Well, It's Been A While: On Health (Physical and Otherwise), Awards, FCon, StokerCon, Pantsing and Publishers

Hi, everyone.

It's been months since I last posted here, and plenty's happened in the interim. So stand by for a long, rambling and self-indulgent wall of text...

2019 has been (thus far - there's still a few weeks of it left) a funny sort of year. I've had a number of health issues, both physical and mental, which have impacted, among other things, our finances. Which was why we couldn't make Fantasycon this year, much to our disappointment. (And to the relief of many others, I'm sure!)

FCon has long been one of the milestones in our year, where we meet a lot of our closest friends in the writing world. Luckily, we still got to catch up with some of them, most notably at Edge-Lit in July, although we had to miss the Derby Ghost Story Festival (as Sledge-Lit has now morphed into) last month. I did joke that, since this was the one year we couldn't make FCon, it would be the year I finally won an award. (It wasn't, but what the hell; what's the point of winning an award if you can't have your very own Gwyneth Paltrow moment in front of a live audience?) Congratulations to Aliette de Bodard for The Tea Master And The Detective, which won Best Novella, and to Catriona Ward, who won Best Horror Novel for her superb Little Eve. I'm proud to have been listed alongside them.

It's been an interesting year on the writing front, especially in respect of novels. I reached a point last year where I found myself looking at the novel I'd been trying to write and returning again to why I became a writer in the first place. I asked myself the question 'If you could only write one more book, what would it be?' and found the answer transformed the work in progress, and my approach to it. I've been highly focused on writing as a career in recent years, trying to reach a level of commercial success closer to the mainstream. And don't get me wrong, I still want that if I can have it, but there's no point unless I'm able to write the stories I want to write. So my priorities, and my focus, have shifted: I've spent 2019 writing exactly the kind of things I want, without driving myself crazy contemplating the market or what's 'in' now. And I've been a lot happier with the work as a result. And more content.

Another thing that's changed is how I write. For years I've felt unable to write a novel without plotting it out in advance - sometimes in intricate detail (the outline for Devil's Highway was over 30,000 words long.) I always envied those writers who could begin with only the vaguest of ideas and basically wing it all the way through, but thought I'd accepted I couldn't be one of them. I was a planner, not a pantser. And yet, this year, that changed. With only the broadest concept of the story I was telling, I wrote the opening scene of a novel; by the time that was over, I knew roughly what would happen over the next few chapters. As I continued, I began to see a little further ahead, and then a little further, and could rough out a handful of notes. I believe this is known as the 'headlight' or 'flashlight' method.

Well, that novel is two-thirds finished, with over 100,000 words written. I've been fixing a bunch of notes I made on it along the way, and while I've been doing that I've been roughing out the opening chapters of another novel that I dived into with even less idea of what I was doing. It can be frustrating at times, even scary - but it's also exhilarating. It's a real delight when, as a writer, you actually manage to surprise yourself. Pantsing a novel is a lot harder to measure and predict, but it's also a lot more fun.

On a slightly less cheerful note...

My fourth full-length story collection, And Cannot Come Again, saw print this year from Canada's ChiZine Press, complete with stunning artwork by Eric Mohr. Unfortunately, within a couple of months of the release, the stories about ChiZine started coming out. Initially, it was a couple of authors complaining about the publishers' failure to pay them on time. My first reaction was dismay, when review sites announced they'd be boycotting CZP's publications, and a desire to wait until I'd heard both sides of the story. But then more stories started coming out; worse stories. Too many to dismiss or ignore. As a result I had to request reversion of my rights as an author from ChiZine, and to ask readers not to buy the collection (which, as you can imagine, kind of goes against the grain for an author.) The grim ChiZine saga, for anyone who missed it, can be read in more detail here.

On a much happier note...

I'm delighted to announce that And Cannot Come Again has a new publisher! My profound thanks to Graeme Reynolds at Horrific Tales, who's acquired the book to be relaunched at StokerCon in Scarborough next year. More details will follow in due course. The new edition will retain Ramsey Campbell's introduction, and may include some new material too!

So, that's where we are now. The year isn't over, and nor are the upheavals - there are other changes in the works, which I'll be able to talk about at a later stage - but I'm still here, and I'm still writing. I don't know how to do much else, after all. Thank you to all the friends and family - and most of all to Cate - for their support over what's been an often tough twelvemonth.

