Renewing another connection with my past lives, a couple weeks ago I made an appearance at one of the annual DargonZine Summits.

DargonZine is the amateur writing zine I founded and ran from 1984-1989 (then called FSFnet) and 1994-2006. In continuous publication for thirty-two years, it’s by far the longest-running electronic magazine on the ( Read more... )

Mise en scène: a tiny village in northern Scotland called Huntly, Thursday, May 28 2002. Seven DargonZine writers and one NPC follower pile out of a rental van for a tour and demonstration at the North East Falconry Centre.

After the show, I saw something that just screamed to be captured.Here’s how I wrote it up in my original travelogue, seven ( Read more... )

As DargonZine’s founder and former editor, I was asked to make a few comments as they completed their 24th and began their record 25th year of online publication. I thought I’d share my responses here, in case anyone is interested.
Why did you start Dargonzine?
DargonZine, which was initially called FSFnet, really began out of my ( Read more... )

I figured I’d spare you the long version, and only post this very abbreviated version of this year’s DargonZine Writers’ Summit travelogue.

Thursday I flew Boston to Denver to Portland, Oregon for this year’s DargonZine Summit. Neither flight was very pleasant, nor was the cab ride to the hotel.

Although I was in by midafternoon, this year’s host ( Read more... )

My first trip to New York was on November 11, 1984, for a gathering of Internet chat users. Mind you, this was well before IRC was written, or Relay (IRC’s predecessor). In fact, the Internet really wasn’t there yet; it had no interactive messaging facility. I grew up on something called BITNET, one of ( Read more... )

I grew up kinda of as an only child, so I’m sure it’s not the first time I appreciated silence, but one of the most noteworthy times I recall noticing silence took place in 1999.

The Dargon Writers’ Summit is always a hectic time ( Read more... )

I’ve always been a big fan of maps and mapping. I can remember living in ( Read more... )

So it’s been a couple weeks since the 2006 Dargon Writers’ Summit, which this year took place in Cincinnati. What follows is a highly-hacked up version of the summary I posted to our discussion list.

Typically, I’d say this posting would only be of interest to me, but you ( Read more... )

All that chaos this summer really threw a wrench in my work for DargonZine. In fact, it’s only now, four months later, that I have finished putting together the writeup for the 2005 Dargon Writers’ Summit, which took place back in May in scenic Traverse City, Michigan.

All told, it was a pretty good trip, and I think we got a lot accomplished. But ( Read more... )

What's one thing you've always wanted to do, but never have? For quite some time I’ve wanted to rent a Jet-Ski or other personal watercraft, and never had the opportunity. It definitely seems like something I’d enjoy, but it just hasn’t happened.

I had the chance during this year’s Dargon Writers Summit in Austin, but we’d already spent a couple ( Read more... )