Eastercon Happened!

Dear readers, apologies for my absence. There has been a lot going on in Frugal Wenchdom - lots of doing fun stuff for very little, a  lot of saving.. and a bit of spaving and spending too.

One of the major things that happened was going to Eastercon in Glasgow. I had meant to write about this on my website but the software keeps rejecting my photos, which is very annoying. It would make more sense to write there as it has more to do with my writing/creative life - this blog looks at all that stuff too, but through a certain lens. So please bear with me while I attempt to convey both aspects of a lovely science fictional weekend...

I traveled to Glasgow by train on Thursday with OH. It is unusual for me to get to a con early, as I normally have my frugal head on and compromise being organized and unflustered for a night less hotel expenditure, but with several birthdays to celebrate Thursday was the best night to do this - and I'm so glad I went as this was a fantastic night. We had curry in a great value restaurant, and it was very nice indeed, and then popped next door to a proper whiskey bar. They had the world's oldest whiskey on sale at £900 a dram. Fortunately, the cider was pretty cheap! I took homemade cards for the birthday peeps. One of the pressies was a telescope bought from the antiques market. I accidentally broke the glass top of the box, so we had fixed it with genuine Northampton recycled shoe leather, and it looked pretty good.

First up con-wise, on the Friday was a book launch. This included several titles by Newcon Press and PS Publishing, including two PS collections of Ian Watson's work and also a poetry collection by him which he can be seen brandishing here.

Newcon Press was also launching Neil Williamson's novel, The Moon King (which I have read and it's awesome), an Imaginings novella by Eric Brown, and two anthologies - Femme and Noir, the latter featuring a story by me!

On Saturday, I had my first panel: Future Representation. "The panel explores SF literature in the context of what stories actually are, or are not, being told. Who gets to be in the future; what happens to everyone else; and who gets to decide?" This was moderated by Fran Dowd and included myself and novelists Ian Whates, Laura Lam and Stephanie Saulter. It was a great discussion!

 Saturday night, the entertainment was a swing band at the Space Admiral's Ball. I did my best Lindy hopping, which is not very good at all, but still managed to wear myself out completely.

Later, I noticed that one of the musicians was masquerading as author Juliet E. McKenna. I think it might have been the trumpet player.

I had a panel on Sunday, too: Poetic License - Does poetry allow exploration of challenging issues concerning gender, race and identity in ways that prose cannot? The panel was moderated by Ian Hunter and included Susan Bartholomew and Amal El-Mohtar as well as myself. Jo Fletcher was also due to have taken part, but she had a very sore throat and was unable to speak, which was a shame. Nonetheless it was a really fun panel, though an impromptu request to perform one of my poems had the old adrenalin going a bit.

In the evening it was the BSFA Award Ceremony. I got to present the James White Award.
This is an annual short story competition open to non-professional writers and the winner is chosen by a panel of judges made up of professional authors and editors. The James White Award was instituted to honour the memory of one of Ireland’s most successful science fiction authors, James White. The winner of the £200 first prize was “Beside the Dammed River” by DJ Cockburn, his story will be published in a future issue of Interzone. The judges also awarded a special recommendation to Vina Jin-Mae Prasad for her story “Flesh and Bone.” Neither of them were there to make a speech, so it was on with the ceremony for the BSFA Awards.

These lovely awards were made by Dan Brodie and Lauren Hubbard of Northampton's Skulls and Robots.The ray-gun shaped awards apparently caused one of the winners a bit of hassle at airport security... but all worth it, I hope!

The ceremony was hosted by Alice Lawson and Steve Lawson with guest presenters Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Jim Burns, Andrew J. Wilson and Stephanie Saulter. And these were the winners...

Best Non-Fiction: Wonderbook by Jeff Vandermeer.
Best Art: cover of Tony Ballantyne’s Dream London by Joey Hi-Fi.
Best Short Fiction: Spin by Nina Allan
Best Novel: ties between Gareth L. Powell for Ack Ack Macaque and Ann Leckie for Ancillary Justice.

M'friend Gareth L. Powell with his award, some champers and his stick. Aw!

