H&N
Gah! I know, running late again. Actually, I'm almost there with it - everything's in that needs to be in, just have to finish proofing and ironing out a couple of layout narks then it's off to print. Hurrah!
Fantasycon '06
Almost got a venue! Manchester, unfortunately, was way way too expensive, so a little more digging around and we've got a close run thing between a place in Coventry and a place in Nottingham. Went to see the Nottingham one yesterday and it's looking like the favourite - room rates are about the same as the Walsall one, the actual events room hire rates are more expensive than Walsall but we can deal with that... the hotel is right in the city centre, with parking next door, bars and restaurants all within spitting distance and if your bedroom is on the right side of the hotel, you get a fab view of Nottingham and the castle!
We've also got tentative dates for next year - 22nd-24th September; and with that in mind are pestering our potential GoH to see if we're in time to book him for those dates or if his overactive publicity machine has snatched them from us!
More as and when.....
31 October 2005
04 October 2005
Best. FantasyCon. Ever!
Not that I'm biased or anything.....
So we got back yesterday afternoon and evil boss/mum immediately insisted on dragging me out to work til early evening... bah.... no xmas presents for her this year.... spent all today waiting for my brain to wake up...
So, crikey, so much to tell, where to begin.
The guests... yes, that'll do ya fine. Steve Erikson - can't say overly much about as didn't see much of him through the weekend but he seems like a nice bloke and gave a funny after banquet speech.
Ooh, Graham Joyce, what a wicked sense of humour the man's got! I can proudly say I was there to witness the sacred wafer incident! And I now know exactly (and in fine detail) why he hates the raffle so (and he does make some very good points...) And, of course, it was his social responsibility to highlight the awful wrongs done against the fey kind... you see, everytime you go in the Dealer's Room and walk past a stall without buying something, a fairy dies.... this message brought to you from Mr Joyce, chair of the society for the prevention of slaughter to pixies.... He also kept us organised rather nicely too!
Simon Clark... OMG, what a totally lovely guy! He's about 7 1/2 feet tall yet very softly spoken and gave an excellent talk on the Saturday. Had never read any of his stuff beforehand (except the extract of his latest book, The Tower, which was in the Fcon mag..) but I totally need to track down some of his stuff. Right now!
And then there's Mark Chadbourn, another fab bloke with a great sense of humour and the ability to talk about anything. (Anything? Yes, anything!) But then, I was already a huge fan...
So, one of the organiser's perks is dinner with the guests... which was great (especially as I was sitting opposite three of them in the row)... but, alas, a whack yourself about the brain with a baseball bat moment was had when I spent the entire evening unable to respond to their conversational delights with more than 'yes', 'cool', 'uh-huh' (and other similar monosyllables) - sometimes it's a real pain in the ass being socially inept.
Apart from that.... who else was there... oh yeah, loads of H&N peeps who I got to say hi to... John L. Probert, Steve Dean, Gary McMahon, Tony Richards, Allen Ashley, Andrew Hook (more on him in a mo..), Jetse De Vries (although I was little zombied by the time he signed in and had trouble understanding what his name was for quite an embarrassing long time... then the lightbulb flashed on...)
Oh, and Gary Fry (appearing in issue 7, which I'm just putting together,) was also about but I didn't get to speak to him as someone else signed him in and he spent the weekend flogging Poe's Progeny in the Dealer Room... so... Hi Gary! Meant to buy a copy of PP, forgot, will do it online...
Gail Nina's talk on Friday night was totally cool and she's promised to write me a version for the mag... just got to work out how to go about acquiring copyright for some of the pictures... may have do without the pics which would not be good as the flow of it is kind of dependent on some of the images. But then, G.N's wicked intelligent and can probably write her way around that!
Oh, and Andrew Hook, top bloke! Won TWO! awards this year... one of which was for Best Small Press which knocked PS Publishing off their winning streak... which was good... I mean, not that PS doesn't deserve an award, but, yay, Elastic!!
Forget who took the other awards.... except Stephen King got Best Novel for The Dark Tower (book seven of the DT series) - someone from Hodder was supposed to collect it but they didn't show - the committee has since had a nice little email forwarded on from the man himself saying that 'he and Roland thank everyone big-big'... cool beans!
Would have liked it if the win could have gone to a Brit author (like Mark Chadbourn for Queen of Sinister...) but, still, I absolutely adore the Dark Tower series so am still chuffed about the choice.
