The Rest of Follycon

A week after coming back from Eastercon, my ambition to recount the weekend in lots of detail has failed as I've had to do other things. Plus, as I have been walking a lot more, I also need a lot of recovery time. My Fitbit has been recording from 3-5K, but as I ventured out today, I noticed it hasn't always been recording properly. All I know is, I ache.

Anyway, I should at least mention the highlights from last week, and apologies, it's not really the usual stuff you might read here.

On Friday, I launched a book! My book!

Specifically my latest anthology: The Best of British Science Fiction 2017.

This was immense. Mine wasn't the only book being launched, and I know pretty well that I wasn't the draw in a room with some pretty awesome authors, but it was such a buzz to see the launch room pack out. People got turned away because the room was so full!

And on Saturday, Chad Dixon took this photo of me controlling the presentation slides for the BSFA Awards. Woot, yes that's my wine!

I had a panel on Sunday to talk about the BSFA being 60 this year. I was moderating, accompanied by previous chairs Kev McVeigh and Joseph Nicholas, BSFA Review editor Susan Oke and previous award winner Jaine Fenn. It was quite a tough panel to be on with lots of strong opinions in the room, but very interesting. I had more wine for that one.

I had a great time in between those things, having long chats in the bar with my friends, or in the dealers room where I was on the BSFA desk. Access was a bit of an issue in the Majestic. When I felt up to it I coped with the stairs to the dealers room, but in the mornings I just couldn't, so a man called Stan would whizz me round to the step-free entrance by the art show on a golf buggy. He was a demon driver and then some!

We normally save up for the year and make conventions our holiday, though they are also quite work-filled things too, but I usually pride myself on being super-prepared. Sometimes these things cause you to be trapped in a very expensive location, so we have learned to take supplies with us for the lean times between panels. We also try to make the most of where we are. This year, with my broken ankle, we found ourselves in a lovely place that we couldn't take advantage of so much, and I did not feel prepared either. But I still had a great time.

Normal bloggery will resume again soon.