Last night was the semi-annual “A Taste Of Local Authors” event, thrown by the good folks at Owl’s Nest Books and the writerly juggernaut known as Randy McCharles–author of Capone’s Chicago, The Necromancer Candle, etc; as well as the man behind the When Words Collide conference, held every August here in Calgary.

Basically, twice a year, Randy invites local authors with new books to this event, to pitch, read and commiserate with readers and fellow authors. Last night was my third (Maybe? My memory ain’t so good since that incident with the incontinent mule and the pool cue) and it was one of the best events of the season. And I’ve been doing a lot of these things lately. A. Lot.

So, I thought I’d give a quick rundown of the writers who gave it their all, and their collective board of fare, and then toss a couple of pics of yours truly in the mix–because who doesn’t want to look at pictures of yours truly all day long?

 Adam Dreece read from his Yellow Hoods Series of YA fantasy books, which you can find HERE
Gary Renshaw read from his Chandler Affairs series
The always entertaining David Poulsen read the beginning of Serpents  Rising, a book which may–or may not–include snakes.
Aviva Bel’Harold read from her book Blood Matters
Glynn Stewart took the stage for his very first reading and presented his new book City In The Sky
Makenzi Fisk then read from her Intuition series
Master of paranormal children’s stories Simon Rose gave us a look at his ghostly tale, Flashback.
Excellent local SFF author Halli Lilburn treated us to a tale from the Edge anthology Tesseracts 18: Wrestling With Gods
Then some fool calling himself Axel Howerton got up and rambled on about how profane and offensive he was, and followed up with a short selection about a man, his horse and some whiskey, that proved to be only mildly tasteless.

We also had some excellent musical interludes from local player Jason Cote who did a goddamn bang-up acoustic cover of Blind Faith’s “Can’t  Find My Way Home” that had me stopped dead in my tracks.

Splendiferous food stuffs and a selection of wines were provided by the authors and Micheal and the crew at Owl’s Nest, and a wonderful night was had by all. And at one point, this happened: