Category Archives: Out and About

Almost P-Con

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It’s that time  of year again!

Pcon (Phoenix Convention) starts on Friday 4th and runs through to Sunday 6th. It’s always fun, entertaining and just a little bit mad. And chock full of great stuff.

Panels and details are here.

I’m on the following panels*:

Saturday:

11am: Books I wish I’d read before I was 18

Panellists will discuss books they’ve read as adults that they wish they’d read when they were younger.

Sunday:

10am: (Help me! Help me!) The art of reading

A discussion on an author’s considerations in planning a reading, tips on the event itself, and ideas on follow-up afterwards.

2pm: The Library of the future

(Libraryland and Writing life collide!)

4pm: Channels to market for the writer

The various routes authors have taken to publication

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So if you’re around, pop in. And if you pop in, please say hello! (I typed help three times there. Hope that’s not an omen). Take lots of photos (I’ll hide). And above all have fun.

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*And if I’m not in a panel room, check the bar! 😉

A fairytale trip, NaNo and a little bit of news

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I’ve been a bad bad writer, not keeping you all up to date.  But I have also been very busy.

So I give you a brief report of our Halloween trip, something about NaNo and some news. The news is at the end. Yes, I’m making you wait. I’m mean like that! Continue reading A fairytale trip, NaNo and a little bit of news →

Octocon this weekend

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I’m going to be at Octocon this weekend, Ireland’s Science Fiction Convention, where we’ll be up to all kinds of shenanigans. And I’ll be on a couple of panels

Saturday 12pm Urban Fantasy vs. Paranormal Romance

Sunday 1pm Where’s My Money Honey?! ( New Funding Models) – Err… Yes, me and money. Anyway…

And I’ll be helping out (and hopefully eating some of the sweets) at Claire Hennessy’s Writing YA workshop on Sunday afternoon along with Sarah Rees Brennan. (If they haven’t polished them all off before I get in there.)

Oh and I almost forgot E_W_H himself will be on a panel on Sunday at 2pm – Managing The Writers in Your Life. Yeessss…

All this and George R. R. Martin as guest of honour, C.E. Murphy, Maura McHugh, Derek Gunn, Fabulous Lorraine, Michael Carroll, Peadar Ó Guilín and many more.(So many in fact I can’t link to them all! I have to make biscuits for a cake sale. No really. :S )

If you’re around Dublin this weekend, come and play! We don’t bite. Much.

Links ‘n’ thinks

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I’ve been working on Graffiti Angel rewrites and plantsing along on my YA Space Opera this (last) week. Plus the odd bit on my May Queen sequel. Hey, at least it has a draft synopsis now. That’s something. Octocon is coming up this weekend so my delightful pre-con stress dreams have started – you know the type: locked in a loo, went out for a coffee and can’t get back etc. This means of course that I’m even more unfocused than usual! Really looking forward to the convention though.

So this post is a mixture of things that have caught my fancy on the internet over the last while:

Spacy stuff for himself

1)Sergey Korolov was the chief rocket scientist for the Soviet Union during the 1960s space race with the US. His identity was so secret he was referred to only as The Chief Designer. It is probably due to his early death in 1966 that the US were the first to land on the moon. His Soyuz spacecraft is still in use today, and has now taken on a new significance (video from BBC – sorry about the ad). I guess, as my space-mad husband pointed out, you could say he won in the end. 😉

Books I love, writers I admire

2) Alan Garner’s books have been really important to me for as long as I can remember. Here he is talking about The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (video from The Guardian) and the influence of Alderley Edge on his books. He describes perfectly the way I feel about Dalkey and Killiney, and how landscape works its way into writing. To (probably mis-) quote:  “Here I learned the rockness of rock, the treeness of tree and the skyness of sky” – “…a sense of otherness about the place that goes back as far as there have been people to react to it”.

History

3)Pictures of people re-enacting the Battle of Hastings amuse me!

Funny

4) Hogwarts online amuses me too!

and finally

5) RNA is Fabulous at Fifty. Get all the goss! 😀

So that’s it for now. I will be at Octocon over the weekend, talking books, sci-fi, fantasy and chasing my children all around the place. If you’re there say hi!

I am still here, I swear it

Out and About, travels, WIP, Writing Craft, Writing Life,

Although I am recovering from a weekend trip to Sligo to see Leonard Cohen play in the grounds of Lissadell house. It was a trip in honour of my best friend’s birthday (a significant one) and so we went all out. We flew to Sligo (my first ever domestic Irish flight). Sligo is the dinkiest airport I’ve ever been too (yes, even dinkier than Plymouth!) It has a range of amenites including a bar, toilets and a bar but only before the departure “gate”. It also has the opening hours on the front door. It is AWESOME! Continue reading I am still here, I swear it →

Better late than never – RNA Conference 2010 post

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Better late than never in so many ways. First of all it has taken me all week to get around to posting this. Secondly WHY have I not been going to this coference for years???

I am, as with most writers, not the most extroverted of individuals. Never really had been, although I can do a good impression when I need to. I was determined to make it to my first RNA conference this year and I am so glad that I did. Had a bit of a stressy trip out to the airport between a late bus and heavy traffic, and a bit of a stressy time at the drop-off-your-bags points when I found a large group of Japanese tourists had arrived just before me and proceeded to re-pack their luggage in the queue! But Air France/City Jet were wonderful and the flight itself was a dream. When the air hostess asked if I wanted a drink I had a budget airline flashback and just asked for water, only to realise too late they were giving out wine as well. And sandwiches. And boiled sweets for take off (a trip back to childhood). And chocolates just before landing.

I should warn you, food will probably be a theme of this post.

The DLR was also wonderful and in no time at all I arrived at our accomodation in Greenwich. Yes, it was like being a student again. There was a party going on as I arrived and my lovely flatmates were drinking wine out of plastic cups. That didn’t stop the hugs and warm greetings.

Another theme of this post will be the friendliness and fun-filled nature of everyone I met at the conference. I couldn’t have asked for a better gang to hang around with than the ladies of flat 20, but everywhere we went people chatted, exchanged ideas, joked and generally had a wonderful time.

Continue reading Better late than never – RNA Conference 2010 post →