Oh, and we had new awards this year ... instead of the amazing golden cthulonic dildo of legend, we've now got an anatomically correct demony looking thing (apparently each award has a different facial expression too...)
According to sources the mass book launch was Best. Launch. Ever!
Didn't get to see many of the panels as was behind the registration desk but the Write Fantastic one was fab (and I totally need to get them to do Reading - either the main Reading Library or maybe the one in Woodley... alas, the one in Lower Earley is a bit on the titchy side...)
I shocked and stunned Dave Howe in the Quiz when I could pin point the exact episode a certain Buffy line was spoken in. (It was the one about happy meals on legs, said by Spike in Becoming part 2! Hah!) Don't know how I remembered it as usually I've got total sieve-brain when it comes to things like that.
Also won a few bits in the raffle (which I then offloaded on evil twin... be nice to me for the rest of the year, girly girl...!!)
What else, what else....
Bad: some idiot at the hotel double booked the function rooms on Friday and said we couldn't have the main room until 5pm as some business types had got it... I mean, we've had them booked since this time last year but apparently someone got confused cos the big room (with it's own name) can also be split into 3 smaller rooms, each with different names, and the gits had booked the smaller rooms and no one had the brains to notice the clash.... were we furious or what! And what did we get in compensation? Some chips and sandwiches at lunchtime for free! What a gyp....
Fortunately the business types were all done and gone by 1pm ish so we swooped...
Also, the hotel housekeeping was appalling, a lot of people's rooms hadn't been cleaned from the previous guests (luckily mine was fine, for a change, I even got a heater that actually worked which had me well shocked... first time I've not frozen at an Fcon..)
We'll not even mention the food...
Good: the posse of about half a dozen porter types led by the brilliant Glenys, who all wore Fantasycon tshirts through the weekend(!), were very helpful and sorted out most of the problems to do with the function rooms...
The fact that the Fcon tshirt, despite only be a Large, actually fitted.
The fact that every year I get to have longer and longer conversations with people like Chaz Brenchley, Jo Fletcher, Ramsey Campbell etc. etc. Not bad for someone who avoids the bar because I don't drink and gets odd reactions to cig. smoke.
Plus, I got more hugs and kisses over the one weekend than I get over the course of the average year, which was nice! :-) Heh! Of course, I've spent many many years training the home peeps to keep their distance... touchy-feely I'm not. But still, Fcon affection is different.
Oh, and I did my first ever signing!! Okay, so technically it was only a half dozen Fcon mags that Bob of the Talking Dead was going to get signed by the GOHs and auction off for charity but Debs suggested to him that I ought to sign it too as I edited it... so I did! Double heh! And a hee, too!
The AGM was very quiet... some git asked about membership stats, but apparently Debs was in charge of doing that and admitted she hadn't had time so I was off the hook! We got some good publicity suggestions, Chaz B. volunteered to help out with a couple of bits (which shocked even him I think!), Jo Fletcher offered up £50 of Gollancz books as an incentive to get people to respond to an Fcon short and easy questionnaire we're doing to get an idea of things you lot think important when choosing to come (eg. how far you'll travel etc. Pretty much the same sort of thing I floated on the BFS messageboards...)
Gary Couzens stepped down as Awards admin and Dave Sutton (one of the original creators of the BFS and also, I think, organisor of the first Fcon) stepped up to take his place. And we're doing some juggling with the editors of DH & Prism... but more on that when it's official...!
On next year's Fcon, the lovely Ariel suggested Manchester - which went down rather well... research is happening as we speak. For 2007 (yes, we really are planning 2 years in advance..) Fcon I'm still holding out hope for getting something in Reading. Apparently getting it right in town centre isn't so vital, so long as it's near enough to the train station... there's a travelodge on one end of the Oxford Road(do I mean Oxford Road??... it's the one that has either a tescos or a Sainsburys on it and a PCWorld near it..) that might do... it had it's function rooms redone a couple of years ago and the accomodation should be more sensibly priced... ah well, have to investigate....
Debs & Vicky are also coming back next year as organisors, we've got a nice lady from Hadesgate publishing offering to help out on publicity and mum reckons she's going to do the nagging hotel liason stuff (ye gads, can't escape the woman...!)
