John Picacio

Max Booth 80 members ⸱ 21 posts Writer of books, short stories, screenplays, and stageplays. Publisher, editor, bookshop ghoul. Infrequent podcaster. Cursed to haunt the internet forever.

ICYMI I launched a personal Patreon last month. Short stories, essays, internet comedy stuff. A variety of fun things. Currently at 80 patrons and imho it would be very cool to hit triple digits before the end of March. Please share and consider supporting! www.patreon.com/interrobangbus

Reminder of where you should be tomorrow if you're in the San Antonio vicinity

Lauren Raye Snow at the soft opening for ‘Ex Voto’.

Lauren Raye Snow at the soft opening for ‘Ex Voto’.

Lauren Raye Snow at the soft opening for ‘Ex Voto’.

TONIGHT. Opening Reception for @laurenrayesnow.bsky.social’s “Ex Voto” show at SATX’s Flight Gallery. 7p-10p. DO NOT MISS. cc: @sacurrent.bsky.social #sanantonio #firstfriday

Graphic featuring John Scalzi, Martha Wells, Robert Jackson Bennett, and John Picacio, promoting Pop Madness in San Antonio on Saturday, March 7th.

NGL — that’s a lot of Hugo Award Winners for one library festival. 🚀 SAN ANTONIO: Meet @scalzi.com @marthawells.com @robertjbennett.bsky.social — and get signed books! I’ll be signing THE INVISIBLE PARADE + I’ll have original art galore for you. TOMORROW. 10-5. FREE! 👀 cc: @mysapl.bsky.social

Working on a q&a lecture for a class today: The story of robots is always a story about slavery. The story of LLMs labeled as AI is a story about class, and which humans pay the cost, including the physical toll on their bodies/minds, and the lack of water and electricity, so data centers can exist.

I’ve seen some of these originals. DO NOT MISS THIS. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

FRIDAY NIGHT.
@laurenrayesnow.bsky.social at SATX’s Flight Gallery. (Soft opening tonight.) FREE. Be there. 🔥🔥🔥 cc: @sacurrent.bsky.social

John Scalzi, Martha Wells AND Robert Jackson Bennett this weekend in San Antonio??? Each of them would be every SFF con’s dream GoH, and somehow @mysapl.bsky.social scored *all three* for this Saturday’s Pop Madness. 👀 🤯 See you there! cc: @librarypalooza.bsky.social @nowherebookshop.bsky.social

The Invisible Parade by John Picacio, Leigh Bardugo Everyone in the neighborhood was getting ready for the party. Everyone knew somebody on the guest...

Four different fourth grade classes were riveted by The Invisible Parade this week. Its long for a read aloud, but they were with me there for every page. app.thestorygraph.com/books/3a02eb... #booksky

Heeeeyyy!!! Congratulations! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

Star Trek: The Original Series ECHOES IN ETERNITY An epic new novel celebrating the 60th anniversary of Star Trek: The Original Series! THREE LIVES A child mourns the mother she’ll never know; a scion of privilege falls into disgrace and yearns to redeem his sullied name; and a young Starfleet officer who dreams of a life lived amidst the stars receives his first starship command…each of them unaware that the threads of their lives are fated to be eternally intertwined. THREE DECADES On the surface of barren world KX-1 lies a secret fallen from the stars. But this desolate planet is accessible only during brief intervals, many years apart, thanks to its complex orbit between two black holes, whose fearsome gravities bend space and time. To unravel its mysteries will be the work of not one mission but three, carried out over the course of twenty-seven years. ONE DESTINY As flaring tensions place innocent lives in peril, three souls who have no reason to trust one another must put aside their fears and suspicions to embrace the possibility of a grander cosmos than they’ve ever dared to imagine, one in which all that we do in life echoes in eternity….

It’s listed on Amazon, so the news can now be shared:

My next book scheduled for publication is a Star Trek: The Original Series novel titled ECHOES IN ETERNITY, coming Nov. 24 in hardcover, to celebrate Star Trek's 60th anniversary!

(No cover art yet)

Link: www.amazon.com/dp/1668233673
Blurb:

An ICE agent shot and killed Ruben Ray Martinez, a US citizen and San Antonio resident, in March 2025. Then ICE and the Texas Department of Public Safety covered it up. He was 23 years old. I am calling for a full investigation into this shooting, including why there was an 8-month cover up.

