Appearances and So Forth

Since somebody asks nearly every time I mention my TED@NYC appearance back in October, I can now confirm that I will not be speaking at TED this year. Which I found out the same way as everybody else: when the full speaker list for this year's TED was released today. If you're curious about the outcome of the "talent search" I was part of, the only name I recognized from that event was Zak Ebrahim, who was awesome in New York.

Having said what I won't be doing, let me mention a couple of things I will be doing later this year:

-- Kate and I are going to Loncon 3, the World Science Fiction Convention in London in mid-August. I filled out a program(me) questionnaire, but it's way to early to know what, if anything, I'll be doing there. If nothing else, I'll be hanging out enjoying nerdery.

-- I just accepted an invitation to speak at a workshop for science writers in Stockholm not long after the UK trip. Which sounds like it will be a lot of fun-- I'm looking forward to it. this is close enough to the end of the Worldcon-plus-tourism trip Kate and I are doing that I'm looking at just staying in the UK for a couple of extra days, rather than flying back and forth across the Atlantic twice in the space of a week. If you're a person in the UK who books science-y speakers and would like a talk about modern physics for dogs in late August, shoot me an email. I'll work cheap that week...

-- I'll be at DAMOP in Madison, WI in early June. I don't have any plans to present anything (though it belatedly occurs to me that I probably could've had a student or two put together a poster. Maybe as a post-deadline thing...), but it's a great meeting, and I wouldn't want to miss it.

-- I have a proposal in with some people who have money to maybe do a very cool thing in late July-ish, but that's not by any means a sure thing, so I'm not going to say what it is. And while I'm being a big mean tease, I'll also mention that there's a very cool book thing in the works, but I can't talk about that, either.

I will also throw in the obligatory mention that while I'm not really busting my ass to generate new speaking opportunities, as a general matter, I'm happy to go places and give talks. If you're in the market for a speaker, particularly if you're an academic institution in the northeast US, send me email, and we can almost certainly work something out.

I'm expecting editorial comments on the book-in-progress Real Soon, so blogging will be light as I try to do as much as I can to clear the metaphorical decks for re-writes. And then re-writing stuff-- which, in the immortal words of Mr. Earbrass is "worse than merely writing, because not only does he have to think up new things just the same, but try not to remember the old ones."

And that's what I'm up to.