Milford Day Out
After the writing business at Milford is done, we usually take Friday as a day off and go somewhere as a group. This year it was Gwydir Castle. Not a fortified castle as you can see but an impressive house dating back in parts to the 14th century. It's been beautifully restored to its original condition, even to the extent of retrieving and reinstalling the original (fantastically carved) dining room panelling which had been stripped out, sold to America and had ended up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art before being brought back to Wales.



Photographs are not allowed inside the house, but believe me the inside is as impressive as the outside. It's in the Conwy Valley, south of Conwy itself. If you're ever close by, make an effort to go. The gardens are beautiful as well, and one of the original 12 Cedars of Lebanon still survives - planted in 1625 to celebrate King Charles' wedding.

My guest post about Milford past and present (with photos) is now up on the Tor.co.uk blog
http://torbooks.co.uk/2013/07/02/the-milford-writers-conference-past-and-future/
Please visit.

I'll be at Eastercon from fairly early on Friday until fairly late on Monday. I just got my schedule for panels and everything was crammed into Friday evening so I've had to drop put of the Superheroes on Film panel as it doesn't fiish until 5 and and I'm moderating the Zulu panel at 5 and will have to meet them and prep them for ut. They've never been to a SF con before.

So unless they give me something to replace the Superheroes panel later in the weekend I'm here:

Friday 5 p.m. Boardroom: Moderating the Zulu Panel. 'In advance of tonight?s show, members of Zulu Tradition talk about the Zulu culture and tradition. ' With Thandanani Gumede, Buhle Mhlongo, Khethukhuthulu Kheswa, Mzwandile Ngema and Bongi Siyabonga Gwala.

Friday 7 p.m. Boardroom: Writing Believable Characters.  Practical experience and observations on writing believable and interesting characters. Gillian Redfearn moderates Sarah Ash, Jacey Bedford, Gareth Powell and Ian Watson

Friday 8 p.m. Zulu Tradition in Concert. From Kwa-Zulu Natal to the world's stage, rekindling the spark of Zulu culture and heritage, through song, dance and drums. Some of you have read about the trials and tribulations of the Zulus on my blog,so come and see what they're all about.

I hope there's going to be an opportunity for folks who've been to Milford to get together - and maybe fior folks who want to know more abut it to come and meet us, too. Milford 2013 is already fully booked, but with 2014 being the worldcon year we're hoping to run two separate Milford weeks, one in August to happen shortly after Worldcon to enable folks from out of the country to do Milford and Worldcon on the same plane ticket - and then one at in September to enable those folks tied up with working at Worldcon to recover from it and not miss out on Milford.

This year's Milford is 22nd - 29th September, so I'm off to the wilds of Welsh Wales and leaving BB and the dog to amuse (and feed) themselves.  Fourteen writers kettled up in the middle of nowhere for a week. Looking forward to seeing la_marquise_de_, mevennen, davegullen and teriegarrison amongst others. Intensive critting of submitted works (one or two pieces each), some reading/writing time, some thinking time, a private lake for gazing at or walking to, three square meals a day (and no washing up after) plus cake, good company and sociable evenings.

What's not to like?

I've done all the advance reading and critting that can be done (still waiting for one piece to arrive by email) so my mornings will largely be free for writing or taking the odd trip into Caernarfon.

I have today to get my act together.

So... what have I forgotten?

Here's the official invitation letter as sent out by secretary Liz Williams. Last I heard there were only three places left, so if you're interested please contact Liz without delay.

MILFORD 2012

Dear Writer,

You are cordially invited to join the Milford SF Writer’s Conference, held at the Trigonos Centre in Snowdonia.  The dates are Saturday 22nd September to Saturday 29th September 2012 inclusive (leaving on the morning of Saturday 29th).