Here's to the hope of better days ahead, for us all. Including, please God, a change of government. (Nearly got through this post without mentioning politics or the upcoming General Election. #VoteLabour)

We Belong

Laura Mauro. Photograph by Michael Kelly.

So there goes another Fantasycon. Another brilliant event, another brilliant year.

Belonging is important. Finding a tribe, a group of people who share your values, the things you care about and love.

This is a time of year when absent friends come to mind. Today, the day after the con ended, Facebook reminded us all it's Graham Joyce's birthday. October was the birth month, too, of Joel Lane; November will be the fifth anniversary of his death.

Talking to the fantasy author James Bennett this weekend, he told me about his first Fantasycon. He was nervous, if not terrified - a young gay man, taking his first steps into a community he wasn't sure would welcome him or not. Joel saw that, took his hands and said, simply: "You belong here."

Yeah. That sounds like Joel.

That word came up again this morning, while I was reading different people's con reports on Facebook. The author Eliza Chan spoke about how the convention put to bed any fears that she didn't belong.

The British SFFH community gets a bad press in certain quarters, and it isn't deserved. I've always found it to be a friendly, welcoming and open community. No-one who loves the fiction we create and celebrate at Fantasycon should ever feel as though they have no place here. They do. I hope no-one has ever been made to feel otherwise.

The awards ceremony was, for me, a high point of the convention, when I got to see my dear friend, the lovely, talented and ridiculously modest Laura Mauro win the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story for the brilliant 'Looking For Laika'. I don't think I've ever seen someone more genuinely gobsmacked to win. (And I've seen a few.)

A couple of people who are normally mainstays of the convention (for me, anyway) couldn't make it this year - Lynda E. Rucker and Sarah Pinborough. The August Derleth Award went to Victor LaValle's The Changeling, but I was standing by as Sarah's stunt double in case it went to Behind Her Eyes. She sent me a short acceptance speech, and here's part of it:

"Fantasycon as ever evolves and changes and we may bicker on the internet and get riled about stupid things that mainly don't matter, but when push comes to shove, we are a family. Fantasycon has been there since the very start of my writing career, and it was through coming to Fantasycon every year that I made so many good friends, and gained so much inspiration to try harder and do better."

Yep. Exactly that.

So: if you love horror, SF or fantasy, Fantasycon is a place where you will be welcome. Doesn't matter what the colour of your skin is, your gender, your sexual orientation, whether you're cis or trans. Never doubt that you belong here. And never hesitate to let others know that they do too.

The Inevitable 'What I'm Doing At Fantasycon' Post For Anyone Who Missed It On Facebook

Last year's FCon, with Priya Sharma, Lynda E. Rucker and Sean Hogan/

My Fantasycon 2018 Schedule: I'm a little on the busy side this year.

Friday
5.00 pm
Panel: Writing The Immortal Enemy
Simon Bestwick (m), Powder, Ren Warom, Clint Wastling, Den Patrick
A panel tribute to those villains who refuse to submit, lay down and die. Maybe you wrote an evildoer and you couldn’t let go? Maybe you’re a fan of one that we all know? Our panel talks about those recurring nemesii who we all love and hate.
 
7.00 pm
Readings (Horror)
Stephen Laws, Simon Bestwick, Tina Rath
Stephen and Tina are both ace writers. I don't know what they'll be sharing with the audience, but I'll be reading one of the tales from Singing Back The Dark.

Saturday
1.00 pm
Black Shuck Books Launch
Black Shuck's FCon releases include John Llewellyn Probert's The Last Temptation of Dr Valentine, Colleen Anderson's A Body Of Work, and Great British Horror #3: For Those In Peril. This sea-themed anthology of horror fiction includes my story 'The Bells Of Rainey.' So I'll be there.

7.00 pm
Writing Warfare
Simon Bestwick (m), Danie Ware, Andy Remic, Anna Stephens, Anna Smith Spark
From Homer to Warmaster Horus, the battle scene has been a mainstay of epic fantasy and space opera science fiction. Our panel discussion battle scenes, whether up close and personal, from a tactical  perspective or looking down from the god’s eye.

