| Fantasycon report |
[Sep. 21st, 2009|08:52 am] |
Back from an excellent weekend in Nottingham, at the British Fantasy Society's annual convention. There were all the usual enjoyablenesses of such an event; meeting up with pals, sitting chatting and going to eat out with some of them, swapping scurrilous gossip and weird tales of this writing life. Also a good few of those enjoyable instances of introducing Pal A to previously-unmet Pal B.
Also, making new friends, hearing about new-to-me books and authors and sitting in on panels that offered new perspectives and promted new thoughts on stuff. Plus some usefully constructive conversations on the business front, of which more in due course as appropriate.
Further highlights of the weekend include but are by no means only limited to:
Meeting Gail Z Martin (Chronicles of the Necromancer) in person for the first time and even better, interviewing her for the benefit of the convention and then later panelling with her - and Stephen Deas, Ian Graham, Simon R Green and Stephan Marsan (Bragelonne)- about the way epic/heroic fantasy is currently going from strength to strength.
Meeting Jason Kingsley (CEO, Rebellion) and talking about books, cover art, the merits and personal experiences of plate mail versus chain and the intricacies of mounted archery.
Attending Sebastian Peake's illustrated talk about his father Mervyn, covering the entire scope of his life and work which was fascinating of itself and illuminated new aspects of the Gormenghast books for me.
Enjoying Fantasycon's very own version of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
Meeting John Lenahan, writer (Shadowmagic), comedian, actor, magician, indefatigable American. On the professional front, I am very interested in how he's parlayed a podcast into a 'real' book. On a personal level, I've never been the one asked to 'take a card, any card' as a trick is done before, so I was watching like a hawk when I was - and am still utterly astonished/clueless as to how these things are done. Also his swift stage act on the Saturday night was one of the most fun things I've seen at a convention.
Being invited to present the Best Magazine award on behalf of the British Fantasy Society, and thus being able to say a few words about the importance and value of our genre's magazine sector.
Is that it? Almost certainly not but I am still needing to catch up on sleep and also various things left undone after such a busy few days. I shall aim to report on the Society of Authors' AGM later - that was last Thursday, no thanks to the diary gremlins.
Downsides of Fantasycon? The usual, inevitable one of leaving realising I had never actually got round to catching up properly with those pals met briefly in lifts, doorways, the bar etc, swapping only a swift 'hail fellow well met' kindathing.
Right, a day of admin ahead since I don't think I can summon up the brane for rewriting/revising Banners in the Wind today. |
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| Comments: |
Isn't Gail lovely?
It was good to see y9ou/
From: (Anonymous)
2009-09-21 05:27 pm (UTC)
never enough time | (Link)
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Never enough time is there? Like you I realised when I got home that I had not chatted with half the people I wanted to. Good to see you - and hopefully talk to you soon.
J
X
From: (Anonymous)
2009-09-22 08:56 am (UTC)
How dare you. | (Link)
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I was about to write back an angry reply for what you called me but then I looked up “indefatigable” and calmed down.
It was a pleasure to meet you too Juliet.
John Lenahan
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/49137232/10673965) | From: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jemck
2009-09-23 07:48 am (UTC)
Re: How dare you. | (Link)
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Always worth checking those ten-dollar words :)
Till next time, best, Juliet | |