(Talking of whom, this weekend the issue of Chat magazine that had her 'spooky story' came out - easiest £50 she's ever made, she reckons.... the whoever at the mag completely re-wrote her original sort of true ghost story into something which is, well, pretty much tabloid style fabrication. And my name comes up about 8 or 10 times in it!! And will she give me a cut... oh no....)
So now that Fcon '05 is done (and Fcon '06 & '07 are nicely distant), I can concentrate on getting the mag done this week, off to the printers and back next week. Lovely.
Happy bunny all round.
Not that I'm biased or anything.....
So we got back yesterday afternoon and evil boss/mum immediately insisted on dragging me out to work til early evening... bah.... no xmas presents for her this year.... spent all today waiting for my brain to wake up...
So, crikey, so much to tell, where to begin.
The guests... yes, that'll do ya fine. Steve Erikson - can't say overly much about as didn't see much of him through the weekend but he seems like a nice bloke and gave a funny after banquet speech.
Ooh, Graham Joyce, what a wicked sense of humour the man's got! I can proudly say I was there to witness the sacred wafer incident! And I now know exactly (and in fine detail) why he hates the raffle so (and he does make some very good points...) And, of course, it was his social responsibility to highlight the awful wrongs done against the fey kind... you see, everytime you go in the Dealer's Room and walk past a stall without buying something, a fairy dies.... this message brought to you from Mr Joyce, chair of the society for the prevention of slaughter to pixies.... He also kept us organised rather nicely too!
Simon Clark... OMG, what a totally lovely guy! He's about 7 1/2 feet tall yet very softly spoken and gave an excellent talk on the Saturday. Had never read any of his stuff beforehand (except the extract of his latest book, The Tower, which was in the Fcon mag..) but I totally need to track down some of his stuff. Right now!
And then there's Mark Chadbourn, another fab bloke with a great sense of humour and the ability to talk about anything. (Anything? Yes, anything!) But then, I was already a huge fan...
So, one of the organiser's perks is dinner with the guests... which was great (especially as I was sitting opposite three of them in the row)... but, alas, a whack yourself about the brain with a baseball bat moment was had when I spent the entire evening unable to respond to their conversational delights with more than 'yes', 'cool', 'uh-huh' (and other similar monosyllables) - sometimes it's a real pain in the ass being socially inept.
Apart from that.... who else was there... oh yeah, loads of H&N peeps who I got to say hi to... John L. Probert, Steve Dean, Gary McMahon, Tony Richards, Allen Ashley, Andrew Hook (more on him in a mo..), Jetse De Vries (although I was little zombied by the time he signed in and had trouble understanding what his name was for quite an embarrassing long time... then the lightbulb flashed on...)
Oh, and Gary Fry (appearing in issue 7, which I'm just putting together,) was also about but I didn't get to speak to him as someone else signed him in and he spent the weekend flogging Poe's Progeny in the Dealer Room... so... Hi Gary! Meant to buy a copy of PP, forgot, will do it online...
Gail Nina's talk on Friday night was totally cool and she's promised to write me a version for the mag... just got to work out how to go about acquiring copyright for some of the pictures... may have do without the pics which would not be good as the flow of it is kind of dependent on some of the images. But then, G.N's wicked intelligent and can probably write her way around that!
Oh, and Andrew Hook, top bloke! Won TWO! awards this year... one of which was for Best Small Press which knocked PS Publishing off their winning streak... which was good... I mean, not that PS doesn't deserve an award, but, yay, Elastic!!
Forget who took the other awards.... except Stephen King got Best Novel for The Dark Tower (book seven of the DT series) - someone from Hodder was supposed to collect it but they didn't show - the committee has since had a nice little email forwarded on from the man himself saying that 'he and Roland thank everyone big-big'... cool beans!
Would have liked it if the win could have gone to a Brit author (like Mark Chadbourn for Queen of Sinister...) but, still, I absolutely adore the Dark Tower series so am still chuffed about the choice.
Oh, and we had new awards this year ... instead of the amazing golden cthulonic dildo of legend, we've now got an anatomically correct demony looking thing (apparently each award has a different facial expression too...)
According to sources the mass book launch was Best. Launch. Ever!
Didn't get to see many of the panels as was behind the registration desk but the Write Fantastic one was fab (and I totally need to get them to do Reading - either the main Reading Library or maybe the one in Woodley... alas, the one in Lower Earley is a bit on the titchy side...)
