Current events

WHEN WORDS COLLIDE – MY SCHEDULE

Ladies and Gentlemen, Genders of your Choice, Children of all Ages, Assorted Sentients and Sophonts,

Here’s my schedule for When Words Collide 2026. This is the stuff I’ll be actually doing. Basically, three low impact items, meet and greet, autographs and stuff. And three big items – Panels on AI, Presentations on Copyright and Contracts. You’ll find my notes on the big items on this website. Feel free to stop by and sit in.  I’m very entertaining. If you’re very entertaining too, so much the better!

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A CRASH COURSE IN CONTRACTS FOR WRITERS

WHEN YOU’RE A WRITER, YOU’RE NOT JUST AN ARTIST. YOU’RE ALSO A VICTIM.

A SAP, A SUCKER, A DOOFUS, A STUMBLEBUM, A BLINDFOLDED TRAVELER TRYING TO CROSS THE ROAD AT RUSH HOUR, YOU’RE THE ROADKILL ON THE PUBLISHING HIGHWAY.

But do you have to be?

WRITING IS NOT JUST ART, IT’S A BUSINESS, PUBLISHING IS A BUSINESS. YOUR PUBLISHER IS NOT YOUR FRIEND, YOUR EDITOR IS NOT YOUR FRIEND, YOUR AGENT IS NOT YOUR FRIEND.

Or rather, everyone is friends right up until they’re not friends 

IT’S ALL BUSINESS, AND YOU NEED TO KNOW THE CONCEPTS YOURSELF, TO UNDERSTAND THE ISSUES, AND HAVE SOME CONTROL OVER YOUR CAREER.

THERE ARE WAY TOO MANY STORIES ABOUT HOW THE WRITER GOT SCREWED. OFTEN, IT COMES DOWN TO ‘SHIT HAPPENED’  BUT ACTING LIKE A PROFESSIONAL MAY SAVE YOU SOME HEADACHES. HERE ARE THE FUNDAMENTALS OF PUBLISHING CONTRACTS, AND SOME OF THE TOOLS TO AT LEAST KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON.

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A CRASH COURSE IN COPYRIGHT FOR WRITERS

COPYRIGHTS – In the modern era, literally every artist and writer lives and dies on their copyrights.

But what exactly is copyright? Where does it come from? Who created it and how? What does it mean? What exactly do you own when you have a copyright? What are your rights to your own work?  How do you prove or register your rights?  Do you even need to?  How long does it last?  How do you market it, what are you selling?  Where is the line between your copyrights and someone else’s?   When is copyright infringed? What about reviews?

A basic understanding of copyright is a fundamental, critical need for any writer or artist to navigate through life. This presentation is intended to provide the tools to appreciate and explore rights. 

Enclosed are my presentation notes for When Words Collide, 2026.

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE – THE AI ARGUMENT

Friday, August 14, 2026; 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm
THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ARGUMENT

Artificial Intelligence is changing the world as we watch.  And it’s changing writing.

Somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3rds of the books on Amazon is AI.  AI slop is overwhelming online nonfiction sites like Medium, Quora and Substack, it’s dominating clickbait articles.  As much as 60% of social media traffic may now be bots. The future is here and it’s ugly as hell.

We are literally at ground zero of the potentially transformative explosion.  There’s so much discussion of AI and so much of it is bad, so much is emotional.  Literally every aspect of AI is just…  insane!  It’s a huge amount of ground. 

Does what we do even have a future? Is there a future for the novel, for books. Is there a place in the market for real writing and real writers? Can we use AI?  If so, what can or should we use it for?  What’s ethical?  Is there such a thing as ethical use?

People feel strongly about this topic, and rightly so.  This is not business as usual.

These are my Moderators notes for the panel…  follow along, enjoy, have your own discussions.

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CREATING A COVER

OKAY – Here goes.  You need a cover. You have no money.  You can’t pay an artist. You have no talent, you can’t draw or do artwork.  What do you do?

Well, you get sneaky.  I was doing a book, B-Movie Monsters in Love!  It’s just a personal project, it’s a fun book and I want it to be out there in the world. But I’m a quirky eccentric guy, and this is a really quirky eccentric book. So while I want it to be available, I don’t know that it will sell. At all. But I need a cover.

