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About my Absence and a Reading!

As you may know, I haven't been active online anywhere near as much as I've been known to be in the last couple of months.

There are a few projects I've been working on that are just sucking up all of my available time. As many of you know, I'm not just an author, but a filmmaker as well, and I'm in the midst of directing two documentaries. One is for the city of Salt Lake and the history of rail and public transportation here dating back to the 1870s, and the other is for PBS and explores the culture and dichotomous statistics that define Utah as a place.

As you can imagine, those two projects alone are keeping me quite busy.

Not content to rest on my laurels, I'm still hosting The Big Shiny Geek Show Pub Quiz every Wednesday night in Salt Lake at the Lucky 13 bar. I'm still co-hosting the Full of Sith podcast. I'm still writing my regular column at City Weekly, the official Star Wars website, and writing/editing for Big Shiny Robot! I'm working hard to get A Children's Illustrated History of Presidential Assassination ... ...and I'm on track to complete a novel for National Novel Writing Month.

I'm working extremely hard right now and a number of things had to give.

Having said that, the Salt Lake City Library has asked me to host a regular series of prose readings at the downtown library.

We're kicking this series off on Thursday at 6pm in the 4th Floor Conference room at the Downtown Library in Salt Lake City and I'll be reading a selection from an upcoming, unpublished novel of mine.

Here's the official blurb for the event and it will begin to happen bi-monthly:

Interested in science fiction, creative writing, or just looking to make connections with other like-minded geeks? Local author Bryan Young, who is also a prominent national Star Wars aficionado and editor-in-chief of Big Shiny Robot! (a geek news and reviews blog), invites you to a bi-monthly series of fiction readings featuring visiting and local authors, as well as readings from you!

Every two months, Young will invite a different featured author to speak for an hour. After that, he’ll open up the floor to attendees as an open-mic forum. Interested in reading? Contact Bryan at editor@bigshinyrobot.com to sign up to read works of your own for peer review and critiquing!

ABOUT BRYAN YOUNG

As editor-in-chief of Big Shiny Robot!, Young has been invited to also write a weekly geek column for City Weekly. He is also a regularly-syndicated contributor, frequently having his stories featured in the likes of The Huffington Post. Bryan is author of several published works and co-writer of several series of the comic book Pirate Club.

Location: Main Library, Level 4 - See more at the library's website.

It would help me out a lot if you were able to attend. If you're a writer NOT from the Utah area and happen to be passing through and would like to set up a reading, be sure to let me know. I can make that happen.

Even though I have so much on my plate, I think this reading series was important for me to be a part of. Building communities of writers is something we should all focus on doing, especially in areas around us. The world is always a better place for those of us encouraged to express ourselves in the written word. Creating a community out of sharing those words with others and the public and discussing them, I think, will lead to better writers across the board.

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