I’m going to Los Angeles this weekend to (among other things) participate at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which you should come to, because it’s totally free for you. Here’s what I’ll be doing:

Saturday:

1pm: Signing at the Mysterious Galaxy Booth (Booth #372). I’ll be there for about a hour. Buy a book, get it signed!

Sunday:

10am: World Building (Panel 2081). With Lev Grossman, Frank Beddor and Charles Yu (moderating). At the David Continuing Education Center.

3pm: The Nerds Shall Inherit the Earth (Panel 2093). With Pamela Ribon, Maureen Johnson and Amber Benson (interviewing). At the Bovard Auditorium.

I’ll be signing books after both panels, as I understand it.

These are going to be fantastic panels (no pun intended), with fantastic people. So now you know what you’re doing with your Sunday, should you be in the LA area.

See you soon!

I promised a thread for you to promote your Kickstarter projects, and — behold! — here it is. This is where you can share with my up to 50,000 daily readers what you want to do that they should give money to you for.

But there are rules! Please read them before you post.

1. Please post projects listed on fundraising sites only. Kickstarter is the big name in the field, but there are others as well. The point is that there is an intermediary party that people are comfortable giving financial information to.

2. Creative projects and 501(3)(c) charities only. i.e., you’re selling something or you’re doing a charity fundraiser for a recognized charitable organization. Yes, I know some people raise funds to directly pay for their rent. Not here, please.

3. Current projects only. Which is to say, projects that are still open to fundraising. This should be obvious.

4. Briefly describe yourself and your project in the comment. That way people will know if they want to link through to the full project. Don’t go on too long, though. Imagine it’s an elevator pitch.

5. One project per post (and one link per post is advised). This is because if you have three or more links in a post it will be punted into the moderation queue, and I’m traveling this afternoon and won’t be able to free them immediately. One link per post is good. Obviously you may post about more than one project, provided it fulfills every other rule above.

If your post is punted into the moderation (or spam) queue, don’t panic. I will be going through both when I am on the ground (and, if my flight has wifi, there too). They will be released in due time and if history is any indication, people will go through the comments at all times of the day and often more than once.

6. No comments in this thread except projects. Any other comments (including comments commenting on posted projects) will be deleted. This comment thread is for pitching projects only. This makes it easier for everyone to navigate. If you have questions, e-mail me; the contact info is in the sidebar.

Okay: Pitch your projects, people!

It’s my wife Krissy’s birthday today, and she is as fantastic as ever, and I am as flummoxed as ever about how I’ve managed to be able to live my life with someone who is as clearly and obviously fantastic as she is. Of course, I understand this is what every smart husband says publicly about his wife, but seriously, people, I don’t think you understand. When people meet the both of us, and then Krissy later excuses herself for whatever reason, as soon as she is out of earshot, every single person says to me something along the lines of wow, you sure did luck out, pal. It would be annoying if I didn’t agree entirely. I suspect in a past life I must have saved a dozen infants or so from a burning orphanage and then raised them as my own children. So to the past life me who gave me such awesome relationship karma: Dude. You rock.

If you desired to offer my wife birthday wishes, I would not look askance upon it.

…It’s coming to an end soon. My final column there is scheduled for May 9th. In a nice bit of symmetry, my first column for AMC/FilmCritic.com was May 8, 2008, so I will have written the column for four years to the week.

The nice folks at AMC took pains to let me know that the reason  for the cancellation of the column had nothing to do with me or the writing — they were very happy with the column during its run — but was down to the usual “we’re taking the site in a different direction” stuff, which meant cutting columns in general, my column being a subset of that. As they say in the business, it is what it is.

And you ask: Are you upset? Should we start a letter-writing campaign? Storm the AMC headquarters with pitchforks? The answer to all of the above is “no.” One, I’m not upset because this is the nature of freelancing: You work a gig until you don’t. You enjoy it while it’s there and move on to the next thing when it’s done. Four years a decent amount of time to do anything freelance, and in my experience of gigs, that’s right around the average. I did the AOL Journals thing for three and a half years; I did my Official PlayStation Magazine gig for six. This slots in nicely between them.

Two, I also practice what I preach in terms of approaching writing as a business: This column is one gig, and one revenue stream, among several. It’s going away but the others are still there to keep me busy and paid. We live within our means and we save a substantial amount of what we bring in. Because we understand the nature of the business, and because we’ve prepared and planned prudently, this doesn’t hurt us. I’m in a good position from which to find new projects to replace this income. We’re going to be just fine.

Three, the AMC folks have always treated me extremely well, always appreciated the work I did for them, and always paid me well and on time. I have nothing but very good things to say about them and my experience working with them. I am delighted they let me work with them as long as they did, and I would be happy to work with them again. And heck, I even got a book out of it. That’s what you call a positive work experience.

So, no, I’m not upset. I’m pleased the gig lasted as long as it did, and that it was so thoroughly enjoyable all the way through. Clearly, as I am not upset, I don’t think there’s a reason for anyone else to be upset on my behalf. Keep the e-mails and pitchforks sheathed, if you would.

I will miss writing about films, particularly science fiction films, on a regular basis. But don’t worry. I do have plans on that score. Nothing I can share yet, and I have some other things to do first, most notably The Spank Chronicles, Book One: The Spankening. But if it pans out, it should be fun.

In any event, enjoy the FilmCritic.com columns while you can, and remember you can always pick up 24 Frames Into the Future: Scalzi on Science Fiction Film if want a memento to remember the column by (in addition to that link there, it’s also available on Amazon). And thank you for reading the column every week. I’ve had fun writing it. I hope you’ve had fun reading it.

(P.S.: As an irony, I make a snarky comment in the column this week begging not to be fired. It’s completely coincidental and was written before I was told the column is ending. I think it’s pretty funny. Note to self: Make no more snarky comments about being fired, ever.)

This week at FilmCritic.com, I go through the mailbag to answer questions about the science fiction films we would want to show aliens if we wanted them to annihilate us, why the film Battleship has already sailed into the theaters of other countries, but not ours, and whether the Jedi are actually evil. Go on over, it’ll be fun! Or your money back!