Sunday
12.30pm
Dead Bodies
Simon Bestwick (m), Steve Toase, GV Anderson, James Brogden, Simon Clark
Many good stories involve a mystery. Whether the case at hand has remained unsolved for hundreds of years, or happened in the first chapter of the book, a good puzzle provides the writer with an opportunity to engage the reader’s brain in finding the answer. Our panelists discuss unsolved conundrums, consider the role of accurate research, and look at a range of tools that are at the writer’s disposal to create intriigue for the curious reader. 

My Fantasycon Schedule (Updated!)

In other news, here I am with an adorable dog.

ETA: I'm actually on three panels now!

So, despite the fact that some people are claiming that anyone who attends Fantasycon this year is a nazi-loving c**t because the Don Estelle of the far right is on a single panel there, I'm going. Mainly because I'm neither a nazi-loving c**t nor the kind of idiotic arse who thinks [NAME REDACTED] is a credible source of information. Astonishingly, it's possible to be both.

*Breathes out*

Anyway.

I'm having a busier year than I have in a while; I'm on two panels this year, as well as doing a reading. So here goes:










Friday
Panel: Writing Fighting!
7.30 pm, Panel Room Two
With David Tallerman (mod), Anna Smith Spark, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Simon Bestwick and Stewart Hotston.
"Whether you're writing a combat scene on a spaceship, in a vampires tomb, or amidst a desperate battle, you want your readers to care about the outcome, right? Our panel will discuss the fine balance between action accuracy and communicating seat of the pants sensation. "

Saturday
Panel: Creative Writing In Education
2.30 pm, Panel Room Three
With Ginger Lee Thomason (mod), Terry Grimwood, Tiffani Angus, Joely Black, Simon Bestwick and Terry Jackman.
"University degrees, Masters courses, Ph. D's and the National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE). Our panel discuss how their experiences and work in higher education has helped them as writers and how it can be beneficial to others."

Panel: Writing Dystopias
10.30 pm, Panel Room Two
With Guy Adams (mod), Simon Bestwick, Duncan Bradshaw, Thomas N. Toner
"The world is broken. What broke it? Can it be fixed? Dystopian Fiction has become incredibly popular in the last decade. Join our panel of doommongers as they discuss the different ways the world can be made worse and how different dystopias reflect aspects of our own society."

Sunday
Reading Slot: Fantasy
10.00 am., Sandringham Room
With David Tallerman and Joely Black.
David Tallerman is an all-round good egg and author of fantasy fiction whose forays into horror fiction were collected last year in The Sign In The Moonlight; Joely Black's the gifted author of the self-published Amnar series, and a good friend who's attending her first FCon. And me? I hear you cry. You're a horror author, Bestwick, what are you doing here? Well, I'll be delivering a sneak preview of the latest work in progress, which is definitely edging into the realms of urban fantasy. Closer to the world of Angels of the Silences or The Feast Of All Souls than the out and out horror of Tide Of Souls and The Faceless, or the post-apocalyptic battleground of the Black Road books. Come on down for a sneak preview!

Fantasycon By The Sea...

Conducting myself appropriately at the Alchemy Press launch. 

...was an absolute blast.

I always love Fantasycon, but this was a cracker by any stretch of the imagination. There was a huge amount going on, and huge numbers of lovely people - and I only got to talk to a fraction of the ones I would have loved to catch up with! - but here are a few highlights.

Getting to talk to Frances Hardinge, whose work I've become a huge fan of, and catching her interview with Kim Lakin-Smith. Amazing writer, lovely person and very, very funny.

 Meeting Catriona Ward, author of Rawblood (which won the August Derleth Award for Best Horror

Novel at the British Fantasy Awards.)

The panel 'Girls Just Want To Have Fun', about women in genre fiction, with Catriona, Maura McHugh, Ann Nicholls, Heide Goody and Priya Sharma. Which got left off the printed programme - a source of some sardonic amusement! - but was the best panel I saw that weekend.

The launch of Snowbooks' novella line, resurrecting novellas from John Llewellyn Probert, Ray Cluley, Mark Morris and, of course, Cate Gardner, that were originally published by Spectral Press, together with new work from Gary Fry and Andrew Hook.


