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Authors Jacob & H.P. Holo

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Conventions

We’re going to be Guests of Honor at P-Con!

June 18, 2024 by hpholo Leave a Comment

Hey, y’all! 😃 If you follow us on social media, you’ve already heard, but if not:

Jacob and I are set to be Guests of Honor at P-Con in Fort Worth, TX September 20th-22nd!

The con was a bit delayed in getting its updates off the ground due to staff health issues and whatnot, but relevant information is starting to come in.

Namely, that it’ll be held at the Holiday Inn DFW Airport South, and the room block is now open! 😄

P-Con’s an itty-bitty new con – and small cons are my favorite because they allow me time to actually hang out with readers rather than spend all my time rushing from panel to panel.

Most importantly, though, it’ll be the furthest west we’ve gone thus far. 😮 (Usually we stick close to home for East Coast cons.)

That said, if you’re on the western side of the US, it’s a perfect chance to meet us in person! 😄 I look forward to hanging out with as many of you as I can. 😊

Filed Under: Conventions and Appearances Tagged With: Conventions, Fantasy, Guest of Honor, P-Con, Sci Fi

Where will Jacob & H.P. be in 2024?

December 28, 2023 by hpholo Leave a Comment

One of our favorite parts of going to cons is meeting and hanging out with our readers, and we’re kicking off 2024’s con schedule fast!

From January 12th-14th – that’s just over two weeks from now – both of us will be Featured Guests at MarsCon in Virginia Beach, VA. (H.P. will be appearing as a Featured Fantasy Writer, and Jacob will be a Featured Science Fiction Writer.)

It’ll be our first time going to this con, so we’re pumped to meet all our fans in that area. 😄 We’ll be on lots of panels, but we also enjoy just hanging out in the hotel bar and chatting with whoever stops by, so if you won’t be able to make a signing or a panel, just look for Jacob’s bowtie or H.P.’s hair, and eventually you’ll find us. 😊

Won’t be able to make it to MarsCon? Fear not; we have three more cons already on our schedule:

  • SC ComiCon (Greenville, SC) – April 6th-7th
  • FantaSci (Durham, NC) – April 19th-21st
  • LibertyCon (Chattanooga, TN) – June 21st-23rd

More will be added as the year goes on, so keep your eyes peeled for announcements – or tell us about your favorite local con so we can add it to our list of potential stops! 😄

Filed Under: Conventions and Appearances Tagged With: Conventions, FantaSci, LibertyCon, MarsCon

Adventures in Co-Authoring with a Sci-Fi Legend: Origins – Act I: Cancer

February 6, 2022 by holojacob Leave a Comment

Signing preorders of The Gordian Protocol! Photo by Angi Clayton.

I’ve been writing with David Weber for six years—first on The Gordian Protocol, then The Valkyrie Protocol, and now on three more novels set within the same multiverse, the first of which will come out later this year.

Even after this long, the notion of writing with David Weber maintains a certain … surrealness in my mind.

David Weber is one of the authors who inspired me to write in the first place, and how many people get the privilege of writing with those who inspired them? There are still times when that aspect of my author journey doesn’t feel entirely real.

So here it is, the tale of how nobody indie author Jacob Holo went from that … to being “the other guy” on books with David Weber’s name on them.

Act I: Cancer

The story starts with cancer.

And, as my wife is fond of saying, “I do not recommend starting here.”

In the summer of 2014, we found a suspicious dark spot on H.P.’s leg. That spot ended up being a melanoma—the most aggressive form of skin cancer. Luckily for us, we caught it early enough that the dermatologist thought she might have caught all of it in the first visit. But with cancers this aggressive, it’s best to be sure, so H.P. went in to have the skin around the cancer excised and a lymph node biopsy performed to check for any signs of metastasis.

The good news is the operation was completely successful, and H.P. hasn’t had a recurrence since.

The week of waiting between the excision and biopsy results was miserable. For more than the obvious reasons. You see, of all the things H.P. likes to do, staying indoors in one place is not one of them.

