Fairly early yesterday afternoon, my friend Pádraig posted on FB to say that after a sudden turn for the worse, Iain Banks had died early yesterday morning. I didn’t repost until I saw it confirmed elsewhere, because although there was really no chance Pádraig was wrong, I was still holding out a tiny thread of hope. Honestly, I have no business being so saddened by his death. I met him at a small convention in Belfast over the course of a weekend, and was completely charmed by him. I still,…
We’re back from EasterCon, which was an excellent mix of meeting up with old friends and making new ones. My most excellent writer friends Kari Sperring and Juliet E. McKenna were instrumental in this year’s EasterCon, so I’m particularly happy that it was this year I finally got to *go*. All the other committee members I met were also wonderful people, and they did an absolutely fantastic job putting together a magnificently diverse and interesting program. The past few years EasterCon’s had a commitment to gender parity on the panels,…
We had a very busy and lovely weekend in these parts. Friday was my sister’s work-in-progress performance of the musical she’s writing. It was *splendid*, with four songs, the first of which was so awesome that the audience just sat there gaping at the end of it. The others were equally good, and the audience (of 60-70, which is a quite remarkably full house for the venue and for a work-in-progress) was utterly rapt. I filmed it, and when she puts together her promotional video I’ll link to it here.…
The weekend was spent at Octocon, which went very, very well, I thought. I finally got to meet Liz Williams, of whom I’ve been a fan for years and an LJ-correspondent for–well, fewer years. :) She’s a lovely woman, and it was absolutely fantastic to get to hang out with her a bit. I shanghaied her on to at least one, possibly two, panels, and I thought not only they, but all the others, went fairly well. Also, I apparently said something brilliant during one of them (or at least,…
So right after we got to Dublin, a comics convention started up. Even the first year, which was held in a small cramped location, had a strangely good lineup of guests for a tiny con, and the 2nd or 3rd year they even had Jim Lee. This is because EVERYONE wants to come to Ireland. :) But things happened and the con disappeared for a while, and now it has returned with gusto. We had a great time, and I’m really looking forard to next year. It being Ireland, and…