I tend to be a stay-at-home kind of person, but I’ve had to cancel traveling to a lot of conventions and events in the last year. One of the things I tend to enjoy the most about those events is the interactions I have with fellow attendees (fans and professionals).

Later this month, I’ll be hosting some online short fiction-related panels with some friends and colleagues, but Kate has been pushing me to try using Twitch for more “just me” stuff. I’ve created an account and plan on holding informal kaffeeklatsch-like events there. If that sentence doesn’t make sense to you, let me translate…

Twitch is a video streaming site. If you go to this page, you’ll find my profile there and can sign up to be notified when I’m “streaming” (on camera and available). I can’t see the audience members, but they can “talk” to me via the chat room. At conventions, a kaffeeklatsch (or a literary beer) is an informal event where you can go and have a group chat with one of the guests. The participants ask questions about the work you do and other related stuff.

I’m going to give this a try and see how it goes. The first session will be Thursday, April 9 at 1PM EDT. How long it runs will completely depend on the audience. Hope to “see” some of you there. (If this works out, I’ll schedule others at different times and different days. Not trying to favor any one particular time zone here.)