The stories of Bryan Young

As I write this, there are about 30 hours left on the Kickstarter campaign for my next book, A Children's Illustrated History of Presidential Assassination. We're currently 215% funded and climbing. We've been in the news in a number of places: First, we have The National Journal. Writer Marina Koren interviewed me for her piece in their White House section today.  How to Explain Presidential Assassinations to Your Kids  is a great, positive piece. They read the book, loved it,  and they even asked for a copy when the book is out. Then, the DCist wrote a great story about it, too, running some of Scout's art.  Author Creates Illustrated History of Presidential Assassination For Kids . Some of the comments are pretty funny. WatchPlayRead added a question mark to the title,  A Children’s Illustrated History of Presidential Assassination? , and are very supportive. Sadly,  The DailyKos  went straight to conspiracy theorist territo...

Walt Simonson is a brilliant comics writer, and easily one of my favorites. I've spoken to him before about writing ( you can read that here ). And I saw this clip pop up on Bleeding Cool with Walt Simonson discussing the origin of Beta Rey Bill, one of my favorite characters in the Marvel Universe. During the video, he drops this nugget of wisdom: " You want to play fair with the reader but you want to mislead them in stories. You'd like them not to get the end and go, 'Oh yeah, this is going to go there,' and then you go there." You can watch it in this video, the whole thing is worth watching, but this tidbit comes in at about 2:16: And it seems obvious, but it's a brilliant piece of advice and it's something we tend to forget. We all need to be reminded of this now and again. We need to work to be two steps ahead of the readers, play fair with them, but keep them surprised. Obligatory reminder of my Kickstarter, A Children's Illustr...

 So, my publisher for this book, Silence in the Library, launched a Kickstarter campaign for a book. I've written it and Erin Kubinek drew it.  I'd appreciate deeply your support for this project. The manuscript is done and most of the illustrations are as well. This is really just a preorder campaign. The book documents the attempted assassinations of Presidents as well as those who were actually killed in a way that's interesting and engaging to kids and adults. And the illustrations just put it over the top. It's a labor of love I put together for my daughter, and I think most geek kids and adults would really dig it. Consider ordering a copy. And there are tons of cool add-ons and extra bits to make it doubly worth your while.  And you can get a copy of the completed eBook version for as little as $5.  Check it out: A Children's Illustrated History of Presidential Assassination on Kickstarter .

I am happy to say that I'll be a guest at my first hometown Comic-Con, right here in Salt Lake City. I'll be selling and signing books from a table, and Big Shiny Robot! will have a presence there as well. I've got a pretty busy schedule and am in negotiations to make it even busier, but right now, this is what's going on so far. For tickets, visit the Salt Lake Comic-Con website. Thursday: September 5 6:00 pm: Making a Film on a Shoestring Budget  (Aaron Hultgren, Bryan Young, Scott Taylor, Tom Carr, Kohl Glass, William Pace, Chris “Doc” Wyatt) Friday: September 6 Noon Why We Love the Prequels: A Celebration of Star Wars 2.0  (Bryan Young, Leigh George Kade, Dartanian Richards, Sean McPeak) 1:00pm Directing for Independent Film  (Kohl Glass, Daryn Tufts, Bryan Leffler, Jonathan Martin, Bryan Young, Brian Higgins) 7:00pm King Arthur, The Lord of the Rings & Star Wars: An Examination of the Hero’s  Journey  (Bryan Young, Dan Wi...

Dragon Con is coming up quick and my tentative schedule is nothing short of exciting. I'll be all over the place and if you don't get to see me, it can't possibly be my fault because I'm doing all of the coolest stuff. I will stress that this schedule is tentative and subject to change, but there is a lot of VERY cool stuff on here. Friday  What We Know About Episode VII Thus Far 2:30 pm - A706 Marriott Rumors, theories, confirmed details, wishes, hopes, and fears. WE ARE GETTING A NEW MOVIE! Let's discuss!  (Tentative Panelists: Bryan Young) Your Favorite Star Wars Authors 7:00pm - A706 Marriott You love them. We love them. They'll be on hand to take YOUR questions! (Moderator: Bryan Young Tentative Panelists: Aaron Allston, Kevin J. Anderson, Michael Stackpole, Timothy Zahn) Totally Retro Toons 8:30pm - A708 Marriott Do today's cartoons gag you with a spoon? Our discussion of 80's kids shows will be totally tubular. (Tentative Panel...

July 2013 might have been one of my busiest months ever, so I apologize for the lapse in posting. San Diego Comic-Con was wedged in the middle of all of that, as well as some other things. I had two readings, one at a library in Logan, Utah, and another at The King's English Bookstore in Salt Lake City. And on top of everything, I'm still working on a rewrite of The Serpent's Head. But let's take San Diego Comic-Con first. I was on a couple of panels and met a lot of very cool people. For the Full of Sith podcast I got to interview people like Tommy Yune of Harmony Gold about Star Wars and Robotech, The Clone Wars voice actors Stephen Stanton and TC Carson, and Del Rey Books' Erich Schoneweiss. You can listen to all of my interviews with them here . I also got to interview the cast and crew of The World's End (Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright) and those should be appearing soon. As well as my interviews with the guys behind Robot Chicken (most no...

Over the weekend I was honored by the Utah Arts Festival and the Salt Lake City Mayor's office with the award for Literary Arts, given out generally every year, but not always. I'm pictured there, second from the left with the other winners. It was a great experience and truly an honor. Coming off the heels of that award, I'll be doing two different readings in the area. The first will be this Thursday at the regular Helicon West reading at the Logan Library, 255 North Main, Logan, Utah. I'll be there at 7:00 as the author guest and I'll be reading for twenty minutes or so. Afterward, I'll be signing and selling books to those who are interested. More info can be found here. The second reading is a little bit further out, but on Tuesday, July 9th, I'll be doing a reading and a signing at the King's English Bookshop . The King's English is located at 1511 South 1500 East, Salt Lake City, Utah. That event also starts at 7:00 and I'll...