Getting to meet Keris McDonald/Janine Ashbless properly IRL - and to sign her copy of Hell's Ditch! Keris has new stories out in The Private Life Of Elder Things, along with Adrian Tchaikovsky and Adam Gauntlett. That one's out from Alchemy Press, along with the Joel Lane tribute anthology Something Remains. Massive kudos to Pete Coleborn, Jan Edwards and Pauline Dungate for making that anthology happen.

Getting to meet the force of nature that is Georgina Bruce. Also getting to meet Emma Cosh, Sarah Dodd, Miranda Jewess and many, many other new people.

Catching up with other friends like Lynda Rucker and Sean Hogan, Alison Littlewood and Fergus Beadle (who we stalked and were stalked by en route to the Con...) Helen Marshall and Vince Haig, Gary Fry, Gary and Emily McMahon, Stephen Volk, Steve Savile, John Llewellyn Probert and Thana Niveau, Anna Taborska, Andrew Hook and Sophie Essex, Laura Mauro, Victoria Leslie, Ray Cluley and Jess Jordan, Adrian and Annie Czajkowski, Phil Sloman, Des Lewis, Jon Oliver, Dave Moore, Lydia Gittins, Nina Allan, Jim Mcleod.... the list goes on and on and I'm sure I've missed important people off....

Seeing the Karl Edward Wagner Award go to the Redshirts, past and present, who make the whole thing happen.

And best of all, seeing the lovely Priya Sharma win the Best Short Story Award for the superb 'Fabulous Beasts'.

I was on the jury for Best Collection with Carole Johnstone and Emma Cosh - the shortlisted collections were all superb, and picking a winner was a very, very tough call to make. Nonetheless, we were all unanimous in our vote: the fantastic Ghost Summer: Stories by Tananarive Due. It's a beautiful, powerful collection, and hugely recommended.

A fantastic weekend. I'm missing it already.

Next year, FCon's in Daventry. Can't wait!

FCon Awaits...

Tomorrow, the dread trio that is Bestwick, Gardner and Priya Sharma will be setting off again, like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. (Except that there'll be three of us, and two of us are women, and we're in a car.) Off to Scarborough, for FANTASYCON!

Very much looking forward to seeing some old friends and meeting a few new ones.

The highlights, for me, will be the Snowbooks launch (featuring the relaunch of Cate's novella The Bureau Of Them), the awards (where Cate's on the shortlist for Best Novella alongside Nnedi Okorafor, Usman Tanveer Malik, Mark Morris and Paul Cornell, and where both Cate and Priya are shortlisted for Best Short Story with V.H. Leslie, Ralph Robert Moore, Adam Nevill and Frances Kay) - and the launch of Alchemy Press' tribute anthology to Joel Lane, Something Remains.

The inimitable Des Lewis has carried out one of his real-time reviews of Something Remains, available in three parts here, here and here.

Of my own contribution, 'And Ashes In Her Hair', Des says:


Ashes are fragments from many things all made the same thing by fire. This story, from whatever fragment it is made, is overtly the story of a call centre worker under strict employment rules, wringing out, from the results of a soul’s combustion, his own casual relationships with this book’s earlier waifs and strays – and wreaking sustenance from near-poisoned food, as well as eventually becoming complicit with acts of arson-into-ashes taking place in the vacant lot near the office where he works … with a swaddled outcome wrought into being as if for his embracing of a bereavement as well as of a potential birth. Heartbreaking.

I haven't seen Des since my first Fantasycon back in 1999. I believe he's going to be at this one though; it'll be good to meet him again.

For those others going this weekend - see you there!

My Fantasycon Schedule, 2016

Fantasycon By The Sea is nearly upon us! From the 23rd to the 25th of September, the (hopefully) sunny seaside town of Scarborough plays host to a motley mob of writers, editors, illustrators and fans.

It's going to be mostly a quiet con for me this year: when not in the bar, I have one panel, two launches and maybe a reading.

Saturday 24th September

12.00pm -1.00pm
Book launch: Alchemy Press
Main Ballroom,  Grand Hotel, St Nicholas Cliff
Something Remains, by Alchemy Press, including my story 'And Ashes In Her Hair'.
Also: The Private Life of Elder Things, by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Keris McDonald and Adam Gauntlett.


