Posts Tagged ‘Kirsten Beyer’

Star Trek Mission: NY Wrap-up

I had a heck of a great weekend at Star Trek Mission: NY.

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On Thursday evening, the night before the show opened, I got to show my old NYC neighborhood to my friend Kirsten Beyer. We had dinner at the same Italian restaurant where my wife and I went on our first “official” date over 14 years ago, then we grabbed drinks at the Hourglass Tavern.

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Photo by John Van Citters, CBS Television Consumer Licensing

On Friday, I took part in the convention’s first scheduled panel, “The History and Future of Star Trek Novels,” with Kirsten, Michael Jan Friedman, Glenn Hauman, and editors Marco Palmieri, Margaret Clark, and Ed Schlesinger.

That night I had dinner with the generous and generally awesome John Van Citters, Kevin Dilmore, Sarah Gaydos of IDW Comics, comics writer Mike Johnson, Risa Kessler of CBS, and author Robb Pearlman at Glass House Tavern in NYC. Then I met up with Kirsten, and we followed Sarah and Mike to drinks with artist Declan Shalvey and a few of his fellow illustrators.

Saturday, I took part in the “Writing for Star Trek” panel with Glenn Hauman, Michael Jan Friedman, David Gerrold, Mike Johnson (scribe extraordinaire of the Star Trek comics), IMG_8247and Al Rivera, lead developer and story architect of Star Trek Online.

After that, Mike and I sat front row at the Star Trek: Discovery panel, where Kirsten announced that Mike would be spearheading the comics tie-in for DSC, and that for Simon & Schuster I would be writing the lead-off novel based on the series.

After the Discovery panel, I got to snag a photo backstage with Kirsten and Nicholas Meyer, the writer-director behind my two all-time favorite Star Trek films (among many other fine works), and I got the opportunity to tell him how much I’ve admired and respected his work.

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Photo by John Van Citters, CBS Television Consumer Licensing

Wrapping up my convention weekend, I brought Kirsten out to Queens for dinner with me and Kara at SugarFreak, a New Orleans-inspired restaurant that has been one of our favorite places since it first opened.

All in all, I would say I had a total blast at Star Trek Mission: NY, and I hope to do it again someday.

Guest Blog by Kirsten Beyer

By now, you’ve all no doubt seen my blog posts from earlier this week, recounting in words and pictures and links my recent VIP visit to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Today, in what is actually a first for my blog, I am pleased and honored to bring you a guest blog post by my friend and fellow Star Trek author Kirsten Beyer, who shares her perspective on our June 28, 2013, foray into the wondrous realm of NASA.

(Some of you might have also seen Kirsten’s post on my pal Dayton Ward’s blog; we’re both hosting her post to boost her signal since she has no blog, Facebook page, or Twitter feed to call her own.)

Without further ado, I present Kirsten’s guest post:

Rocket Big…Space Station Pretty…

By KIRSTEN BEYER

Sometimes, words fail me. This is tough to admit. I’m a writer. I’m supposed to be reasonably proficient at this.

But sometimes things happen that are so far beyond words, I just…

Take last Friday, for instance.

There’s a small group of folks on the planet who are lucky enough to have been asked to contribute to the universe of Star Trek fiction.  Some see each other a few times a year at conventions.  A couple of years back we decided it would be nice if once in a while, we could just gather and hang out without the demands of a convention schedule.

I missed the first one.  No way in hell was I about to miss the second.

Last Friday, I was part of a group of writers who were given a special behind-the-scenes tour of the Johnson Space Center in Houston.  (more…)