I shocked and stunned Dave Howe in the Quiz when I could pin point the exact episode a certain Buffy line was spoken in. (It was the one about happy meals on legs, said by Spike in Becoming part 2! Hah!) Don't know how I remembered it as usually I've got total sieve-brain when it comes to things like that.
Also won a few bits in the raffle (which I then offloaded on evil twin... be nice to me for the rest of the year, girly girl...!!)
What else, what else....
Bad: some idiot at the hotel double booked the function rooms on Friday and said we couldn't have the main room until 5pm as some business types had got it... I mean, we've had them booked since this time last year but apparently someone got confused cos the big room (with it's own name) can also be split into 3 smaller rooms, each with different names, and the gits had booked the smaller rooms and no one had the brains to notice the clash.... were we furious or what! And what did we get in compensation? Some chips and sandwiches at lunchtime for free! What a gyp....
Fortunately the business types were all done and gone by 1pm ish so we swooped...
Also, the hotel housekeeping was appalling, a lot of people's rooms hadn't been cleaned from the previous guests (luckily mine was fine, for a change, I even got a heater that actually worked which had me well shocked... first time I've not frozen at an Fcon..)
We'll not even mention the food...
Good: the posse of about half a dozen porter types led by the brilliant Glenys, who all wore Fantasycon tshirts through the weekend(!), were very helpful and sorted out most of the problems to do with the function rooms...
The fact that the Fcon tshirt, despite only be a Large, actually fitted.
The fact that every year I get to have longer and longer conversations with people like Chaz Brenchley, Jo Fletcher, Ramsey Campbell etc. etc. Not bad for someone who avoids the bar because I don't drink and gets odd reactions to cig. smoke.
Plus, I got more hugs and kisses over the one weekend than I get over the course of the average year, which was nice! :-) Heh! Of course, I've spent many many years training the home peeps to keep their distance... touchy-feely I'm not. But still, Fcon affection is different.
Oh, and I did my first ever signing!! Okay, so technically it was only a half dozen Fcon mags that Bob of the Talking Dead was going to get signed by the GOHs and auction off for charity but Debs suggested to him that I ought to sign it too as I edited it... so I did! Double heh! And a hee, too!
The AGM was very quiet... some git asked about membership stats, but apparently Debs was in charge of doing that and admitted she hadn't had time so I was off the hook! We got some good publicity suggestions, Chaz B. volunteered to help out with a couple of bits (which shocked even him I think!), Jo Fletcher offered up £50 of Gollancz books as an incentive to get people to respond to an Fcon short and easy questionnaire we're doing to get an idea of things you lot think important when choosing to come (eg. how far you'll travel etc. Pretty much the same sort of thing I floated on the BFS messageboards...)
Gary Couzens stepped down as Awards admin and Dave Sutton (one of the original creators of the BFS and also, I think, organisor of the first Fcon) stepped up to take his place. And we're doing some juggling with the editors of DH & Prism... but more on that when it's official...!
On next year's Fcon, the lovely Ariel suggested Manchester - which went down rather well... research is happening as we speak. For 2007 (yes, we really are planning 2 years in advance..) Fcon I'm still holding out hope for getting something in Reading. Apparently getting it right in town centre isn't so vital, so long as it's near enough to the train station... there's a travelodge on one end of the Oxford Road(do I mean Oxford Road??... it's the one that has either a tescos or a Sainsburys on it and a PCWorld near it..) that might do... it had it's function rooms redone a couple of years ago and the accomodation should be more sensibly priced... ah well, have to investigate....
Debs & Vicky are also coming back next year as organisors, we've got a nice lady from Hadesgate publishing offering to help out on publicity and mum reckons she's going to do the nagging hotel liason stuff (ye gads, can't escape the woman...!)
(Talking of whom, this weekend the issue of Chat magazine that had her 'spooky story' came out - easiest £50 she's ever made, she reckons.... the whoever at the mag completely re-wrote her original sort of true ghost story into something which is, well, pretty much tabloid style fabrication. And my name comes up about 8 or 10 times in it!! And will she give me a cut... oh no....)
So now that Fcon '05 is done (and Fcon '06 & '07 are nicely distant), I can concentrate on getting the mag done this week, off to the printers and back next week. Lovely.
Happy bunny all round.