Rep. James Talarico On Confronting Christian Nationalism, And Strange Days In The Texas Legislature YouTube video by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Here’s the uncensored interview with Texas’ James Talarico that CBS doesn’t want you to see. Banned from primetime airwaves. CBS and the FCC are cowards. Thank you for being a great American, Stephen Colbert. youtu.be/oiTJ7Pz_59A?...

An event book people in Austin, Texas, Johnny Compton Compton promotes his book dead first at 7 o’clock

Hands up, who’s going to see @comptonwrites.bsky.social speak at @bookpeople.com tomorrow night?

THE INVISIBLE PARADE is eligible for Hugo Award nomination in the 'Best Graphic Story or Comic' category. 2026 Hugo Nominations now open thru March 28th! Nominators: Check for details from LAcon V:
www.lacon.org

Lotta “art shouldn’t be political” takes going around (including from faculty at my art program) and I just have to say: wow fuck that

My new collection, The Pandemonium Waltz, will be on the loose tomorrow, Feb. 15th. 17 stories, cover and inside front and back cover art by Derek Ford, and an interview with me conducted by Kelly Link. Buy early and often. If you're so inclined, spread the word.

Instagram was so offend by this post they’ve threatened to terminate my account. Cool! Grateful for the support here and Patreon 🖤

it’s incredibly funny to look back and be reminded that the academy told stanley kubrick, david lynch, paul thomas anderson, frank darabont, and the wachowskis to all fuck off in 1999 for this lineup

Many congrats to @johnpicacio.bsky.social on this award!
If you have not got your hands on this stunning book yet, get yourself a copy. One of the only children's books I know of that explores dia de los muertos!
Beautiful.

Heeeeyyy — thank you, Linda. Appreciated! :)

And this is why Leigh and I have restrained from using this spread as a promotional tool for the book. We want that surprise for every new reader. But hell — it’s hard to hold back when it wins Gold. We’ll continue to be careful though. Thank you so much — ‘means the world. 🙏🏽

Thank you, Charlotte! 🙌🏽

Appreciate you! Two entire months of my life poured into that single drawing. ✏️✊🏽

Appreciated, Andrea!

Hey, thank you, Chuck! 🙌🏽

And BTW — THE INVISIBLE PARADE by Leigh Bardugo and me is #HugoEligible for ‘Best Graphic Story’ this year. So if you dig this, Hugo Nominators — here are a few enlarged details of the raw graphite drawing. 🚀 /2

Original graphite drawing by John Picacio for the gatefold in the USA Today-bestselling THE INVISIBLE PARADE. Full-color version featured in the book. Get your copy today if you haven’t already scored one.

🏆 Heeeyyy — my gatefold drawing for THE INVISIBLE PARADE just won Gold from the 14th Annual Infected By Art Jury. Many thanks to them! Congratulations to all fellow artists selected for this year’s Annual.

Click thumbnail to see full artwork. Over four feet long. All graphite. 100% human. 0% AI. 1/

If you're nominating for the Hugos, I just want to point out that Lee Harris is my editor for both Witch King and Queen Demon, the recent reprints of my earlier books, and of all the Murderbot Diaries, from the time he bought All Systems Red for Tordotcom in 2016!

A vertical collage of the 28 guests who appeared on Eating the Fantastic during 2025, all across the table from me with food between us. The collage has them in mostly chronological order, save for the four which appear larger to have them all fit into a five-column, eight-row space. The following list is alphabetical: Kemi Ashing-Giwa, Richard Butner, Curtis C. Chen, Eric Choi, Lara Elena Donnelly, Craig Laurence Gidney, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Robert Greenberger, George Gene Gustines, Larry Hama, Jack C. Harris, Karen Heuler, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Naomi Kritzer, Mur Lafferty, Jarrett Melendez, Adeena Mignogna, Samantha Mills, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Aimee Ogden, Tim Paggi, John Picacio, Shannon Robinson, Benjamin Rosenbaum, David Simmons, Natalia Theodoridou, Martha Thomases, and Eugenia Triantafyllou.

Hugo Awards nominations will open shortly, and I hope you'll consider my Eating the Fantastic podcast — which to my great astonishment launched 10 years ago today! — in the category of Best Fancast. Here's where you can taste all 28 of my 2025 episodes. www.scottedelman.com/wordpress/20...