If you’ve attended a previous British Milford, you will know more or less what to expect and can go straight to the booking form.  If not, then a brief introduction may be in order. Milford is a gathering of professional authors, loosely linked by science fiction or fantasy writing.  It is not a school for beginners, and there are no ‘teachers’ or ‘students.’ However, neither is it an elitist in-group: we welcome new participants, and invitations are extended to authors who have only sold the minimum requirement of 1 published piece as well as those among us who only dimly recall what rejection slips look like (HAH! – ed).  Writers who have not attended a previous Milford are particularly welcome.  

The conference has been a regular, more or less annual event since 1972, drawing members from Britain, Europe, America and Australia.  Over the years it has settled down to a comfortable workable format: demanding and exhausting, with much hard work being done, but it’s also convivial, with a lot of sitting and talking about doing hard work. There's no bar, but you are encouraged to bring your tipple of choice and we have a comfy social space in Trigonos' library. It’s thus a social as well as a literary event.

Here’s a brief generalised programme of the week:

• Saturday: turn up late afternoon, bringing manuscripts for discussion during the week if you have not already sent them via email. There's no programme, but around mid-evening we convene and get to know one another over a meal.
• Sunday to Thursday: the main working days. Morning is the time to read manuscripts and prepare notes. Afternoons are workshop sessions, at which the day's quota of material is discussed as forthrightly and constructively as possible, with fairly strict time limits to encourage brevity and allow even the shyest member's voice to be heard. Evenings are for more relaxed conversation and discussion, punctuated by occasional silly literary games.
• Friday: depending on the workload, this can be the time for a further workshop, a semi-formal discussion, exploring the vicinity of the centre, or just resting. In the evening we unwind with a special dinner.

The centre
Trigonos is situated on the shores of Lake Nantlle in Snowdonia, among the mountains of the Snowdonia National Park. It is about 10 miles from Caernarvon, which is accessible from Bangor railway station by a frequent bus service. Full travel details will be sent to participants. The centre is comprised of an old Victorian house and converted barns, and has a committed approach to sustainable land development and environmental restoration.

The centre runs many courses and workshops, and there may be smaller other groups during the time that we will be there. It is full board (breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks) and caters to both vegetarians and non-vegetarians, and can cater for vegan guests also.  The centre grows much of its own organic produce.

Costs: for the whole week, you will pay £560 (minus your deposit) - a flat rate for:

• accommodation
• full board (plus tea/coffee breaks)
• meeting room hire

What you have to bring:
1 or 2 pieces of unpublished work, not exceeding more than 15,000 words in total.  We strongly encourage you to send these in advance and we will set up a small email group for that purpose. If you have not sent them in advance please bring sufficient copies for each participant.  One of these copies is also to be handed to Jacey Bedford (acting Chair) or Liz Williams (Secretary) on the night of arrival so that we can organise the reading schedule, but you’ll get that back.

A typical Milford has anything from 10 - 15 participants, and works best with a full timetable and minimal slack - this year there will be a ceiling of 15 members on a ‘first come, first served’ basis, plus a waiting list which you can join by paying the registration fee and room deposit.  The treasurer will hold this until the booking is either confirmed or cancelled.

To book, please complete the application form (here) and return it to Liz at the address on the form, with a cheque or sterling money order, made payable to Milford SF Writers' Conference for a total of £115  -- £105 pound centre deposit; deductible from your final bill, and £10 conference registration fee. (Regulars will note that the deposit has risen in price: this is because Trigonos have had a number of no-shows and although they know Milford well, they have had to institute a blanket policy of all deposits up front. Since Milford is a non-profit organisation, we need to make sure that we have enough in the coffers to pay this initial lump sum). Cancellations will mean a loss of deposit unless we can re-sell your space.  At least one progress report, with members’ names and further information (such as how to get there!) will be issued in the summer/early autumn.

Hope to see you there!