The Book’s theme is mainly deconstructing movie monsters. So that’s where I’m heading. I need a picture of a monster. Preferably a public domain picture, one without copyright issues.  You can find public domain images if you keep your head around you and look around.  Anything from the 19th or early 20th century can be fair game.  We’re up to 1931 in the United States. Any image you can find that’s earlier than that is reliably public domain. Some of the stuff after that – from say Night of the Living Dead, or the Hideous Sun Demon is in Public Domain because the registrations got screwed up – you can get a screen capture from those. Or outside the US, the limitation period is 70 years after the death of the creator.

You can also buy ‘stock photo’ images with a legal license to use, from places like Alamy and Adobe. Some cover artists use them. I haven’t.

I poked around and poked around, and I found a really nice poster for the original Lost World, the 1926, Willis O’Brien stop motion animated film.  Due to copyright registration issues, the film and its materials had gone into public domain long ago. This was safe.

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COMING SOON!!!

Just a little relaxation project, while I’ve been working on other stuff. This is another collection in the same vein of Dawn of Cthulhu, Fall of Atlantis and Murder Chickens on Mars.

The cover art, by the way, is taken from the original poster for the 1925 film, The Lost World, now in public domain. I’ve cropped out the poster for everything but the dinosaur, switched to B&W and played with tints, textures and contrasts till I had something representing the old gray-skinned, leathery/rubbery stop motion dino look, slapped a border around and set it in red to make it pop.

 

KEYCON 2026

I’ll be doing the Dealer’s Room at Keycon 2026,

Hilton Winnipeg Airport Suites, 1800 Wellington Avenue

May 15th – 17th, 2026

I’ll be going in with other Authors of Manitoba, notably Nancy Walker, Rachael Clark, Sandra Terra and V.H. Balaban.

Since the last Keycon, I’ve got several new books – Squad Thirteen, Murder Chickens on Mars, The Time Traveller Chronicles, 1 and 2.  And I’ll be bringing back several classics – Starlost Unauthorized, Drunk Slutty Elf and Zombies, Axis of Andes, the Mermaid’s Tale, Lexx Unauthorized, Bear Cavalry and More.  It’ll be great. Don’t give money to Amazon, come to Keycon and give money to me directly!  Meet the authors!  I’ll autograph. We all do autographs.  I’ll give bulk discounts! Cash, Interac or Credit card!

Also, I’ll be doing panels and presentations:

Saturday 9:00 AM – Executive 4 – Worldbuilding Panel – Den Valdron & Casia Schreyer

Saturday 12:00 Noon – Executive 4 – A Starter Guide for Self Publishing  – Den Valdron

Saturday 4:00 PM – Executive 4 – Comedy and Sci Fi – Den Valdron & Casia Schreyer

Sunday, 12:00 Noon – Main Room – Authors Roundtable, Den Valdron & Others

Drop by!

 

Have a FRIGHTFUL FRIDAY THIRTEENTH

https://www.amazon.ca/SQUAD-THIRTEEN-Worse-than-Death-ebook/dp/B0FF2D8GRDhttps://

 

www.barnesandnoble.com/w/squad-thirteen-d-g-valdron/1147743353https://

 

www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/squad-thirteen?sId=1d54c09f-7476-46c8-8ba1-68f0258d8e10&ssId=RSjBrp3OlxwVFgbfNY2Pv&cPos=1

2025 THE WRITER’S YEAR IN REVIEW

So, here’s the writing year in review: What a shit year. What a seriously shit year.

The big news was an apparent heart attack in July, which turned out not to be a heart attack.  Instead it was compression and distortion of cervical vertebra, followed by months of excruciating pain that did not respond to medication, and the more months of reduced pain under heavy medication that did work. Prognosis? Waiting on referrals. Taking physiotherapy and meds and hoping to get better.  Late November and early December, there’s been some improvement, but I have months to look forward to.   Just a fucking nightmare.

In hindsight, this condition was building up over several previous months. Since at least spring, I recall experiencing increasingly frequent episodes of pain, poor sleep, chronic exhaustion and depression.  I just refused to pay attention, dismissing it repeatedly as just a bad day and forgetting about it. But there were more and more bad days and fewer good days, I was unconsciously triaging my life, reducing or cutting more and more things back, focusing on maintaining critical activities like work, but even there slowing down when I could. Even activities I enjoyed like Improv I was disengaging, reacting less, arriving last minute, leaving early as possible, avoiding socializing. My life just kept getting narrower.

What a fucking year.

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