2.00pm - 3.00pm
Book launch: Snowbooks
Main Ballroom, Grand Hotel, St Nicholas Cliff

Actually, this is for Cate rather than me - Snowbooks are publishing her novella The Bureau Of Them, alongside novellas by Mark Morris, Ray Cluley, Gary Fry, Andrew Hook and John Llewellyn Probert. They'll be bringing out Devil's Highway too, but sadly not until next month!


8.00pm - 9.00pm
Panel: Paint It Black: Why Is Horror So Often Incorporated Into Other Genres?
Palm Court Ballroom, Grand Hotel, St Nicholas Cliff
Simon Bestwick, S J Townsend, Jo Thomas, Timothy Jarvis, Phil Sloman (Chair)

I've put in for a reading slot as well, but don't know if I have one as yet. Will let you know if I do.

See you there!

Something Remains

I've talked about this elsewhere, but with the book coming out next month I felt it deserved a blog of its own.

When my friend, the author and poet Joel Lane, died in November 2013 at the ridiculously early age of fifty, he left a great deal undone. There'd been a planned monograph on 20th century horror fiction, which would have been up there with Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror In Literature as an overview of the field; he'd also spoken of writing a crime or horror novel.

And there were his notes for short stories - dozens of them. Some were a paragraph or two, others more detailed. And so Joel's old friend Pete Coleborn, proprietor of the Alchemy Press, approached a number of writers with a proposal: to take a set of Joel's notes and use them as the basis for a new story of their own, to be collected in a tribute anthology.

Edited by Pete and by Pauline E. Dungate, the result is Something Remains - a deeply Joelesque title. It includes, among many other (and probably better) tales, my story 'And Ashes In Her Hair.'

Something Remains will be released at Fantasycon By The Sea in Scarborough. The official launch will take place on Saturday 24th September 2016 between noon and 1.00 pm.

John Grant, Rosanne Rabinowitz and Lynda E. Rucker have also blogged about their involvement in the anthology.

Here's the full TOC:

• Foreword by Peter Coleborn
• Introduction by Pauline E. Dungate
• Joel by Chris Morgan (Verse)
• Not Dispossessed:  A Few Words on Joel Lane’s Early Published Works by David A. Sutton (Essay)
• Everybody Hates a Tourist by Tim Lebbon
• The Missing by John Llewellyn Probert
• Charmed Life by Simon Avery
• Antithesis by Alison Littlewood
• Dark Furnaces by Chris Morgan
• The Inner Ear by Marion Pitman (Verse)
• Broken Eye by Gary McMahon
• Stained Glass by John Grant
• Threadbare by Jan Edwards
• The Dark above the Fair by Terry Grimwood
• Grey Children by David A. Sutton
• The Twin by James Brogden
• Lost by Pauline Morgan (Verse)
• Through the Floor [1] by Gary Couzens
• Through the Floor [2] by Stephen Bacon
• Bad Faith by Thana Niveau
• Window Shopping by David Mathew
• Clan Festor by Liam Garriock
• Sweet Sixteen by Adam Millard
• Buried Stars by Simon Macculloch
• And Ashes in Her Hair by Simon Bestwick
• The Pleasure Garden by Rosanne Rabinowitz
• Joel Lane, Poet by Chris Morgan (Essay)
• The Reach of Children by Mike Chinn
• The Men Cast by Shadows by Mat Joiner
• The Winter Garden by Pauline E. Dungate
• Natural History by Allen Ashley
• The Second Death by Ian Hunter
• The Bright Exit by Sarah Doyle (Verse)
• Blanche by Andrew Hook
• The Body Static by Tom Johnstone
• You Give Me Fever by Paul Edwards
• The Other Side by Lynda E. Rucker
• Of Loss and of Life: Joel Lane’s Essays on the Fantastic by Mark Valentine (Essay)
• Shadows by Joe X Young
• I Need Somewhere to Hide by Steven Savile
• Coming to Life by John Howard
• The Enemy Within by Steve Rasnic Tem
• Afterword: The Whole of Joel by Ramsey Campbell (Essay) 

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My Fantasycon 2015 Schedule

So, Fantasycon 2015 is almost upon us, out in the wilds of Nottingham. And my schedule is as follows...

