We can finally reveal the geek secret we’ve been sitting on for months:

Dublin has announced its intention to seek the bid for hosting WorldCon in 2019.

I have known about this since April, and have been biting my knuckles waiting until we could tell everybody. I am *agog* and thrilled at the huge amount of work and thought our fearless leader, James Bacon, has put into our pre-bid preparations. About twenty of us went to the Convention Centre Dublin then (and I can FINALLY post the pictures, yay!), and holy gods, the venue is just *amazing*. We were in hysterical giggles half the time, just walking around checking the place out. We’re going to be able to have breakout chat rooms with just 8 or 10 people and massive panels and auditorium projects and and and

Guys, there is just so much cool shit that will be involved with Dublin 2019. It will be–and I think this is epic–it will be the 10th anniversary of the Irish SF short film award festival, the Golden Blasters. I’ve loved the Golden Blasters presentations hugely, and I can’t wait to see where the festival is in another six years. I mean, I’m already dying to see what Eurocon in Dublin in 2014 brings in terms of raising the GBs’ profile, and, well, Worldcon!

My web designer, Thirzah Brown, has developed the Dublin 2019 website (“Thirzah,” I said to her, “I have a Sekrit Project that you might want to work on, but you are sworn to silence…” “OOOH WHAT WHAT WHAT” she said in return :)), which has all the pertinent information. Check it out, go “like” the Facebook page, and follow us on Twitter.

The official press release is behind the cut, if you wanna have a read of that. :)