This weekend I went to the National Irish SF Convention, Octocon, for the first time in *years*. Since 2017, I’m pretty sure.
It was lovely to see everyone. I wasn’t sure until Friday that I was going at all, so I didn’t mention it to anybody except one friend, so people were Very Surprised Indeed to see me, and almost immediately upon arrival I was invited to do a panel, which was both flattering and funny.
Furthermore, to my delight, the panel was with my friend, the magnificently talented Sarah Rees Brennan, who was ALSO the guest of honor, and in whose presence I basked as much as possible while I was there. :) She did a great panel on ‘the rise of the Gothic,’ which made me think much more deeply about Gothic as…everything…than I ever had before, so that was really interesting, and her guest interview, conducted by our OTHER friend RF Long was funny, quick-witted, and interesting.
And then we were on the panel together, about why we/people like villains, and that had some great discussion, too, so it felt really successful, overall. I didn’t get a lot of chance to talk to most people very long, mostly greetings and “aaagh” and then doing that again with someone else, but it was *really* nice to see everyone. I’m very glad I went. ♥
Also, I really appreciate that Octocon had a masking policy this year, and that nearly everyone complied, at least within the convention boundaries. Good job, Octocon…ians? ’cause Octonauts are something else. :)
(Ok, my friend Dónal wanted to know if we got a Creature Report, after I made the Octonauts comment, so this is his fault:
Convention report! Convention report!
Octocon’s villanous theme
was Sarah Rees Brennan’s dream!
Siding with the villainy
were some gothic houses to study!
And then to keep things light
they had a Barbie chat all night!
Now they’re done with the mission!
Octocon at ease, until the next convention!)