Thanks to the wonderful crew at Satellite4, administrator Farah Mendelsohn, Claire Briarley, who helped with the awards, and John Meaney who lent us his laptop and saved our bacon!

After that we went to the disco and danced like frickin' demons.

I have to say this was one of the best conventions I have been to. It had interesting panels and things to do, it was well organized, friendly, and lovely Glasgow was within easy walking access. And yes, I do mean lovely. It's a great city. I was with wonderful friends and my husband - it couldn't have been better. A lot of the time I was stuck behind the BSFA desk, but that can give you a different perspective and a chance to chill. And knit...

One thing I really learned that weekend is that I need to be kinder to myself. I have been beyond tired lately, and it really caught up with me at the weekend. I wish I'd been more able to put this knowledge into practice recently, mind...

Frugalwise, here are my tips for keeping the spending down at cons:

Graffiti by the Clyde

1. Shop around for the best deals on hotels. Staying at the convention hotel is the most convenient option, but we chose to stay at the hotel next door. We had stayed at the other next door hotel before which was £30 a night cheaper this time round. The hotel we stayed at this time was only £10 cheaper per night than the main hotel, but we knew it would be comfy and have the all-important good breakfast included in the price. Oh, and there were special convention rates too! I checked to see if I could do better elsewhere, and no... it was a good deal.
2. Check facilities in advance. I checked and found there was a gym we could use, so we brought exercise clothes with us. I also found there was a mini-fridge in the room, so we bought things for sandwiches and made our own lunches.
3. Book transport early. We missed out on cheap flights and had to get the train. We used the Two Together card and Quidco to maximize what we could get for the money, but if we'd just been a bit earlier, maybe we could have reserved seats on what was a very crowded train.
4. Don't be lazy. £1.50 for a can of pop? Or walk out of the door to the shop and not spend half that? Of course, not advocating drinking that in the bar, where you should buy the drinks you consume. Bar spend is a crucial factor for conventions. We do our best...
5. Lovely free fresh air. A walk into the city centre was free. We saw great architecture, listened to music and enjoyed the riverside. Glasgow is full of graffiti art ahead of the Commonwealth games. It's like a big, open art gallery.
6.  The Best Things in Life: we limited our book spend budget to £30, which went in one book and a couple of comics. But then on the last day, the freeby tables had some awesome free books on them. My favourite freeby - a beautiful fabric-bound edition of Terry Pratchett's Men at Arms.
7. Launch parties: great places to bag those fast-selling limited edition books, nab authors for signatures, and grab a free wine.

We also took along vouchers for restaurants and pubs just in case. We didn't use them, but they were nice to have.

Make the most of your conventions.  There's always something new to try, somewhere new to go.

World Fantasy Convention and Brighton - Part One

This is the tale of how OH and I travelled to Brighton and went to a World Fantasy Convention, spent rather a lot of money (but not as much as we could have) and had an excellent time.

What is a World Fantasy Convention? In summary: a huge professional convention attended by hundreds of writers, artists, booksellers, publishers, editors, bloggers and enthusiastic readers from all over the world. There is a great emphasis on appreciation of fantasy, so all the honoured guests, the networkers and the fans can get down to the grass roots of why we all do what we do. It's an enormous celebration of genre, a weekend-long party and/or business catch-up. Famous faces are gawped at, red wine is quaffed with abandon, promises are made - and broken - to not buy books, bad, blurry photos are taken, new bookmarks and giveaways grabbed off tables, reasonable bedtimes are missed (and often breakfast) and business cards swapped.

For a frugal wench with a decidedly unfrugal hubby, temptations and pitfalls abound. Take the dealer's room for example... As soon as you arrive and register, you get to pick up a dozen free books. That doesn't stop you getting all big-eyed when you see more of the things to buy. Waterstones won't stock a twentieth of these! And they are cheaper, too... bargain books! Bargain lovely things... but oh, so very many of them...

And sometimes swords, the like of which a Tolkien elf might wield. 

OH can't afford any of these. Sad face.



