I thought I was all wrapped up with interviews and conversations with Star Trek authors, but as the posts started going up I started getting responses back from authors that were busy with life when my original invites went out (the nerve!), so here’s a surprise one with David Mack, author of the recently released Star Trek: Picard: Firewall.  This will be his 21st year going to Shore Leave, so as a veteran of the convention circuit he shared great opinions on Shore Leave specifically and the larger convention system that wasn’t necessarily doing him many favors.

In 2022 he received the IAMTW Grand Master award and this year he had two stories nominated for the 2024 Scribe Awards.   There’s a number of great stories on that list and he’s happy to be included with them.  He’s also happy that the audience he was aiming for with Firewall found the book and that it struck a cord with them.

About half the conversation is discussing the confusion between David Mack (the artist) and David Alan Mack (the author) and how the disambiguous page for DavidMack.com came about.  It’s a great story that’s right up my alley as I was a big fan of the artist when he was doing Daredevil work, then came to know the author from his Trek work and had a moment of confusion when I figured out they were different people. Couple all that with my love for making websites and maintaining them, whew.

Mr. Mack has some good final advice for a first time convention going person like me:  check in early and attend the “Meet The Pros” event, which echoes the advice that I’ve received from others.

David Alan Mack (the author) can be found at his website, Facebook, Mastodon, and Twitter .