I'll be lecturing at Utah Valley University this Friday, January 30th, at 12:00 noon in the University Library Lecture Hall. My topic: "Talent? Who Needs Talent?" I'll be addressing the relationship between raw ability, skill development, and artistic accomplishment, and thanks to the research of others I will not be talking out of my... umm... thin air. If you're a Facebook member I've created an Event page for my UVU lecture. If you're not on Facebook (and believe me, I understand if you're not keen on plugging into that kind of thing) then the best I can do is this page at UVU. If you need directions, you can find UVU with Google Maps, but then you'll need to use this parking map and this map of campus and get yourself to the building with the big 29 on it. It will not actually HAVE that number on it, though... just on the map. I know, I know... what were they thinking? Apparently they have flyers with my face on them up all over campus, and decided that's a better way to reach their student-body than a dedicated URL would be. I'm okay with that. I'll be lecturing for about 45 minutes, and then taking questions for the last part of the hour. If you can show up, by all means ask whatever you want. I'm game to answer anything. Following the lecture and Q&A I think they have me doing a signing. I'll bring books, and maybe some other stuff. Now... I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that you remember me saying that I was on "convention sabbatical" for 2009, and wouldn't be doing appearances. Well... that's half-true. I'm doing a few local events like this one, and I'll be attending the World Science Fiction Convention in August, but that's about it. I have too much book-work to do, and this is the year for it. These local things don't cramp my work schedule the way a big convention does, but they do get me out of the house.