27 September 2005
Fcon.. counting down
Being. Very. Calm. 2 more days to go (well, technically, 3, but we leave for it on Thursday..) and should just be ready in time :-) If you're going, hi! If you're not, shame on you... :-P
Actually, as far as the actual event is concerned, we've all done everything that can be done in advance and taken delivery of everything that we need. It's the BFS AGM I get to worry about next (not just because I hate hate hate public speaking and my brain freezes up when peeps ask questions and blech...), what with having to do something sensible with the Publications accounts and try and remember membership stats that I sort of said I'd put together, but soooo haven't had the time to. So please don't ask for membership stats. Really. Ask something else that the other smarter committee peeps can answer instead. Ta muchly.
So Friday = manic day. Bag stuffing and set up until late afternoon then sitting behind the reg. desk for the rest of the evening signing people in. Oh, and the quiz! A chance to hear how many ways my mate Dave can heckle everyone in the room....
There's also a Write Fantastic panel thingy, Gail Nina Anderson is doing a slideshow talk with the fab title: "From Goddess to Dominatrix - a fantasy quest through art, archaeology and
some dodgy mags I got from Simon R. Green.", and Ramsey Campbell's doing a late night story session.
Then Saturday is the big panels day (and always the day I forget to eat), and of course, evening brings the Fabulous Fantasycon Raffle.
Panels then..... we've got a comics one, a scriptwriting improv session, a 'swords and sandals' one, a comedy/horror one, a writing for TV one (not to be confused with the scriptwriting thingy), a bunch of live interviews (and Ariel says his interview with Steven Erikson is going to be recorded and broadcast on his blog eventually so that'll be nice!) - as well as a huge book launch in the main bar - mainly with PS Publishing's joint BFS thingy Cinema Macabre, but also with Telos, Hadesgate Publishing and, I think, Gary Fry with Poe's Progeny, and a few other folks.
And if you're still awake after the raffle, there's a couple of storytelling sessions going on with Alison Davies and Joe Hill.
Oh, and there's the Editor appointments (John Jarrold dropped out because he can't come, Jo Fletcher stepped up to help, because she can!) , Simon Clark talk (for which you need to have booked in advance for), and the Indie film show (might be starting a little later then scheduled depending on how long the last Editor appointments go on... oh cripes, I've got to do the film program thingy for that yet..... oh no... knew there'd be something....)
Then Sunday is AGM (aaaggghhh!), banquet (which I never go to, being the ultimate fussy/faddy eater.... this week, if it's not a cheese, peanut butter & ketchup sandwich then forget about it!), for you regular eaters, the banquet menu's fairly harmless and the pudding sounds nice.
Then we've got the awards... according to my sources it's very very close this year, with a couple of unexpected leads. Gary, our awards admin chap, says he'd liked to have seen more people voting this year.
Oh, and last I heard, there's after dinner speeches from Steven Erikson & Mark Chadbourn; and Simon Clark and Graham Joyce are hosting the awards for us.
So it should be good, then!
And I'm very, very, calm.
Being. Very. Calm. 2 more days to go (well, technically, 3, but we leave for it on Thursday..) and should just be ready in time :-) If you're going, hi! If you're not, shame on you... :-P
Actually, as far as the actual event is concerned, we've all done everything that can be done in advance and taken delivery of everything that we need. It's the BFS AGM I get to worry about next (not just because I hate hate hate public speaking and my brain freezes up when peeps ask questions and blech...), what with having to do something sensible with the Publications accounts and try and remember membership stats that I sort of said I'd put together, but soooo haven't had the time to. So please don't ask for membership stats. Really. Ask something else that the other smarter committee peeps can answer instead. Ta muchly.
So Friday = manic day. Bag stuffing and set up until late afternoon then sitting behind the reg. desk for the rest of the evening signing people in. Oh, and the quiz! A chance to hear how many ways my mate Dave can heckle everyone in the room....
There's also a Write Fantastic panel thingy, Gail Nina Anderson is doing a slideshow talk with the fab title: "From Goddess to Dominatrix - a fantasy quest through art, archaeology and
some dodgy mags I got from Simon R. Green.", and Ramsey Campbell's doing a late night story session.
Then Saturday is the big panels day (and always the day I forget to eat), and of course, evening brings the Fabulous Fantasycon Raffle.