Friday 23rd October
5.00pm Chills, Shocks & Empty Bladders: Writing ‘The Fear’

Tapping into what frightens us is fundamental to the success of not only horror fiction but often crime, thrillers and SFF too. Our panel of scaredy-cats considers what scares them and how they create the effects of fear in their writing.

• what reader-response are writers looking for?
• using the ‘weird’ to unsettle vs using shock to terrify
• inside the mind: the use of PoV
• how to best to place your characters in jeopardy
• the technicalities of creating fear: language, structure, pacing etc.

Moderator: Emma Audsley
Panellists: Simon Bestwick, Neil John Buchanan, Ramsey Campbell, Lynda Rucker, Sara Jayne

Townsend

11.00pm I'll be reading a portion of Hell's Ditch for anyone who's a) stayed awake that late and b) can stay awake through it.

Saturday 24th October

1.00pm: Spectral Press
Mark Morris (editor) launches The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories.
Available to sign the books are: Tim Lebbon, Adrian Cole, Nicholas Royle, Paul Meloy, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Ray Cluley, Alison Moore, Stephen Volk, Rob Shearman, Simon Bestwick and Cliff McNish, as well as Mark, himself. 

The rest of the time... there'll be panels, there'll be readings, there'll be launches. But most likely, I'll be in the bar. :)

Maybe I'll see you there.

Me & An American Biohazard...

Gardner Goldsmith of Liberty Conspiracy interviewed me for his podcast back at Fantasycon in Brighton, earlier this month. Here's that interview now- I start gabbing at around 6 minute 30 seconds and finally shut up around the 42 minute mark... When not cackling insanely or gabbling too fast for anyone to understand, I can be heard talking about various things I've written ('Dermot', Angels Of The Silences, Tide Of Souls and The Faceless) and stuff that's influenced me along the way (can't believe I forgot to mention Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson...)

Fantasycon 2011: Brighton Rocked

Be warned: this will be a huge blog post. Once I started, I honestly didn't know where to stop... So ensure you have a stiff one to hand (or even a drink.)

I’ll be totally honest here; when I first heard the 2011 Fantasycon was happening in Brighton, I was not a happy bunny. It was fun for World Horror, but that was a big international event. Say what you like about the Britannia Hotel in Nottingham (and many have), at least it was central. Brighton is a looooooooooong way to go if you’re a Manc. Even when Sarah Pinborough pointed out that publishers and agents wouldn’t make the trek to Nottingham, but would to Brighton, I wasn’t convinced.

So, was my mind changed?

Read on…

It went something like this:

Thursday 29th September. The Con doesn’t start till tomorrow, but see that thing above about it being a looooooooooong way to go. So- the epic journey commences- Swinton to Manchester by bus, Manchester to London Euston by train, Euston to Victoria by Tube and finally a train to Victoria to Brighton. After a brief spell of giddiness at the sheer frenetic vastness that is the capitol, it was pretty plain sailing. Arrive at Brighton, decide to walk from the train station to the hotel. A cab would be a silly extravagance, after all.

Did I mention that the Con managed to coincide with a fairly sizzling mini-heatwave? Well, I have now. Am also humping a well-stuffed backpack and a shoulderbag. And am wearing dark clothes. Feel free to quote the words ‘Serious Tactical Error’ at any time, people…

Arrive (approximately one stone lighter and quite possibly in the early stages of dehydration) at the Strawberry Fields guesthouse, a nice and highly-recommended little place if you’re ever visiting Brighton. Not only do they do breakfast in your room, but they have these seriously cute pillows:

Yes, I was tempted to nick one. No, I didn’t. Yes, Evil Me wishes I had.

Anyway! On to the Royal Albion Hotel, home of the Con. Boozing follows with the likes of Gary McMahon, Rio Youers, Mark Morris, Steve Jones, Mandy Slater and Sarah Pinborough. (Bit dizzying to find myself in such exalted company. :D ) Everyone else goes to freshen up. Potter round and end up helping the host of organisers fill up the last few goody bags. A drink or two with TTA Press’s Roy Gray, plus Paul and Audrey Campbell. Then further boozing- alcohol blurs the recollection here, but I get to meet Sandra Norval, who’s on her first Con. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s lucky- this will be one to remember.

Anyway, a good time is had by all. And so to bed.

Five hours’ sleep.

