Places I Used to Write, and Sometimes Still Do

Thinking of all kinds of places I used to write, in loose and sometimes overlapping order...

• Drake's and Brown Jug and Monkey Bar and Amer's and Espresso Royale and Continental Diner and Bill's Coffee Cup (Ann Arbor)
• Penny Lane and Trident and Aristocrat Diner and Sundown Saloon (Boulder)
• Dom Bakeries and Mudd House and Ugly Mug (Ypsi)
• Pat's (Orono)
• Stella's and Cosmic Crossings and Pete's and Mercury Cafe (Denver)
• South St. Diner (Boston)
• Ruski's and JavaNet (Portland)
• Atlas and Roebling Tea Room (Brooklyn)
• Broken Cup and Yaffa and Cafe Pick Me Up (Manhattan)

I miss little things about each and every one of those places, the way they used to be when I worked there. Now it's Coffee by Design and Hilltop in Portland. Dipping a toe into Local Sprouts. Also, of course, home.

I know I'm forgetting some place. An internal tour of your past is never really complete. Interesting to remember how I felt as a writer, where my horizons of expectation were, when I was spending time at each of those places.

Coast City Comic-Con Schedule

The big show is this weekend! If you're going to be there, here's where you'll find me:

Saturday 11am -- The Good (and Bad) Old Days: Jeff Kline, who’s produced shows like Jackie Chan Adventures, and G.I. Joe: Renegades, joins Alex Irvine (Avengers Alliance, Daredevil Noir) and Coast City’s own Tristan Gallagher to talk about the most remarkable and the most forgettable series, characters and franchises from the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Saturday 3pm -- Writing in a Multimedia World: Jeff Kline, Alex Irvine and Mort Todd offer insight into writing for various media, TV, film, comics, novels and news publications — what’s required of you, and what the differences between each storytelling format are.  

Sunday 12pm -- Video Games #$@&ing Rule!: Eric Holmes (lead designer, Prototype, Gears of War 3), Daniel Way (writer, Deadpool video game), Alé Garza (lead character artist, DC Universe Online), and Alex Irvine (writer, Avengers Alliance) join up to talk about their respective video game projects. What does it take to get into their given jobs? What’s in store for the future? What are their favorite games? 

In addition to the abovementioned parties, you'll be able to catch up a rogues' gallery of cool comics/pop culture types (Becky Cloonan, Fred Van Lente, JK Woodward, Bob Camp, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan, Mort Todd, Sean Murphy, et al.). The whole schedule is here. Also, I'll be hanging around my table. See you there!