Panels then..... we've got a comics one, a scriptwriting improv session, a 'swords and sandals' one, a comedy/horror one, a writing for TV one (not to be confused with the scriptwriting thingy), a bunch of live interviews (and Ariel says his interview with Steven Erikson is going to be recorded and broadcast on his blog eventually so that'll be nice!) - as well as a huge book launch in the main bar - mainly with PS Publishing's joint BFS thingy Cinema Macabre, but also with Telos, Hadesgate Publishing and, I think, Gary Fry with Poe's Progeny, and a few other folks.
And if you're still awake after the raffle, there's a couple of storytelling sessions going on with Alison Davies and Joe Hill.
Oh, and there's the Editor appointments (John Jarrold dropped out because he can't come, Jo Fletcher stepped up to help, because she can!) , Simon Clark talk (for which you need to have booked in advance for), and the Indie film show (might be starting a little later then scheduled depending on how long the last Editor appointments go on... oh cripes, I've got to do the film program thingy for that yet..... oh no... knew there'd be something....)
Then Sunday is AGM (aaaggghhh!), banquet (which I never go to, being the ultimate fussy/faddy eater.... this week, if it's not a cheese, peanut butter & ketchup sandwich then forget about it!), for you regular eaters, the banquet menu's fairly harmless and the pudding sounds nice.
Then we've got the awards... according to my sources it's very very close this year, with a couple of unexpected leads. Gary, our awards admin chap, says he'd liked to have seen more people voting this year.
Oh, and last I heard, there's after dinner speeches from Steven Erikson & Mark Chadbourn; and Simon Clark and Graham Joyce are hosting the awards for us.
So it should be good, then!
And I'm very, very, calm.
23 September 2005
Random rant
Argh! 1 week to Fcon and still shitloads to do..... staying very calm.... oh yes. And no venue for 2006 yet. Bloody hotels and their bloody extortinate rates.... bastards.
And just what about the, ahem, 'on-track for end of July' mag? Don't ask. August surprised me. (How it does this every year, I'll never know. And where's September gone, ey? I demand an answer...) So, we're looking at first week of October (ie. when Fcon is safely over) with Ish 8 in December.
More sensible things to follow when my brain gets off the ceiling.......
Argh! 1 week to Fcon and still shitloads to do..... staying very calm.... oh yes. And no venue for 2006 yet. Bloody hotels and their bloody extortinate rates.... bastards.
And just what about the, ahem, 'on-track for end of July' mag? Don't ask. August surprised me. (How it does this every year, I'll never know. And where's September gone, ey? I demand an answer...) So, we're looking at first week of October (ie. when Fcon is safely over) with Ish 8 in December.
More sensible things to follow when my brain gets off the ceiling.......
31 July 2005
Arrrgh.
So there I am, happily bouncing around the internetweb when suddenly all manner of weird things pop up on my desktop (cue 5 minutes of kicking oneself for not getting around to installing the firewall on the new machine...) and suddenly I'm the proud owner of 3 automatic diallers to 'adult' sites that seem to have hijacked all my connections. Bastards.
Have just spent the morning cleaning things up, putting in the firewall and in my usual stable-bolted-horses-long-gone way, have also finally got around to installing Mozilla Firefox. Good lord, it's done bizarre things to the Bradan website. Next time I've a spare few, it'll be straight to the CSS sites to see what can be done to clean up the code. Hopefully this Firefox thingy should help slow down the frequency of viral attacks I get.
Grrr, argh.
So there I am, happily bouncing around the internetweb when suddenly all manner of weird things pop up on my desktop (cue 5 minutes of kicking oneself for not getting around to installing the firewall on the new machine...) and suddenly I'm the proud owner of 3 automatic diallers to 'adult' sites that seem to have hijacked all my connections. Bastards.
Have just spent the morning cleaning things up, putting in the firewall and in my usual stable-bolted-horses-long-gone way, have also finally got around to installing Mozilla Firefox. Good lord, it's done bizarre things to the Bradan website. Next time I've a spare few, it'll be straight to the CSS sites to see what can be done to clean up the code. Hopefully this Firefox thingy should help slow down the frequency of viral attacks I get.
Grrr, argh.
19 July 2005
21 June 2005
More BFS bits
Should probably mention that the BFS boards are here: http://www.marieoregan.net/bfsdiscuss/index.php
Ooh, just remembered, we've (BFS Publications... so many hats...) just announced the latest Special Publication (as opposed to the regular ones eg. Prism & DH..).
So: (drum roll...) the BFS 2006 Horror Calendar......
