I’m several days late in posting this as I recover from the “con crud” I picked up at Shore Leave 46 in Lancaster, PA the weekend of July 10-12, 2026. Despite that, I had a blast celebrating my 30th year of attending this wonderful SF convention. Where did the time go?
My Friday began with a 4PM panel called The Short Form with Hildy Silverman, Alex Shvartsman, and Laura Ware. This was a discussion on writing short stories vs. novels. I was the last panelist to arrive with five minutes to spare, which meant that I was the moderator. Unprepared as I was, I came up with enough questions to get us through the first half before we opened it up to audience questions, which filled out the rest of our time.
As this was my only panel of the day, I took time to peruse the dealer room and chat with my friends Jake, Nick, Pat, and Marcella at the Oddity Prodigy Productions table. OPP is a Delaware-based small press that has published three of my short stories since 2020, most recently in their sword and sorcery anthology, Tales of Steel and Sorcery, which was published in June.
After that, I wandered over to the Crazy 8 Press table and chatted with Michael Jan Friedman, Aaron and Jen Rosenberg, Hildy Silverman, Russ Colchamiro, and Bob Greenberger. They kindly invited me to join them for dinner at 7PM at the Manor Chinese Buffet down the road.
From there, I found another longtime writer pal, Richard C. White, who will be publishing my recent steampunk story in his upcoming anthology Southwatch Stories, to debut next year at Shore Leave 47.
I then caught up with a few other friends including artist and photographer Laura Inglis before wandering to the back of the dealer room to the impressive Lost in Space display that included B-9, mannequins of the entire cast, a model of the Jupiter 2, the bridge computer consoles, and other props. I instantly thought of my late friend, Joe Knedlhans, who owned a toy robot museum in nearby Adamstown, PA for 25 years. He would have loved this exhibit.
After dinner with the writers at the Chinese buffet, it was time for Shore Leave’s traditional Meet the Pros book fair where I was launching my new short story collection, Dreams from the Edge of Reality. One of my favorite writers (and people!), Howard Weinstein, shared the table with me. Howie was a mentor to me on a few occasions and has been kind enough to provide blurbs for all of my books over the years. We had a fantastic time. I sold about five copies of Dreams while Howie had a constant groups of adoring Star Trek fans bringing their copies of his Trek novels and comic books from back in the day. I also had the chance to catch up with friends Loretta Painter and writer pal Susanna Reilly who happens to be one of my best and toughest critique partners.
It wasn’t until after Meet the Pros that I noticed the collage near the registration desk honoring the memory of astronomer and longtime Shore Leave committee member and co-con chair, Inge Heyer, who passed away just weeks before. I was honored to see a photo of mine as the second image on the top row from 1998, when Inge and I met up with another friend, Vince Maiocco, to meet Leonard Nimoy at a book signing at the Montgomery Mall. More on Inge’s passing later in this report.
On Saturday, I had no panels until 1PM so writer pal Chris Ochs and I drove out to the Bird-in-Hand Cafe and Bakery for breakfast. It was a quaint cafe and gift shop with seating on the first and second floors. While there, I picked up a few candles for my wife.
With nothing to do until my 1PM panel, I attended one of the many science panels at Shore Leave, this one was about the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Telescope as presented by science guest Kenneth Carpenter, Project Scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope. Dr. Carpenter’s fantastic presentation included the differences between the Roman and Webb telescopes, how the Roman telescope will operate, and images of the telescope under construction.
After that, writer pal Chris Ochs and I decided to sit in on a presentation about submitting to independent publishers. However, when the presenter failed to appear after ten minutes, another writer in the audience stepped in (his name escapes me now) and Chris and I decided to join him. We led an ad hoc presentation covering the importance of reading submission guidelines, finding good critique partners and editors for your work, reading your work aloud as a way of self-editing, the various ways writers are paid for short stories, and more. All told, it was a fun 50 minutes with excellent audience participation.
My 1PM panel was called Where Do You Find the Time? with Aaron Rosenberg, Kelli Fitzpatrick, Russ Colchamiro (moderator) and a fourth writer whose name escapes me right now (I blame age). This was a discussion on time management for writers where each of us offered advice on how to make (vs. find) time to write and exchanged ideas with other writers in the audience.
The rest of my Saturday was spent wandering around the con, taking breaks in my room, and eventually going to Longhorn Steakhouse with writer buddy Chris Ochs and the team from Oddity Prodigy Productions. By the time we returned, the masquerade awards were just starting and I’m embarrassed to admit that I did not take pics of any of the amazing cosplayers at this year’s Shore Leave. I ended up sitting with several other writers in the lounge straight through the awards and 10-Forward before crashing for the night.
Sunday saw me at two panels separated by Inge Heyer’s memorial. At 10AM, it was a discussion about Criticism vs. Critique with Hildy Silverman, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, and Rigel Ailur and at noon, Hildy and I gathered for our third panel together. We were joined by Christopher D. Abbott and Scott Pearson to chat about the importance of self-editing and various ways to go about it.
In between those panels was the memorial for Inge Heyer during which many of Inge’s friends, both new and old, shared their memories of her. Since the aforementioned picture with Leonard Nimoy was included on the collage, I recounted the story behind it, reaching almost 30 years into the past…
Inge, Vince, and I had arrived at the Waldebooks in the Montgomery Mall at 8AM as Inge was expecting a massive line for Leonard Nimoy, who was slated to arrive at 10AM. Instead, we were the first ones there for about the next hour. However, by the time the anointed hour rolled around, there was a long queue behind us. Vince and I each had a copy of Mr. Nimoy’s I Am Spock memoir along with one Star Trek item as permitted by Mr. Nimoy. Once we were finished, Vince and I took a seat while Inge went back in line again… and again… and again. She had brought with her copies of Nimoy’s past books as well as other Star Trek memorabilia and managed to get them all signed.
At the end of the event, Inge asked the manager at Waldenbooks if we could have a group photo with Mr. Nimoy. Since we were the first ones in line at 8AM, Mr. Nimoy agreed and the rest is history.
The audience at the memorial enjoyed the story. Another fond memory of Inge will always be her enthusiasm as a science communicator and presenter at Shore Leave and other conventions. While working for the Hubble Space Telescope, she often brought enormous stacks of photos taken by the Hubble and gave them away at the cons. I have a collection of them and now, each time I flip through them, I will think of Inge and hope that she is out there in the cosmos exploring those places that are out of reach to mere mortals except through data and images.
“The Cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the Universe to know itself.” – Carl Sagan
After my final panel, it was time to get on the road home. As I write this, the Saturday after Shore Leave, I’m beginning to recover from the cold I picked up there. I’m off from work next week for a home renovation project and hope to be back to 100% by then.
Onward!
