FACT’s verdict on Gordath Wood

The FACT reading group just had their discussion and critique of Gordath Wood and kindly invited me to dinner after they discussed the book. To my relief and delight, they mostly liked it. Yay! There were a few folks for whom the book didn’t work, and their reasons were valid and I am not crushed whatsoever, Kurt. (Just teasing!) I felt like people mostly got what I was going for and even the criticism was well-intentioned, I thought.

It was gratifying to know that the book worked and that it provided a good reading experience. I liked being able to talk about the work of writing and rewriting too. One of the readers had read an early incarnation of the first chapters when I workshopped the manuscript through the Slug Tribe — she liked what I did with it. ; – )

 Dinner was at El Mercado, an Austin Tex-Mex fixture. We had good conversation and decent Tex-Mex (El Mercado is like Tex-Mex comfort food, essentially). I gave a report on World Fantasy Con as well. It was fun to get together with local readers and writers; sort of a continuation of WFC.