One Month to EasterCon

EasterCon is back at the NEC in Birmingham this year, starting a month from now. I'll be there on just the Saturday as usual, browsing the books, catching up with authors and publishers and online acquaintances. And drinking tea.

EasterCon 2016

I was at EasterCon for just the Sunday this year, and spent the day with my usual combination of browsing the dealer hall, attending a couple of programme items, chatting to other writers and drinking quite a bit of tea.

 I didn't pick up as many books as usual, but I did get a copy of Mercurio D. Rivera's short story collection, which I discovered has a quote from one of my reviews on the back cover which was quite a thrill.




I caught up with Mike Wood, C.A.Hawksmoor and Eliza Chan from Codex and had a lengthy chat about our experiences as writers, GOH Aliette de Bodard, Gareth L Powell and Neil Beynon, Ian Whates, Roy Grey. As usual I also saw a few others in passing that I dodn't get to speak to. Next year will be at the NEC apparently.

EasterCon 2016

Two months to go and I've bought my EasterCon tickets. This year it's in Manchester and I'll be there for the Saturday as usual.

EasterCon Report 2015

It's 8 years since my first EasterCon in Chester, and I noticed this time that there's been a big change in demographics during that time. I met up with another first-timer at Chester and we seemed to be the only men who weren't middle-aged, bushy-bearded, pony tailed and sporting a waistcoat. Nowadays there are much more younger people of all different backgrounds and it seems much less insular than when I first attended.



I met up with several people I know from real-life or on-line, most of whom I only ever see at cons, and some of whom I met for the first time:



Gareth L Powell, who I first met on-line almost 10 years ago, Aliette de Bodard, Mike and Sarah Wood, Neil and Gemma Beynon, Ian Whates, Ian Watson, whom I overtook in a corridor, Chris Priest, Nina Allen, Adrian Tchaikovsky, and his wife whose name I didn't catch but I stood next to at the bar buying a sandwich, Daniel Benson and Guido Eekhart whose name badges I saw in passing and by the time their names had registered I'd lost sight of them, Kim Lakin-Smith, and plenty of others I saw in the distance.



Best presentation I attended was entitled 'Unfortunate Incidents Involving Balloons and Parachutes', which was a highly entertaining history of heroic accidents and tragedies. I'm hoping the same talk will be on again next year.

EasterCon Approaches

One week to go. I've had a look at the programme and found a few interesting items to attend, partially arranged to meet some fellow authors, and vaguely planned my route...

One Month to EasterCon

EasterCon is back at Heathrow this year, which is rather convenient for me. I will just about emptied my bookshelf of the numerous books I bought at WorldCon, so the timing is perfect. Looking forward to meeting authors and editors, talking about writing, listening to some panel discussions and browsing the dealer hall again.

Eastercon 2012

As usual I was just at EasterCon for the Saturday, and this year spent most of the time in the dealer hall helping out and standing in at the TTA Press stand with Roy Grey, wandering round, chatting and drinking tea.

I met lots of people I've spoken to before at other cons, plus a whole selection of new people who wandered past the stall or who were manning other stands. In vaguely chronological order:

Martin McGrath, Ian Whates, Tony Lee, Gareth Powell, Chris Priest, Nina Allen, David Tallerman, Aliette De Bodard, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Damien Walter, Ian Sales, Terry Jackman, Mike Cobley, John Meaney, Charles Stross and probably many others. So many others went past in the crowd too...

Eastercon 2012 Approaches

It's 4 weeks until Eastercon arrives and I'm looking forward to a day of meeting up and chatting with numerous other authors, publishers agents et al in the SF field. I've not looked at the programme yet, but I've really enjoyed myself the past couple of years and I'm sure this year will be no different.

Saturday at EasterCon

I was at EasterCon in Birmingham on Saturday for the day, and had an excellent day of conversation and catching up. I arrived later than planned due to a train cancellation, only to find that the badge laminator was broken, so I had to lurk badgeless around reception and the arty show for a while. Even during that lurking period I met fantasy novelist Juliette McKenna, Dr Who script writer Paul Cornell, literary agent John Berlyne, BSFA Award-winning author Aliette de Bodard (though she didn’t know it at the time), and Angry Robot editor Lee Harris.

I only attended one panel item during the day – the interview with David Weber – and spent the rest of the day circulating among the fan lounge (drinking tea), the dealer hall, the restaurant / bar, the long corridor between, and various signing sessions.

