This weekend, I'm doing my first reading, at a Toronto SF convention called Ad Astra. I'll be reading my story Craphound -- a story about aliens who come to Earth looking to thrift and yard-sale. It was originally published in Science-Fiction Age in March, and has been picked up for reprint in Northern Suns, from Tor, in 1999.

I decided that I wanted to do a cool promotional piece for the people who showed up at my reading, so I made up 50 numbered grab-bags full of cool old toys to give away. My neighbours, the design firm of Resilient Channel, whipped up a colour label for the front of the bag and a pull-quote for the back.

This is the front of the bag. Cool, huh?

Here's the pull-quote for the back of the bag. It's kind of an obsessive litany of a motherlode of cool crap at the Eastern Muskoka Volunteer Fire Department Ladies' Auxillary Rummage Sale. There really is such a sale. I got some great stuff there a couple years ago.

This is typical of the stuff in one of the bags. I scored four shopping bags full o' vintage trinkets at a store here in Toronto.

Not pictured here: gag gum, fake hot-dogs, sheriff's star, plastic ukelele, monster stickers, and more.