Eastercon 2013

[jacey]

I had a lovely time at Eastercon in Bradford this weekend. A big congratulations and thank you to all the organisers and volunteers, plus kudos to the hotel staff for being unfailingly helpful and friendly. I ended up on two extra panels so I had a busy Friday moderating the Zulu Culture panel, taking part in the Characterisation panel and then MC-ing the Zulu Tradition concert. The Zulus had a whale of a time and stuck around afterwards to continue answering questions as long as peorple wanted to ask them. They gave excellent value in the Culture panel introducing it with a song and a small dramatisation to illustrate the work of a Sangoma (traditional healer) and then talking about historical and present day aspects. It was a perfect example of how and ancient and modern culture can exist side by side, curled around each other like puppies in a basket. The Zulu concert was hugely energetic and, judging by the queue to buy CDs in the interval, extremely well received.

I always love the opportunity to babble on about writing and books, so the Character panel was probably my favourite of the weekend, but I was asked to do a couple of panels on Sunday, one on Alan Garner (a favourite of mine from my childhood) and the other on Cityscapes, which I didn't think I knew much about, but it turns out I had plenty to say.

And the other lovely aspect of Eastercon was seeing friends: I travelled up with Jaine Fenn and her husband Dave Weddell who had stayed over with us on Thursday night. I'd arranged to meet up with Charlie Allery, Tina Anghelatos, Sue Thomason (my room-mate) and John Moran - all writers I've known for many years from Milford and from the r.a.sf.c usenet newsgroup, with John's wife Sara, a proto writer working hard at her craft. We planted ourselves firmly in the corner of the bar, becoming adept at maintaining a space even with various people coming and going were several other writers who have attended Milford over the years, including Chris Butler whose novella, 'Flight of the Ravens' was shortlisted for a BSFA award (which sadly he did not win, but the nomination alone was great recognition). Well done, Chris.

I'm already booked for World Fantasy Con in Brighton in October/November 2013, Eastercon 2014 in Glasgow and the London Worldcon in August 2014. Looking forward to future events and meeting up again with good friends. I've only been going to SF cons for a few years, but I'm hooked.

Comments

[davegullen.livejournal.com]

I had a great time too - such a sociable, friendly and entertaining weekend. And I survived my first ever panel.

I'm booked into those three cons too, so Gaie and I will no doubt see you there - and maybe at Eurocon in Dublin too?

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Eurocon in Dublin clashes with Milford 2014 since we moved Milford to enable overseas participants to do Worldcon and Milford on one plane ticket. We had to book the dates back in 2011. By the time we realised when Eurocon was it was too late to move the Milford week to the week before Worldcon instead of the week after.

There will also (depending on take-up) be a Milford in September 2014 for all the people tied up with cons over the summer. Two Milfords in one year! Yay!

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Talking of CD's Orkney band 'The Chair' have a new one out and it's fab- they've been picking up on Arabic and East and Central European ideas and playing around with them in traditional northern islands style.

[del-c.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed meeting you last year; I didn't know you were relatively new to science fiction conventions!

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

I've only been to Eastercons in Chester, Birmingham, Heathrow (last year) and Bradford (this year) and once to Novacon (last year), so I'm not a very experienced con-goer at all. It took me ages to work up the courage to try one. Now I'm hooked! Though my Best Beloved is never likely to be a con-convert. Not his sort of thing at all.

[charlieallery.livejournal.com]

It was a great con for me and you were a large part of that. Thank you for being our key stone and securing a home base, and also being the person who knows so many interesting people! :)

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know about knowing such interesting people... Sue probably knows a lot more than me, but I was pleased to be able to get the home-base thing organised. Having that made all the difference to Saturday.

And selling two out of those three stories I delivered to Theresa is a real bonus!