Spread among those various locations I met (in randomly-remembered vaguely chronological order) authors such as Rebecca J Payne, Toby Frost, Ian R MacLeod, Charlie Allery, Gaie Sebold, multiply-translated Belgian author Frank Roger, Tricia Sullivan, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, James Swallow, Neil Beynon, David Weber, Ian Whates, Roy Gray (who will be appearing alongside me in the Escape Velocity anthology), Gareth L Powell, Lavie Tidhar, Colin Harvey, John Meaney, Ian Sales and Christopher Priest (who appears alongside me in the new issue of Focus). Plus literary agent John Jarrold, artist Andy Bigwood, Chris Teague of Pendragon Press, Jaap Boekestein of Dutch SF magazine Wonderwaan, Terry and Liz Martin of Murky Depths, BSFA Orbit Coordinator Terry Jackman and the organisers of the UK steampunk Asylum Weekend Lady Elsie and Major Tinker. I also saw Ian Watson in the toilets, but it didn’t seem like an ideal place to strike up a conversation.

This year’s double-sided badges meant it was much easier to spot people’s names, but even so there were others who passed in the crowd and disappeared before their name had registered. I’m sure there are others I spoke to whom I’ve neglected to mention, but it was one big whirlwind of conversation and I was glad to meet all of you.

Eastercon Plans

It's a week until Eastercon, and I've been looking through the guest list to see who I might bump into. There are lots of people I've met before whom I'm looking forward to meeting up with again, plus several authors whose books I've read recently, agents, editors and others I'm hoping to see. Of course, with hundreds of people spread over a dozen or more rooms, much of it is down to chance. But I'm looking forward to it.

One Month to EasterCon

It's only a month until EasterCon - the British National Science Fiction Convention. Guests of honour this year include David Weber whose Honor Harrington series I enjoy, and David Hardy whom I met last year and later discovered was the illustrator for the Thomas Cook Galactic Tours brochure which I loved when I was a kid.

I'll only be there for the Saturday, but I'm looking forward to meeting up with numerous authors, artists, editors, publishers and agents again. I can only hope the results are as succesful as last year.

One Week to BristolCon

Next weekend I'll be attending the second BristolCon, a small convention held in Bristol. I enjoyed EasterCon so much this year that I didn't want to wait until next Easter to get together with the other authors, artists, publishers and others who you can meet at cons.

I'm looking forward to another enjoyable day.

Eastercon Saturday

Had a great time at Eastercon this year. I was only there for the Saturday, but met up with lots of authors, editors, publishers and others to chat about the trials of writing and other things.

Queued for lunch alongside Paul McCauley and Maura McHugh, had dinner with Toby Frost and David Hardy, chatted to Terry Martin of Murky Depths, Ian Whates of NewCon Press, Carmelo Rafala of Immersion Press, Martin McGrath of just about everything, Terry Jackman from Orbiter, artist Andy Bigwood, Henry Gee of Nature, Jetse De Vries of Shine fame (went to the book launch too), David Hebblethwaite who writes more reviews than me, Paul Raven of Futurismic, Justin Pickard and Neil Beynon of the Friday Flash Fictioneers, Gareth L Powell, famous for sharing my name, Aliette De Bodard, Ian Hocking, Philip Palmer, Chris Beckett, Colin Haynes, Stephen Hunt, Ian Watson and several people whose names I didn't catch.

The breathless, unending sentence above pretty much sums up the spirit of the whole day!

Eastercon Approaches

It's less than 3 weeks until Eastercon, the British National Science Fiction Convention, takes place over the bank holiday weekend in a hotel at Heathrow. I'll only be there for the Saturday, but I'm hoping to catch up with several authors and editors that I know, and to meet as many more as I can.

In 2007 I mostly wandered round in bewilderment. In 2008 I had more of an idea what was going on, but my day was cut short due to other commitments. Last year was too far away, so this year I intend to make the most of it.

See you there!

Voted

I read the last couple of BSFA Award short story nominees at the weekend. They’re all strong stories, though not necessarily the ones I would have chosen. My vote has been cast, with only a week to spare until the presentation at Eastercon.

As I’ve probably mentioned, I can’t make it this year, so I’ll be looking out for reports form those who do get there.

I'm now reading the new Interzone, with the Focus fiction special waiting patiently behind it...

Workshop Recruits

One of the attendees at our Eastercon Flash Fiction Workshop was Sarah Ellender, of the Plot Medics website. Last week she joined the flash fiction frey, along with co-medic Gai Sebold.

Meanwhile, I managed to escape censure over at Futurismic for my no-show last week. Phew.

Celebration - A Taster

This year the BSFA have begun publishing a series of Special Editions booklets. The first, arriving with Matrix magazine last week, is entitled Celebration – A Taster, designed as a foretaste of the forthcoming BSFA 50th anniversary anthology Celebration. The booklet contains an introduction to the anthology and three additional short stories.

