Published authors Tim Powers and Jim Blaylock visited Long Beach City College to reflect on their past work and help guide students with their future careers as writers.
Tim Powers, author of “The Anubis Gates” and “On Stranger Tides,” mentioned how writers can use YouTube to help come up with descriptions in a novel.
“If your wondering how the Niagara Falls look like or an abandoned house, someone has probably filmed it,” Powers said.
Powers and Blaylock first met each other at Cal State Fullerton. Since then, both writers have collaborated on “The Better Boy,” “On Pirates,” and “The William Ashbless Memorial Cookbook.”
Both authors began the literary movement of steampunk, a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates themes of 19th century steam powered machinery.
Powers sixth book “On Stranger Tides” was sold for the adaptation of the fourth Pirates of the Carribean film and Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” was dedicated to Powers and his wife.
“Young writers have to read lots of stuff from lots of periods,” Powers said.
“But not from a 2019 point of view because you’re going to see old books as historic exhibits.”
Frank X. Gaspar, a professor emeritus at Long Beach City College, stopped by the event for readings of his own work and held a book signing for attendees.
Gaspar read his short stories, poetry and provided more information about his upcoming work “The Poems of Rennata Ferrara.”
“I really do hope that students and everyone that attended learned at least one thing for me because those who did attend are very dedicated to the craft,” Gaspar said.
“The only time a college student whose writing should quit is when multiple people tell you to quit. Then you have a problem.”
Event attendee and LBCC student Lee Garcia, came prepared for the event with a copy of “The Steampunk Bible” by Jeff VanderMeer and S.J. Chambers; a work where Powers is mentioned.
“Steampunk has always been something a lot more than the average genre because of creative and surprising it can be,” Garcia said.
Michelle Brittan Rosado, author of “Why Can’t It Be Tenderness” and whose poems have appeared in The New Yorker, will be coming to LBCC on October 14.
Along with Rosado, author of “A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That” Lisa Glatt, will be coming a month later on November 8.