For context, H.P. gets stir crazy on rainy days. I’ve been married to her for over a decade, and I still don’t understand this. She once went out to mow the grass during a tornado warning, with the reasoning, “The tornado’s not here yet, and I still have half an hour left on my audiobook.”

The excised patch on her leg wasn’t too bad, but the doctors had to cut through muscles to reach the lymph nodes, so she was basically recovering from a hernia that week. Walking was a chore at best, painful at worst, and required my help either way, which meant she was stuck on our couch with nothing but painkillers and me to keep her entertained.

Which, by the end of her prescribed recovery week, meant she was ready to go literally anywhere, as long as it wasn’t our house.

And by “go,” I mean hobble. Slowly. With lots of grunts. I wasn’t inclined to take her anywhere, but H.P. is stubborn, especially where cabin fever is concerned. And she isn’t opposed to playing dirty in order to convince me to go somewhere or do something (which is how we ended up with our beloved cat Nova, but that is a whole other story).

H.P. handles the scheduling for all our con appearances, which means she has a general working knowledge of all the conventions in our area. This meant she knew about a little event—the now-defunct Monster Con—that was happening close to our home that very weekend.

She casually mentioned this con the day before … while at that very moment holding onto me for support during a walk around the living room.

Naturally, I tried to convince her otherwise.

That’s when H.P. began to form her plan of attack.

She went to Monster Con’s website and brought up the list of guests, hoping she’d land on one that would change my mind.

She landed on David Weber.

I wavered—but again, considering her difficulty walking, I stressed her need to focus on recovering.

That was when H.P. put on a truly serious face and said:

“Jacob. You told me three weeks ago that David Weber was one of your favorite authors of all time. One of the authors who inspired the manuscript you’re writing right now. And your copy of In Death Ground is so well read we keep it in the cabinet to protect it from falling apart! WE ARE GOING TO GET THAT BOOK SIGNED!”

So … we went.

Continue to Act II here!

Filed Under: Adventures Tagged With: Book Signing, Cabin Fever, Cancer, Collaborations, Conventions, David Weber, In Death Ground, Jacob Holo, Melanoma, Monster Con, Stir Crazy

ConCarolinas 2019 Con Update!

June 8, 2019 by hpholo Leave a Comment

concarolinas

Sometimes you go to a con and have a fantabulous time, and then con crud sneaks up on you the moment you get home and knocks you on your butt. 😷

When that’s the worst you can say about a con, though, it’s a pretty good con. 😀

This was the first year that the stars and our schedules aligned for us to be at ConCarolinas in Charlotte, NC, and though we were insanely busy (ALL PANELS ALL THE TIME FOREVER), the fun was entirely worth the con crud.

Before we formally begin, though, we owe a special thanks to Guest Coordinator (and fellow author) John Hartness for allowing us in as last minute guests. We’d initially committed to LibertyCon for this weekend, but when LibertyCon changed dates (now June 28-30, btw), that left us some unexpected free time, and John was graciously willing to let us fill it at ConCarolinas. All that said, thanks, John! (Also go buy his stuff. And the stuff he publishes under Falstaff Books.)

ConCarolinas is one of those small cons that hides its size with huge enthusiasm and activity. Though a multi-fandom con, it places more emphasis on authors and books than most cons of its size, which meant that we were able to meet a bunch of new authors and add their books to our reading pile.

We hadn’t intended to come home with any new books because our pile is currently growing faster than it’s shrinking, but well…A.J. Hartley was a fellow guest, and Steeplejack has been on my to-read list forever, which was reason enough for me to just impulse buy the whole trilogy.

https://www.instagram.com/p/ByMGvDfALTr/

Then, when R.M. Hamrick described her space opera novellas as Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy meets Guardians of the Galaxy, we couldn’t resist snagging that, too.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Byd97LVgn9o/

Next, Jeffrey Bardwell, among other books, wrote a series about medieval steampunk wizards, so naturally I was all over that.

https://www.instagram.com/p/ByMHEaBgfoc/

Finally, I forgot to pick this up because by the end of the con I was 100% dead and incoherent, but Crymsyn Hart wrote a sci-fi romance titled Captured by the Alien Vampire Highlander which is something I think the world should know about for the title alone. (It’ll be on my digital reading pile soon.)

alienvampirehighlander

Speaking of books, we also need to give a special shout-out to Orielis Books, who carried our titles this weekend and also gave us an impromptu book-signing when we weren’t able to make our originally-scheduled signing on Friday. 😊

https://www.instagram.com/p/BydxsaHALdD/

They’ll be carrying some of our titles on their website and to other cons they visit, so be sure to check them out if you’re in need of some good reads!

