The stories of Bryan Young

I've been thinking about this a lot lately and just wanted to get this out there. I think the reason female characters seemed so hard for me to write was that I live in a society that made me think they were the incomprehensible (and sometimes irrational) "other." Writing women was supposed to be hard. But it got a whole lot easier when I stopped thinking of them as this alien species and more just like people. They have the same wants, needs, desires, thoughts, flaws, and defects as everyone else. They just have it harder because everyone seems to forget that. And it was because of the constant attention that's being drawn to this phenomenon lately that was able to change my pre-programmed and automatic thinking about this. Otherwise, I'd have continued living blissfully unaware. This is why we need more stories about women and featuring women, and not just in the "strong female protagonist" role, but as bad guys, side characters, main character...

I have my tentative FanX schedule. Things are subject to be added or subtracted, but this is, for the most part, the schedule I'll be sticking to. For the rest of the time at the convention, I'll be at my booth signing books or haunting the Big Shiny Robot! booth. As far as I know, "A Children's Illustrated History of Presidential Assassination" will be available at the con. I'm not on as many writing panels as Star Wars panels this year, but there are still a couple in there. Star Wars fans coming to the convention should be excited, though. Hit the Salt Lake City Comic-Con website for tickets. Thursday, April 17, 2014 1:00 pm : Why Who Framed Roger Rabbit is One of the Greatest Noir Films Ever Made 2:00 pm : The History of Robin and Why Batman’s Sidekick is Great (M) 5:00 pm : The Boba Fetts – Daniel Logan and Jeremy Bulloch (M) 6:00 pm : The Corporate Takeover of Geekdom: Is Disney’s Owning Marvel and Lucasfilm a Boon or Ba...

Things are still completely crazy in my neck of the woods. The documentary I'm working on for KUED (called "Normal, UT") is supposed to be done this week. That means that pretty much all of my available time is being sunk into that. But that doesn't mean there aren't other things going on. First: A Children's Illustrated History of Presidential Assassination is just about out. Kickstarter backers have received PDF copies of the book, the proofs from the printer are arriving tomorrow, and all of the other backer rewards are completed. It's going to be great. At this point, you can pre-order it on the Silence in the Library website, or you can enter to win a copy from Goodreads: Goodreads Book Giveaway A Children's Illustrated History of Presidential Assassination by Bryan Young Giveaway ends April 16, 2014. See the giveaway details at Goodreads. ...

I've been swamped lately. The PBS documentary, the two books, another documentary, and just... everything. It's kept me buried under water. I'm still keeping my writing routine, though. And I'm averaging 400-500 words a day on my book and another 1000 words a day in other writing (my various columns, pieces for magazines, etc.) I have a few short stories due as well, and I'm editing a pair of anthologies, too. Add to all of that the passing of Aaron Allston , and I'm not sure how I'm still going. About the only social media type stuff I've been able to make time for is my Instagram, Tumblr , and Twitter , where I've been dropping pretty frequent writing prompts to get people thinking. Here are a couple of recent examples. Until I'm out from under the weight of everything I'm up to, feel free to follow my  Instagram,   Tumblr , and  Twitter , to keep up with stuff like this.

Hello, everyone. It's been a while. Too long, maybe. But that's just the name of the game. I've been off doing and making things, working my hardest on my craft and creating new things for you to enjoy. I've got stories coming up in more than a few anthologies, but the one I'm most proud of at the moment is the story I'll have in Apollo's Daughters . There's a Kickstarter (still going on right now, video below) for a project called Athena's Daughters  that Silence in the Library is putting together. It's a collection of sci-fi and fantasy stories, all with female protagonists, and all written by some of the best women writing in sci-fi and fantasy. Well, Apollo's Daughters  was a stretch goal at the $24,000 level (which was blown through in 10 days). It's a collection of sci-fi and fantasy stories with all female protagonists written by some of the best men in the genre. I was asked to curate the authors and I'm proud to say I...

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 ...

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...