Sunday 12th April, 2015

Welp, here we are on the weekend after Dysprosium / EasterCon 2015. The short short version is it went very well. Fran Terminiello [External Link] and I even got name dropped by Adrian Tchaikovsky in his write up (see here: [External Link])

The slightly longer version. I drove down to Surrey to stay with Fran and her kids on Friday. Her husband, Pim, basically swapped places with me to attend a fencing thing in York over the same weekend. I came over to the convention on Saturday, wound up the kids on Sunday, then came back to the convention for swordy stuff on Monday. I drove back up to Yorkshire on Monday evening. I even had time to sell a few copies of European Monsters and 25 Ways To Kill A Werewolf.

(Followed by an appointment at the hospital on Tuesday morning for unrelated dental stuff – I’ll be having my wisdom teeth out later in the year.)

Based on last weekend’s performance, I’m a little bit happier about attending the bigger cons and I’m looking forward to the Nine Worlds in August, although my swordy bit is not yet confirmed and I’ll be in need of a sidekick as Fran is going to FightCamp [External Link]. I’m already booked in to Satellite 5 (May next year) and eyeing up EasterCon 2016 (MancuniCon) and EasterCon 2017 (Pasgon in Cardiff).

And, on a not really related note, I’m now up to chapter 3 in the next book, working title A Fistful Of Feathers, to be known as Feathers in the tags. The core storyline is from the TVTropes story generator [External Link] but it’s already starting to look at my outline sideways and laugh. All I can say is, this one doesn’t involve werewolves. That I know of.

Sunday 25th January, 2015

Yesterday was the first Sheffield Fantasy and Science Fiction Social Club meet [External Link] – and it went very well. We were a decent sized crowd, everyone laughed in the right places when I did my reading from 25 Ways To Kill A Werewolf (“Pick a number between 1 and 25!”), and Adrian Tchaikovsky [External Link] gave us an exclusive advance reading of his book out in February (Guns of The Dawn, on Goodreads here: [External Link]). New people were met, books were raffled, and swords were discussed. Basically, I had a lot of fun.

Which is just as well because I survived a rather nasty week at work to make it there! Never mind, there’s a new week coming.

In pack news: This week I’ll be putting up a page for my new-to-me Hellhound Dora (yes, The Explorer. I picked the name for a reason). She found me just before Christmas and so far nobody has stepped forward as her original owner. She’s still unchipped but that will change with a trip to the vets this week when I get her chipped and innoculated. I am now officially outnumbered and outvoted by dogs…

Sunday 18th January, 2015

Right, I missed a week. Basically because real life got in the way. Nothing major (I can’t even remember what I got up to) but I didn’t get around to writing an update.

So that means I didn’t get around to announcing / reminding people about:

So, see you on Saturday in Sheffield or see you here on Sunday!

Sunday 12th October, 2014

REMINDER 1: 25 Ways To Kill A Werewolfis available from Fox Spirit Books [External Link]. The first of those links will (eventually) get you to the UK Amazon but other “local” Amazon sites should also carry it. The ebooks (epub and mobi files) are now also available from Spacewitch [External Link].

REMINDER 2: I’d appreciate some more reviews – on Amazon or the Goodreads page [External Link] or the Booklikes page [External Link] – or anywhere else that does liking books! (And if you think of anywhere I should be spreading the news about my book-baby, please let me know.)

For those of you who remember the mention of the Fox Spirit Book’s “European Monsters” (back at the end of December last year), here’s a quick update. The title it’ll be published under is The FS Books of Monsters – Europe and you can find the line up of writers and artists here: [External Link]. This information has been available for a while but what hasn’t been is… I have seen the stories and (most of the) artwork and it’s awesome. Admittedly, as co-editor with Margrét Helgadóttir [External Link], I’m somewhat biased but this project is shaping up really well and I think you’re going to be blown away.

Also, you may notice the use of “books”. That wasn’t a typo. There will be more!

Somewhat related to both 25 Ways and the Monster books, there’s two new writing events on my list: the BFS / BSFA York Pubmeet #2 (also associated with the Super Relaxed Fantasy Club but titles have been shortened) and the Sheffield FSF Social #1. The former is in November and I hope to make it. The latter is in January and I don’t have much of a choice as I’ll be reading from 25 Ways (nominations for prefered method-to-be-read accepted in the comments). Also reading will be Adrian Tchaikovsky [External Link], one of the contributors to the European Monster book, although I expect he’ll be reading from somethig else! This is all getting a bit incestuous, isn’t it?

Finally, the Sunday Stories. Last week’s was The Modern Pentathlete and this week’s is How Otter Made The World, a fantasy flash piece of about 600 words that’s also suitable for children.