Our adventures didn’t end with books, but you can find the rest of our ConCarolinas fun chronicled on our Instagram page.

And if you want to join us on our con adventures, come see us at LibertyCon, later this month in Chattanooga, TN!
Until then, happy reading! 😁
***
Note: Holo Writing is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and, as such, may earn a small commission from any product purchased through an affiliate link on this blog.

Filed Under: Holo Books Tagged With: A.J. Hartley, Charlotte, Charlotte NC, ConCarolinas, Conventions, Crymsyn Hart, Jeffrey Bardwell, John Hartness, Orielis Books, R.M. Hamrick

FantaSci Panel Schedule!

March 17, 2019 by hpholo Leave a Comment

fantasci
Hey, readers! Our 2019 con season is kicking off this weekend at FantaSci in Durham, NC!
Here’s a list of our panel appearances and fellow panelists:
COLLABORATING WITH AN AUTHOR
FRIDAY, March 22nd @ 3pm – Camellia
Writing by oneself is a journey, but collaborating with an author is a whole other kind of adventure! We’ll discuss the perks and challenges that come about when two heads come together (sometimes literally).
Panelists: Jacob & H.P. Holo, David Weber
SELF-PUBLISHING FOR SHY PEOPLE
FRIDAY, March 22nd @ 4pm – Camellia
For many aspiring authors, being an introvert is almost synonymous with being a writer…but unfortunately, that doesn’t sell books. We’ll discuss how to get the word out about your writing when all you want to do is hide behind your favorite notebook.
Panelists: H.P. Holo

CARE AND FEEDING OF AUTHORS
SATURDAY, March 23rd @ 11am – Camellia
The role that wives, significant others, family and friends have in caring for the writers that we love so that they can focus on creating the stories that we love.
Panelists: H.P. Holo and other author spouses

WRITING BY THE SEAT OF YOUR PANTS
SATURDAY, March 23rd @ 1pm – Rose
Pantsers unite! Some writers like to chart their story’s course and follow it to the letter. We are not those writers. We’ll discuss tips for writers who want to wander…without getting lost.
Panelists: H.P. Holo, Christopher Woods, Rob Howell, Terry Maggert, and Jason Graves

CHAOS OF CREATION: BALANCING WORLD BUILDING WITH STORY
SATURDAY, March 23rd @ 6pm – Rose
Sometimes you create a world so vast, you can’t possibly fit it all in a readable story. How, then, do you decide what to keep? We’ll discuss how to write a fascinating world while keeping readers engaged through plot and character.
Panelists: Jacob & H.P. Holo
JUMP, JIVE, and WRITE: A DISCUSSION OF MUSIC AS CREATIVE INSPIRATION
SUNDAY, March 24th @ 9am – Rose
The great philosopher, Plato, once said that “music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.” Come hear a panel of authors discuss their musical influences growing up, as well as the songs, artists, and themes that drive their writing today.
Panelists: Jacob & H.P. Holo, Jason Cordova, Jason Graves, and Ian Malone

CRAFTING TIME TRAVEL RULESETS
SUNDAY, March 24th @ 11am – Magnolia (Main Room)
Time travel writing is fraught with paradoxes and endless potential for plot holes. We’ll discuss how to design a time travel system that doesn’t break your universe.
Panelists: Jacob Holo and Steve White

Schedule is subject to change so, check out the website or Facebook page for the most up-to-date info.
See you this weekend! 😀

Filed Under: Holo Books Tagged With: Co-Author, Co-Authoring, Collaboration, Con Panels, Conventions, David Weber, Durham, FantaSci, Fantasy, Honor Harrington, Honorverse, Panel Topics, Panels, Science Fiction, self publishing, time travel, World Building

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