The committee:
Sue Thomason (Chair)
Jacey Bedford (Minister without Portfolio)
Liz Williams (Secretary)
Steve Kilbane (Treasurer)

BB is looking after himself for a week because I shall be completely off the radar from 17th - 24th September as I head for North Wales and another intensive week with 14 fellow SF writers at the annual Milford conference. http://www.milfordsf.co.uk. It's a full-house this year, 15 is our maximum number and with each writer submitting up to 15k workds (in one or two pieces) for peer crit and workshopping, it's going to be pretty hectic. Thank goodness there's reading time in the mornings because so far I've only managed to deal with 10 of the advance submissions. There are 28 pieces, of which two are mne, so I make that another16 pieces to read and crit sensibly and thoroughly. I might manage another two of them tonight if I get off LJ and back to work.

See you all after 24th September.

Wow! I can hardly believe it, mevennen emailed this morning to say that all the places for Milford 2011 have been snapped up in the few short weeks between Eastercon and yesterday. That's amazing! It's the fastest it's ever been filled I think.

It's Milford booking time again
Need more information? Ask here or email the secretary (Liz Williams) at mevennen(at)hotmail.com
Further information and application forms to download  - http://www.milfordSF.co.uk
Please feel free to pass on this information to suitable qualified SF writers

Entry requirement:
You need to have had at least one professionally published piece, i.e. one story/book sold to an editor. Self-publication does not count.

Dear SF Writer,
You are cordially invited to join the Milford SF Writer’s Conference, held at the Trigonos Centre in Snowdonia. The dates are Saturday 17th September to Saturday 24th September 2011.

A Brief Intro
Milford is a gathering of professional authors, loosely linked by science fiction or fantasy writing. It is not a school for beginners, and there are no ‘teachers’ or ‘students.’ However, neither is it an elitist in-group: we welcome new participants, and invitations are extended to authors who have only sold the minimum requirement of 1 published piece as well as those among us who only dimly recall what rejection slips look like. Writers who have not attended a previous Milford are particularly welcome.

The conference has been a regular, more or less annual event since 1972, drawing members from Britain, Europe, America and Australia. Over the years it has settled down to a comfortable workable format: demanding and exhausting, with much hard work being done, but it’s also convivial, with a lot of sitting around and talking about doing hard work. It’s thus a social as well as a literary event.

Here’s a brief generalised programme of the week:

• Saturday: turn up late afternoon, bringing manuscripts for discussion during the week if you haven't emailed them beforehand. There's no programme, but around mid-evening we convene and get to know one another over a meal and afterwards in the library.
• Sunday to Thursday: the main working days. Morning is the time to read manuscripts and prepare notes. Afternoons are workshop sessions, at which the day's quota of material is discussed as forthrightly and constructively as possible, with fairly strict time limits to encourage brevity and allow even the shyest member's voice to be heard. Evenings are for more relaxed conversation and discussion, sometimes punctuated by occasional silly literary games. We reserve one night to talk about markets
• Friday: depending on the workload, this can be the time for a further workshop, a semi-formal discussion, exploring the vicinity of the centre, or just resting. In the evening we unwind with a special dinner.

The Centre
Trigonos is situated on the shores of Lake Nantlle in Snowdonia, among the mountains of the Snowdonia National Park. It is about 10 miles from Caernarvon, which is accessible from Bangor railway station by a frequent bus service. Full travel details will be sent to participants. The centre is comprised of an old Victorian house and converted barns, and has a committed approach to sustainable land development and environmental restoration.

It is full board (breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks) and caters to both vegetarians and non-vegetarians, and can cater for vegan guests also. The centre grows much of its own organic produce.

Costs
For the whole week, you will pay a total £510 (a non-returnable deposit of £115 and a balance of £395 upon attendance). This fee covers:

• accommodation
• full board (breakfast/lunch/dinner plus tea/coffee breaks)
• meeting room hire
• Milford's conference admin fee of £10

A typical Milford has anything from 10 - 15 participants, and works best with a full timetable and minimal slack - this year there will be a ceiling of 15 members on a ‘first come, first served’ basis

To book, please complete the application form (download here) and return it to Liz, with a cheque or sterling money order, made payable to Milford SF Writers' Conference for a total of £115  (£105 for the centre deposit; deductible from your final bill, and £10 conference registration fee.) You can also pay your deposit by paypal if coming from abroad. Please contact Liz for details.