I was very pleased at managing to find cheaper hotel accommodation very near the convention hotel. On recommendation, I tried the Premier Inn - actually from a friend who got confused and was staying in the Travelodge. In fact, most of our friends were staying in the Travelodge... (no, I don't think they told us a different hotel on purpose). But the hotel room we had was spacious, comfy and quiet. And Lenny was no trouble.

I also used my Network Rail card and Train Genius to get a bargain train price. We had to take a specific train from Northampton (which was unfortunately very crowded), change twice (seats - hooray!) and could reverse the journey back on Sunday at any time before 18.25. Total 3 nights' accommodation and transport for the pair of us: £277.00.

Having been to a World Horror Convention before, we knew there were bound to be a lot of things to cart home, so I took our shopping trolley. This turned out to be very useful indeed. I also prepared for the journey by making giant spicy veggie pasties - just the thing for replacing energy lost through lugging -  and the Bite card for cheaper drinks.

Warning: lots of linked names now occur as I name-drop like crazy!

Greeting us at registration was the lovely Pixie Puddin'  handing out badges. We also saw our friends Andrew Reid, and Dave Lally, already run off their feet as red-coated volunteers. Some of the volunteering people were barely a blur, we hardly saw them. Some appeared to us only in the form of an avatar, sending a tweet every now and then. Every time we bumped into Andrew and Alasdair, though, they seemed remarkably cheerful, even though bits of Andrew were dropping off (toenail - ouchie).

It being early in the con, we gravitated towards the most expensive bar of the hotel, fools that we were. Here I was elbow-twisted by OH into acquiring a golden ticket to stop my Go Sober campaign a day early. Paul Cornell couldn't believe my defeatism! I accepted a delicious lemon drizzle cup cake from Kari Sperring, and said hello to the lovely Chaz Brenchley, who I haven't seen for ages, and who's now based in LA with his wife, K L Williams - who I also met. Then there was Sue Boulton and daughter, Kathy, and Del and Kim Lakin-Smith, Ian Whates and Helen Sansum, Neil and Gemma Beynon, Nick and Ellie, Gareth L. Powell, Ruth Booth Adam Osbourne and loads of other peeps.

It was all so very exciting, OH had to have a little lie down, so he didn't accompany me to go to the David Gemmel Awards. These awards were founded in honour of the legendary David Gemmel by the just as legendary, I think, Debs Miller - or Miller Lau. Debs passed away earlier this year, and tribute was made to her in the awards ceremony.

Ian Whates announces the book launch for Legends

After the ceremony, we attended a very lavish reception with lots of wine and nibbles on offer. I went to get a copy of the book, having completely forgotten I had one for helping out with it - brilliant!

And so, the wine flowed (free and freely). Quite tipsy, I used up all my bravery in chatting to artist Jim Burns. He was great fun to talk to. as were Ann Lyle and James Barclay...

Friday: might have missed a bit. Breakfast was a speedy Subway as we failed to make a reading. So the first panel-type-thing of the day was Gillian Redfearn's Guest of Honour interview with Joe Hill.  At noon. Gillian was witty, Joe was funny - it was really very good.

Neil and I then grabbed a Thai lunch and came back for the Terry Pratchett interview, which we watched in the company of Farah Mendlesohn. It was great to see Terry receive such tremendous support and to hear about his latest creative projects. It was also heartbreaking... PCA is such a cruel disease.

After Terry Pratchett's interview, it was very difficult to leave as there were so many people there to watch him. So, we waited things out and chatted with fellow Northampton Science Fiction Writers Group member, Mark West, and his friend Sue Moorcroft, who we thanked profusely for recommending the hotel for our honeymoon in Malta. We then went along to see Danie Ware at her book launch for Ecko Burning, and also picked up some books by Francis Knight, as they had a bit of a deal on together - and they had Pimms and chocolate cake which was jolly nice, and we chatted to Peter Hamilton and Charles Rudkin.