Friday 30th September
Up bright and early. Breakfast in bed arrives at 8.00 am. Virtuously decide on a brisk hour-long walk- sweat those toxins out! Better still- a walk on the beach! Why not?

Well, as I discover the beach a) appears to have been built on a 45 degree slope and b) is made entirely of loose pebbles which swallow the unwary walker’s feet up to the ankles. Bollocks to that. Scramble back to terra firma. It ends up being a half-hour walk, but ah well. At least some exercise was taken.

Head to the Albion feeling virtuous. Nose around the dealer’s room in the basement although it’s not officially open yet. Am lassooed by Pete Crowther, proprietor of PS Publishing, and given a stack of cover-sheets to sign for the limited edition of Gutshot. Scribble industriously. Escape to the ground floor and find my way to the first panel on ‘Small Press Publishing’. Had planned to stay for the next two- ‘Maintaining Your Web Presence’, chaired by the lovely Adele Wearing, and one on ‘Making A Living As A Writer’- but have almost been boiled to death by the end of the first panel. Apologise to Adele with much batting of eyelashes and seek out something cold and wet. Catch up, among others, with the equally lovely Anna Taborska, writer and film-maker (and maker of the forthcoming book-trailer for The Faceless.)

Later: attend Rio Youers’ reading and finally get to hear some of the boy’s prose. Oh, he’s good, folks; he’s very very good. Read him! Then on to the PS launch, which includes Gutshot. Sit between Pete Atkins and Conrad Williams sweating like Gary Glitter on a schoolbus and quenching a burning thirst with glasses of white wine. Am vaguely aware this may not be a good idea. Am pathetically grateful when a carafe of water appears. Find myself giving Graham Joyce an autograph. Dazedly think that this should be the other way round. Join Mark West, post-signing, in singing the praises of Graham’s novel The Silent Land. (Which is, like pretty much everything Graham Joyce writes, exceptionally good.) Graham takes the praise with his customary grace and good humour.

Curry with Sandra Norval, Jonathan Green and another chap whose name I shamefully can’t remember.

Back upstairs to the reading room for a succession of readings: Simon Kurt Unsworth, Gary McMahon, Joel Lane and (Lord) John Llewellyn Probert. In temperatures approaching that of the sunward side of Mercury. Morituri te salutant.

Somehow survive. To the bar. Further debauchery, the memory of which is mercifully blurred.

Four hours’ sleep.

Saturday 1st October
White rabbits!

No walk today. My morning exercise consists of intensive groaning and high-speed coffee consumption. Totter to hotel later than intended but sadly miss Reggie Oliver’s reading. Potter round the dealer’s room and am surprised to find I seem to own some new books by the end of it. However did that happen?

Solaris are giving away free books! But before I can join the queue, I bump into the ebullient (and insanely tall) Gardner Goldsmith, singing the praises of ‘Dermot’ in Black Static 24. By the time I remember the Solaris book giveaway, there’s almost nothing left. An object lesson on the price of vanity…

Shortly thereafter sleep deprivation starts to take its toll. Veg out on the sofa, much to the amusement of Gary Cole-Wilkin, John Travis and Soozy Marjoram, who swiftly immortalises the event on camera and posts it on Facebook.

Back to the hotel for a couple of hours’ unconsciousness. Rise and walk, feeling hungry. However, back at the Albion, nearly everyone I know has already decamped in search of an eatery.

Wander the streets of Brighton in search of a Chinese restaurant, or maybe that nice Indonesian restaurant we went to at World Horror last year… after half an hour, on the brink of giving up and heading or Harry Ramsden’s I find myself outside the Indonesian place. (It’s called Warung Tujuh, if you’re ever in Brighton.) Which goes to show something or other, I’m not sure what…

Back to the hotel to read from The Faceless and Angels of the Silences. Pretty good turnout considering it’s 9.30 pm. on a Saturday.

Then on to the Regency Lounge to witness Lord and Lady Probert’s ‘Teatro Proberto’ presenting Blood On Satan’s Claw- The Panto, followed by a reprise of their 20-minute version of the Peter Cushing classic(?!) Corruption.