Jerie is a tale of far future exploration by Adam Roberts and, like my previous experience of his work, is peppered with fabulous sounding pseudo-scientific jargon. It’s an energetic tale of the urge to explore, and where it might take you.

Ian Watson’s A Daffodil Jacket, or The Misadventures of Sebastian in Kyiv is essentially an anecdotal tale of a trip to the European poetry convention in Ukraine. Normally I might have dismissed it is an amusing and pleasant enough little account, but coming hot on the heals of Eastercon gave it so much more depth and made it thoroughly enjoyable.

Who’s Who is Chaz Brenchley’s tale of the ethical dilemmas that develop when money can buy anything and science can do just about anything. It provides a satisfying moral for the characters, without sounding moralistic to the reader. It’s a story that almost feels like you could have seen it on the 10 O’Clock News.

I saw Chaz Brenchley in passing at Eastercon last week, and both Adam and Ian were also there. Of course, with over 1100 people present, spotting somebody in the crowd is quite difficult, especially when you’ve never seen them before, or only seen a small mug shot on a web page! The name badges were quite light too, so they tended to flap about and become difficult to read. There are a couple of authors I’d like to have spoken to, had I had the chance. Maybe next year, if I can make it to Bradford.

Friday Flash Fiction: It's a Sign

I wrote this story during the Flash Fiction Workshop at Eastercon last Saturday. Well, not exactly this story. I managed to leave my notebook behind somewhere, so wrote this amended version on Monday.

Using pen and paper was anovel experience. It's amazing how much your wrist aches when you're used to typing everything!

An amended version of this story will be appearing in VW Camper magazine spring 2009.

Check out Futurismic for a list of other FFF stories this week.

And a jolly good time was had by all

Well, Eastercon has been and gone already, and the Saturday that I was there just wasn’t long enough! I attended a couple of lectures and discussion panels, briefly wandered the dealer hall and spent all of three minutes in the art exhibition. I also spent quite some time seemingly in a remake of The Poseiden Adventure – wandering corridors in a vain attempt to work out where I was.

Of course, the highlight of the day was meeting up with the other Flash Fictioneers, except for Dan Pawley who was unable to be there.

Here we are ready to begin our Flash Fiction Workshop:



Photography by the lovely Gemma.

From left to right: Me, Martin McGrath, Paul Graham Raven, Neil Beynon, Gareth L Powell, Justin Pickard, Shaun C Green.

This was the first time we’d all met up, and my chance to get my hands on my own copies of Illuminations – our new anthology. I have to say it looks fabulous – smart, crisp, clear; we’re all very proud of it. We all signed each other’s copies too, for posterity.

The workshop went well; a small but interesting group listened to us talk about our enthusiasm for flash fiction, asked us a few questions, then had a go at writing a short story in about 20 minutes. Of course, we all wrote something too and you can see the results, mine and presumably the others, this Friday.

Something very exciting was going on in the next room, lots of cheering and laughter while we attempted some serious concentration. We managed though, several delegates read out their stories and everyone offered comments. We may even have recruited a couple of new names to the Fictioneers, including our first female member. Check back on Friday to see the results.

Meanwhile out in the convention I saw several names I recognised wandering past and stopped to speak to a few. I spoke with Ana Feruglio Dal Dan, author of Passing the Test, one of my favourite stories last year, and author / reviwer Colin Harvey.

I caught up with Terry Martin, who no longer lives just round the corner from me, at the Murky Depths table. In case I haven’t mentioned it before, Murky Depths is a fabulous looking magazine. Some of the stories and artwork aren’t necessarily to my taste, but there’s no denying the quality it exudes.

Over at the Interzone table I practiced my Dutch on Jetse De Vries. Sadly, all I can manage is ‘Good Morning’ and ‘Industrial Waste Processing’, so I couldn’t exactly get by on holiday!

For now I’m going back to my reading of Illuminations…

Eastercon Imminent

Yes, it starts tomorrow morning. I won't be there 'til Saturday, when I'll be co-hosting the flash fiction workshop at 2 PM. We'll also be releasing the Illuminations anthology to the general public and signing a few copies while we're at it.

I'm also looking forward to some of the lectures and panels, as well as meeting a few editors, authors and others. I intended to do that last year, but being my first con I was rather overwhelmed and only chatted to a couple of new people in the end. I'll be particularly tracking down magazine editors in my continuing quest to interview them for 'The Editors' feature.

Stop me and say hello if you see me!