

The first speaker yesterday was a no-show. The poor person ended up booking a flight and heading to Brighton in Melbourne instead of Brighton-le-Sands, Sydney. So compere, Mark Macleod, brought on stage Selwa's young assistant, Selina, for an insight into a day in the life of being Selwa's assistant. It was a great impromptu session, and it also meant that Mark could offer up what he called "one-minute spots", over the course of the day, to anyone wanting to share something special to the rest of the network.

A few people availed themselves of the opportunity and, in the morning tea break, I was boasting to author/journalist Sue Williams about my Kindergarten students' recent work writing fables on the World Wide Web via a wiki. Sue's eyes lit up and she said, "Go and tell Mark you'll do a one minute spot! If anything, you'll also get to show off that fabulous jacket" *

The next thing I knew, I was sharing my young students' work - from memory! - with the likes of Tara Moss, Kim Wilkins (now also writing as Kimberley Freeman), Ian Irvine and so many other Australian literary luminaries. It was a highly energizing experience, and it made sooooooo twitchy to get to the keyboard. Maybe there'll be a chance for a much longer session at the next seminar?

And now, back to the drawing board.

* Oh - I must mention my new jacket, as seen in the picture of me with Selwa (above). I bought it on my recent trip to Perth (not usually a place where one thinks of buying a jacket, but I couldn't leave it in that shop in Northbridge. It was way too cool!). As well as the upraised silver "Superman" logo on the front, it has a larger one on the back. It picked up compliments all day and night, including a most enthusiastic accolade from first-night red carpet denizen/veteran, Susie Elleman. Someone came up to me later and whispered, "Wow! Susie likes your jacket! That's great, getting compliments from celebrities." But then we wondered... Poor Susie is annually castigated by the media for her poor clothing choices every Logies Award night, and her outfits and hairstyles are the stuff of Logies legend! So is it, in fact, good to get a high rating for my dress sense from her? ;)

Last night's Sassy presenter was the very sassy Dinah Lee. As I always say, it was a great day and night, and a highlight of my year every November. Maybe by next November I'll have a book of my own on the way.

Sunday's magic number: 90.3 - much better! A two kilo drop at last. You know, after the last few weeks' disappointment, I could actually feel the weight disappearing this week, as I cut out almost everything yummy I hold dear (the late night snacking especially). It is gratifying that I was able to eat my way through two gigantic meals yesterday at the seminar (and the Sassy Awards' banquet) and still wake up two kilos lighter than last Sunday, to smile about it this morning. Yay me!

And I should point out that I first met my "Fat Free Forever" dieting gurus, Dianne Barker Wilson and former "Gladiator" Geoff Barker, via the "Succeed With Me" seminars.

Connect, Collaborate, Create

Today, I was an invited presenter at the 2007 Connected Learning Conference, held at the Novotel, Brighton-Le-Sands. The topic of my brief contribution was book raps, and how they were great examples of connecting, collaborating and creating. I can only guess that my audience included principals, teacher-librarians and computer savvy teachers.

Lots of deja vu moments. Once again, Colleen and I were venturing off for a lengthy car journey to speak at an education conference about ICT (information and communication technologies) and collaborative teaching; one of my first duties at "Scan", in 1998, had been a similar task. The Novotel is also the annual venue of Selwa Anthony's author management conferences, Succeed With Me, so the rooms, decor and even the wicked food offerings were all very familiar. (Bang goes the diet for this week.) There were also lots of well-remembered faces from my time at Ryde State Office of the NSW Department of Education and Training. Most of these people couldn't believe it had been over five years since I was working with them at Ryde, as editor of "Scan" - and neither could I!

The whole day was most rewarding - really great keynote speeches that had everyone both overwhelmed but invigorated about future possibilities in education! - and the pen souvenir I was given, as a presenter, is very cool in its Star Trek inspired plastic tube!