Octocon 2009: Pádraigfail

Yesterday our friend /Pádraig got an email from Octocon, the oldest Irish SF/F convention, disinviting him from the con. Banning him, more accurately, for “your behaviour at the convention some time ago and your online behaviour earlier this year.” The entirety of their letter can be found here at Pádraig’s blog, where he confesses to not having a clue what his bad behavior “some time ago” was. Further discussion over on Cheryl Morgan‘s blog (where a PR disaster is unfolding) seems to suggest that the spate of bad behavior was…

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aw, cool!

I have, it seems, been nominated as a Favorite Paranormal Author of the Year by readers at Bitten By Books. So’s Jim been, for that matter. Voters are allowed two votes each, so if you like, go vote! The poll is on the right-hand side, scroll down past the ads. :) eta: and oh, hey! I see that URBAN SHAMAN made it onto the 101 best fantasy novels list from a few weeks ago! How splendid, thank you guys!

Alaska-bound!

For a brief and shining moment today, our highest-limit credit card was paid off. Then I bought plane tickets to Alaska. We’ll be in Fairbanks from the 20th-29th of November, and we hope we’ll see a bunch of people there! I’m going to try to arrange a book signing at Barnes & Noble, so I’ll let people know about that. We will THEN be in Anchorage for two nights! November 30th and Dec 1st. I am also going to try to arrange a signing at B&N there for one of…

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women, weight, perceptions of beauty

I thought pretty much everyone had seen the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty video of the young woman being made-up and then Photoshopped into a billboard mannequin, but I reposted it on Facebook yesterday and a bunch of people hadn’t (or this, probably, which has a whole bunch of different sites showing models & actors who’ve been retouched & sometimes totally rebuilt for commercial purposes…). So I’m reposting the link here, too, mostly because the topic of women, weight and perceptions of beauty has been raised recently by fashion designer…

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well-trained human

Ted got up before me this morning, and fed the cats. I knew this. So I went into the kitchen to get breakfast for me, and instead found myself in the utility room, getting Lucy’s food down for her. I am a very well-trained human. Oh well. Lucy was happy. :)