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All set up for the art show
I realised that I forgot to include Starcatcher on my list of works so that one has a frantically hand-written label while the others all have nicely printed labels. Oops.
Because of the size of the hooks, the hidden heart trio lean quite a lot away from the board, but I put them up high so I think it works.
The art show hasn't opened yet but two of the other artists who were setting up said nice things about them, so I'm feeling pleased.
Eastercon schedule
I am going to be attending Eastercon next week.
I am participating in two panel items. The first is The AI Apocalypse at 2pm on the Friday, talking about how a real AI Apocalypse (e.g. climate catastrophe from power consumption) is going to look different from the ones we've seen in fiction.
The second panel I'm a part of is The Invisible Orientation: Asexuality and Aromanticism in Speculative Fiction on Saturday at 3:30pm. This is about the challenges with representation of asexuality and aromanticism and the place for these narratives in SF&F.
I'm also going to be doing a reading on Sunday at 6:50pm where I will be giving a sneak peak of my upcoming book Blood on the Icehouse Wall.
On top of that, I have some embroidery and other sewing pieces in the art show.
It should be a fun weekend. If any of you are attending, please find me and say hi.
More Eastercon!
For 2025, we'll be coming to Belfast! With a team of old hands and brand new faces, and a wonderfully friendly host city, Reconnect (the Belfast Eastercon) is looking to be a grand time.
But if the promise of great panels, great guests, great friends and a great city isn't enough, Reconnect also has: - a range of discounted rates for first attendees, under-represented groups, busaries, and a special discount for anyone on the island of Ireland - a live and responsive access policy - if you think you can't come to Eastercon, get on in touch with us via our site! We'll do whatever we can to find a way to make the con accessible to you.
C'mon, you know you want four days of science fiction and panels on everything else besides (and a few good days chatting in the bar after, too)
As expected, Eastercon was a lot of fun. It wasn't the best venue - split between a hotel and a convention centre, there was a bit of a trek between the green room and some of the session rooms, and the passage between the two venues for some reason went through the big presentation hall. Some of the rooms were also a bit small and I was in multiple panels (including one of mine) where they had to turn people away because of capacity limits.
Both of my panels went well. The AI Apocalypse one was a bit more organised ahead of time than the Aro/Ace representation panel, but I think we got some good conversations in both. I got complemented after the AI one for it being, "An AI panel that didn't annoy me," by someone who'd been in the audience.
On the whole, I think there was a very good fit between panel subjects and panelist expertise/experience for the ones I attended. There seemed to be less in the way of talks this year in the programme, I'm not sure why.
The biggest thing that stood out to me was how sparse the dealers room seemed. Yes, there were dealers and they filled the room, but it felt like they were artificially spread out - like there could have been another 5-10 tables in there. It was the first time in years I've been to a con that didn't have Genki Gear selling. The Snag table only had samples for advertising and nothing to sell. Guardbridge Books didn't have their own table but just borrowed a corner of someone else's. No sign of New Con Press - and they've been a fixture at Eastercon for as long as I've been going. None of the big name SF&F publishers like Angry Robot or Gollancz. As I said, the dealers room wasn't empty, but it felt very quiet. I'm guessing that it was just more difficult for a lot of the regular dealers to ship things to Belfast than it is for other locations.
My book reading, a sneak peak of Blood on the Icehouse Wall, was extremely poorly attended. I suspected it was going to be when I saw I was scheduled against the BSFA Awards, and the friend I might have persuaded to be in the audience for moral support was on a panel at the same time, so I ended up reading to an audience of three people. Never mind. Maybe I'll have better timing next year.
Arrived and ready for Eastercon 2025.
There have been a lot of emails back and forth with ideas and discussion points for the AI Apocalypse panel tomorrow at 2pm. I strongly suspect we're going to run out of time before we've covered half of the stuff we want to discuss - which is definitely preferable to the reverse.
Two people I've spoken to so far say have said that they might come along to my reading, which is great. Definitely don't want to be reading to an empty room! I'll be reading an excerpt of my upcoming novel Blood on the Icehouse Wall at 6:50pm on Sunday. It clashes with the BSFA awards, so I am a little nervous about attendance.
Getting my embroidery (and other sewing) pieces prepared for the art show at Eastercon next weekend.
