Wednesday 10 April 2013

Eastercon: the photos

So at Easter, I went to ... Eastercon!

It might look sunny, but snow was piled up on the sidewalks.

It's an annual SF/Fantasy convention with an emphasis on books rather than other media, and it's been going since the 1940s. Wow!

The first thing I thought when I arrived was, "Goddamn, I should be wearing a beard."

There were a lot of panel discussions, and  I sat on two of them.
"Editing and Being Edited", in which I tried my best to plug "Geek Love":

Me sitting next to Bella Pagan of Tor books - probably the nearest I'll ever get to a mainstream publisher!

And "Robert E Howard and H P Lovecraft," which - despite the serious faces - was a lot of fun for me because I ranted about the sexuality in their work and everyone else looked a bit nervous:

NB: Sarah Newton is currently writing the "Achtung Cthulhu!" game ... I want!
I also attended a lot of panels, and watched the new season premier of Doctor Who in a hall with 700 rabid fans ...


... and went out for a curry (well, it was Bradford, it would be crime not to) and did a (mostly clean) reading:


And watched a couple of Lovecraft films and signed some books and ate a ton of junk food and TALKED to loads of people, old friends and new ones and total strangers. And I met Paul Cornell at last.

I had lots of fun, and though I'd describe myself as too introverted to cope with this sort of thing for long, I seem - bizarrely enough - to be signed up for two more cons this year - Nine Worlds Geekfest and World Fantasy Con. I'm exhausted already!

Here I am with Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of the Shadows of the Apt fantasy series:

See? I so need a beard...


Adrian and I co-wrote a novella, Reading Between the Lines (NOT erotica: dark fantasy) a while back, and it's about to be published by Pandemonium Press this May.




Isn't this the most beautiful cover by Vincent Sammy!

Pandemonium specialise in high-quality extremely limited edition collectable print runs, so you'd have to sign up to their newsletter to get even a chance of ordering this book. But I think it's sorta cool.

5 comments:

Jo said...

Oh, what gorgeous photos of you! Love them. Have you got younger?

That cover's wonderful too - looks like ... um... whatsisname. GoT actor whose name I'm too tired to remember or google. Tyrion.

Chris said...


Got to concur about the photos of you - the 'panel member' look really suits you.

Hey, if you're getting younger, does that mean I'm getting younger too?

Janine Ashbless said...

Wow - I'm digging the compliments! (Does "digging" make me look old agin, though? What would the Youff say?)

Janine Ashbless said...

Hell yes, it does look like Tyrion! SCORE! :-D

Dave said...

Really cool cover - and all 26 sold out :(

Was planning Easter con - but grandkids & stuff got in the way!