Then follows the burlesque. Attractive young lady with not much on alternately conceals and reveals her curves with a big black pair of feathery things (my descriptive powers are getting taxed here.) Not sure how well it fits in with the Con as a whole, but hey. Then a fairly terrifying male performer appears in an act that culminates in him disembowelling and eating a (toy) rabbit (with very realistic internal organs) onstage. And garlanding himself with rabbit innards. Before collapsing, apparently dead, and being dragged off to the strains of Bright Eyes by Art Garfunkel. (Another childhood memory desecrated.) The crazy train leaves from ‘O….K,’ passes through ‘What the…’ and ends its journey at ‘Sod this for a game of conkers, I’ll be in the bar.’

It takes a couple of stiff drinks and a pint or two of Diet Coke with Sandra N. to get over that one. As a result I miss the panel on 'How To Scare Your Readers' (a description of that bloody burlesque would’ve done it.) Get up to go to Ramsey Campbell’s midnight reading, then discover the chap I’m squeezing past is Stephen Gallagher. Who’s actually heard of me. Chit-chat follows. Midnight reading also missed. Bugger.

Ah well- on to the disco!

This is a new development, but one of the highlights of the convention. FCon’s excellent Mistress of Ceremonies, Sarah ‘Potty Mouth’ Pinborough, intros our DJs, Rio Youers and Guy Adams, and the games begin. It’s actually enormous fun; only sorry not to have caught Year’s Best Horror editor Steve Jones getting down on the dancefloor, or Gary McMahon’s rendition of the funky chicken, on camera, but here’s Joel Lane boogying away with Lord and Lady Probert. This may be the first time I’ve seen Lord P with his tie loosened…




The disco ends amid much cheering and rejoicing. Sarah reminds the congregation that ‘What happens at the Fantasycon disco… stays on the Fantasycon disco.’ Surely she means ‘…ends up all over Facebook come Sunday afternoon’?

Three and a half hours sleep.

Sunday 2nd October
Awake, pack, head back to the Albion for the last time, this time early enough to catch the day’s first reading, from the lovely Ali Littlewood. Interviewed by Gardner Goldsmith for his podcast- Lord alone knows what they’ll make of that across the Pond. A last raid on the dealer’s room. The rest is hugs and goodbyes.

The odyssey back to the rainy North begins. A cab to the station this time; not making the same mistake twice. Sit next to a pleasant Norwegian student on the train home and the weekend gets rounded off with a chat about the brilliant Norwegian horror film Cold Prey.

All in all, it is, truly, the best Fantasycon I’ve been to, ever. Full stop. However…

I left before the British Fantasy Awards were presented. There’s already been a lot said about it and I wasn’t there, so I’ll direct interested parties to Steve Jones’ comment on the whole business here. There are questions to answer and be addressed.

I’ll put my hands in the air and freely admit I was utterly, utterly wrong about the location for this year’s Con. It played a big part in its record turnout of over five hundred people, plus representation from the big publishers, which I haven’t seen at FCon in a while. We need more conventions like this year’s.

I’ve heard that some have said the Awards debacle soured the whole Con for them. I really hope that’s not true. It was a truly brilliant weekend on so many levels.

I’d love to list all the ace and funky people I met for the first time or got to catch up with, but I’d end up missing someone out. You all know who you are.

Finally, a big shout-out to those brave, busy, red-shirted folks who helped organise everything and ran about making everything else happen on the ground: Marie O’Regan, Paul Kane, Martin Roberts, Helen Hopley, Jenny Barber, Pixie Pants and anyone else I’ve left out.

FCon Minus Two...

Tomorrow I shall be setting off for the distant land of Brighton. Fantasycon doesn't actually start till Friday, but given the Con is at the opposite end of the country, I'm heading down the day before. Coming back on Sunday, probably with a badly pounded wallet.

See you on the flipside...

My Fantasycon Schedule

Just over a week now to Fantasycon 2011 down in Brighton, which will be cool- a chance to meet up with various writing friends and quite probably getting a tad trolleyed with them.

So, here's my schedule. No, I won't be spending the whole time in the bar...

Friday 30th September
9pm- PS Book Launch. Among other things this will include Conrad Williams' Weird Western anthology Gutshot, which I'm, somewhere...

Saturday 1st October
9.30pm- Reading in Room 134. Possibly an excerpt from The Faceless, if you fancy a sneak preview...

The rest of the time- if I'm not in the dealer's room or the curry house- I probably will be in the bar.

So now you know.