Ian Whates and Tannith Lee

I've been a fan of Tannith Lee's work for years - though she has written so many books, I've a lot to catch up with. It was lovely seeing her interviewed by my friend Ian as she was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

I then lost OH for hours as he went to the mass signing to get two books signed by Michael Marshall Smith (for whom I once narrated a short story for Pseudopod), and my copy of The Doll's House signed by Neil Gaiman. However, he didn't have anything for Joe Hill to sign, so asked for some in-jokes from his GoH interview to be daubed on his body. Neil Gaiman then couldn't help but add a little dalek...

Ruth looked after OH at the signing.

It then went crazy, as OH got written on by a lot of people including Paul Cornell, Ellen Kushner, Frances Hardinge and everyone we were drinking with in Bar 106.

Vinnie Chong tried not to look...

Dominic Harman - possibly being indecently proposed to...

Photo snaffled off WFC C/o them

Meantime, I was downstairs in bar 106 consoling myself at the Tor UK party with several red velvet cupcakes. He was gone ages - sniffle. But he did it for me! Pity then, that we seem to have lost the books somewhere. Sad face.We had fun later though and met lots of new peeps and I had squiffy conversations with James Worrad, Damien G Walter, James A. Moore, A J Dalton, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Simon Gilmartin  and Sammy Smith.

On Saturday, a valiant attempt was made to find a proper full English breakfast in Brighton. You'd think this was possible? If only we'd gone to Wetherspoons! But we tried to find a nice caf' or something and ended up in faux-rustic place with benches and dried chillies and chalkboards everywhere. Baked beans were an extra pound!  Normal beans!!! Nothing fancy. Also, the staff seemed a bit put out to have us there, and when it turned out service wasn't included, we decided it was. I think I left 35p change.

We went to a panel when we got back - about the sorts of things editors don't want to see, moderated by bossman Lee Harris, then picked a party to go to. We picked Amazon's... they had beer on offer and people to answer questions about self-publishing. And that's about all I'll say on that...

We managed to find a jolly decent pub for a jolly decent tea, then I did a quick change ready for my poetry performance that night. It was brilliant to have Sue, Kathy, Neil and Gemma come in to watch me, and I was in some really god poetical company. Joe Haldeman was there!!! and Roz Kaveney, Amanda Hemingway, Andrew Hook, Sophia Wessex, Cardinal Cox, Roy Gray...

...and the night continued merrily and ended with a good idea. And more will be said, but for now, part one is done.

Part two here.



World Fantasy Convention 2013 - Are We Nearly There Yet?

Only a few days to go until World Fantasy Convention in Brighton - I'm looking forward to it immensely.

OH and I have had stern words with ourselves about not buying any books. Okay... maybe just one...

The convention budget is set and we have prepared in advance by making sure our transport and accommodation is covered. The convention have issued stern warnings concerning seemly attire, imbibing of excess quantities of booze and lost passes. I'm afraid there's nothing in the kitty to cover any 'replacement fee' so I'd better not lose mine, or I'll need to spend the whole time in the bar instead - which would be more expensive, and liable to lead to the imbibing of excess quantities of booze. I've said that as it is Brighton, and they sound a bit like grumpy teachers telling the kids off, maybe they should have a 'forgotten pass - go to panels in the nuddy' rule.

I don't have any panels, but will be performing some spoken word on Saturday.

I'm looking forward to seeing lots of friends, and some of my favourite writers are going, too. Joanne Harris, Terry Pratchett, Tannith Lee, and loads of others.

I'm working tonight and have been hearing the whizz-bang of rockets going off nearby - it's that time of year. time for pumpkin and spice... samosas and jalebis!

There was a Diwali celebration in the market square on Saturday, and I took my nephew along.

Lots of people watching the dancing

Nephew likes the dancing... even though it's not Strictly.

Karom boards to play with

Happy Diwali!

In Frugal news this week:

• I've eaten a lot of 30p chocolate. It's been stressful.
• ...this despite a lot of homemade cake on offer at work as well!
• Nephew thinks going to town on the bus is an adventure and a treat!
• Picked up some bargain Christmas presents.
• A bit slow on the news front, really... ah well, bound to be more exciting next week.

Currently reading: Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter's The Long Earth. Sourced from the library - enjoying very much so far.