Hope to see you there!

The committee:
Sue Thomason (Chair)
Jacey Bedford – (Mailing lists and website)
Liz Williams (Secretary) – mevennen@hotmail.com
Steve Kilbane (Treasurer)
Kari Sperring
Karen Williams

Milford is an annual, week-long event at which published SF writers get together to workshop and crit short stories, novel beginnings, ongoing work and ideas with each other. It's been held all over the UK, but currently resides in North Wales, at Trigonos, within sight of Mount Snowdon and close to Caernarfon. This year it took place during the last week in October, an unusually mild week for the time of year with Snowdonia decked out in autumn colours.

The maximum number of writers rarely exceeds 14 or 15, but this year, due to a few late dropouts, we ended up being a small but select group of 10. We workshopped 19 pieces of writing between us, something approaching 150,000 words. The standard was enormously high. That's not to say that we didn't have criticisms, but they were all constructive.

I can't say just how much I appreciate Milford as a concept. It's brilliant. There are no face to face crit groups in my area run along serious lines (one in Huddersfield where people read out their own work - my idea of hell) so to spend a week in the company of like-minded SF writers recharges my writing batteries like nothing else can. I get as much out of doing the crits as being critted and once a piece has been through the mill it resurfaces in conversation - sometimes with great ideas bubbling to the surface.

Here are the 2009 Milfordians: Back row L - R lil_shepherd, Nick Moulton, mevennen,  birdsedge (me), Heather Lindsley, altariel, Jon Moran
 Front Row: chrisbutler, Stefan Hogberg, charlieallery



Trigonos is a fabulous place, on the southern edge of Snowdonia with its own lake and a glorious view from our crit room window.



If I have any reservation's about Trigonos it's about food - its (mostly) vegetarian fare which shows up more obviously in their evening meals. The food ethos is great in that it's all organic and much of it is home grown. Breakfasts are fine, lunches are brilliant with a huge pot of home made soup and a variety of breads and salads, but evening meals can be a little lentiltastic and... the smoked mackerel and mushroom pie did cause a few grown men to cry. (Not a happy food combination. If you ever fancy trying it... don't.) When served polenta one evening (following on from quinoa the evening before) someone (and it wasn't me this time) was heard to remark, 'This isn't food; this is what food eats!' Don't get me wrong, I like a fair amount of vegetarian food, even though I don't actually like vegetables in large quantities, but courgettes in runny cheese as a main course doesn't do it for me, and neither does sweet potato Thai curry which looks like orange slush. In all fairness the chef does make an alternative for people with allergies and extreme dislikes, but if there's a glut in the garden you will find the week's menu heavy with it. This year they obviously had millions of courgettes. I would never have actually listed courgettes on my 'dislike' list because usually I eat a few just to be polite, but now I find that after a week of aversion therapy, I can't face them. We didn't even get them in ratatouille (which I do like), instead they were mostly served in hero-sized lumps, boiled or steamed or maybe very lightly oven roasted. maeve_the_red is probably licking her lips right now - committed veggie that she is.

On the other hand everything else about the place is so right. The people are friendly and welcoming, we get our own ensuite rooms, the facilities for meeting and for socialising are marvellous, the setting is perfect. So all in all I can cope with the food given all the other plus points. Maybe next year we'll just ask the chef to tweak the menu a little more in the direction of us omnivores.

We always try to get all the workshopping work finished by Thursday night so that we can go and have a day out on Friday. This year with the weather still fine and mild we picked Caernarfon Castle - a fabulous place to spend a few hours and the guided tour was well worth two quid even though the guide did think the Angevin Kings were English (rather than French)







Despite my gripes about the food I wouldn't want to miss Milford and I'm really looking forward to next year - September 18th - 25th. If anyone fancies coming you only need to have sold one piece of fiction to qualify. You can find out more from www.milfordsf.co.uk