Featuring stories from:
Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell, John Connolly, Christopher Fowler, Simon Clark, Muriel Gray, Stephen Gallagher, Kelley Armstrong, Poppy Z. Brite, Stephen Laws & Graham Masterton.
And artwork by:
James Ryman, Mike Bohatch, Lew Lehrman, Michael Ian Bateson, David Anthony Magitis, Ian Simmons, Russell Dickerson, Lizzy Shumate, Lara Bandilla, Michelle Blessemaille & Bob Covington.
With stunning cover and internal artwork by Lord of the Rings, Constantine and Sin City matte artist Paul Campion. (Who's also doing the Fcon souvenir mag cover for me as well... but that's another hat.....)
Anyhoo, the calendar retails at £8.99 (plus p&p) and is now available for pre-ordering on the BFS cyberstore at http://www.britishfantasysociety.org.uk/shop/bpub.htm
It's going to be officially launched at Fcon at end of September but BFS members will receive their free members copy as soon as it's back from the printer. Which I think the Spec Pub Eds said would be early September.
Also also... in case you hadn't heard from other sources... PS Publishing are launching their book Cinema Macabre at Fcon and BFS members will also be getting a basic standard edition of the book free in whatever mailing comes after Fcon and before Xmas.
So there you go, 2 great reasons to join /re-join! And just wait til you see what we've got planned for next year...
Should probably mention that the BFS boards are here: http://www.marieoregan.net/bfsdiscuss/index.php
Ooh, just remembered, we've (BFS Publications... so many hats...) just announced the latest Special Publication (as opposed to the regular ones eg. Prism & DH..).
So: (drum roll...) the BFS 2006 Horror Calendar......
Featuring stories from:
Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell, John Connolly, Christopher Fowler, Simon Clark, Muriel Gray, Stephen Gallagher, Kelley Armstrong, Poppy Z. Brite, Stephen Laws & Graham Masterton.
And artwork by:
James Ryman, Mike Bohatch, Lew Lehrman, Michael Ian Bateson, David Anthony Magitis, Ian Simmons, Russell Dickerson, Lizzy Shumate, Lara Bandilla, Michelle Blessemaille & Bob Covington.
With stunning cover and internal artwork by Lord of the Rings, Constantine and Sin City matte artist Paul Campion. (Who's also doing the Fcon souvenir mag cover for me as well... but that's another hat.....)
Anyhoo, the calendar retails at £8.99 (plus p&p) and is now available for pre-ordering on the BFS cyberstore at http://www.britishfantasysociety.org.uk/shop/bpub.htm
It's going to be officially launched at Fcon at end of September but BFS members will receive their free members copy as soon as it's back from the printer. Which I think the Spec Pub Eds said would be early September.
Also also... in case you hadn't heard from other sources... PS Publishing are launching their book Cinema Macabre at Fcon and BFS members will also be getting a basic standard edition of the book free in whatever mailing comes after Fcon and before Xmas.
So there you go, 2 great reasons to join /re-join! And just wait til you see what we've got planned for next year...
BFS bits
Ick, got a severe case of stamp licker's tongue! Yes, that's right, it's BFS mailing time again! In this month's mailing you BFS bods will get Prism, the latest Fcon Reporter (done by yours truly!), the Fcon booking form (do it if you haven't yet,) the awards showcase flier thingy and most importantly, the BFS Awards voting form. (Where you can vote for H&N in the best small press category, if you really want to.... oh, go on....) Also, if you want to nominate an H&N story from Issue 4, just pop it in the 'other' box. (Or if you're using the online form on the BFS site, just type it in any of the boxes in the Short fiction category. Of course box 1 will get you more points!)
Fcon bits
Still not having any luck with next years hotel. Everywhere in Reading is terribly expensive. Which is a shame, cos there were a couple of nicely positioned ones....
So we're looking at other areas.... priorities are:
1) single room rates that don't kill you - plus that are held at same rate for Thurs - Sun nights.
2) good transport links and a car park so everyone can get there easily.
3) size, of course. We need somehwere that has a minimum of 110 ish rooms.
4) Near to some shops/pubs/eateries so that you've got somewhere to go if you want to skip the hotel
5) cost of the function rooms & misc. hotel bits, is, of course, a factor, but the above are more important.
This is so frustrating cos we've got this lovely guest just waiting for us to say what the dates are, which we can't do until we've got a hotel.
Of course, it would be much easier if we just went for this years hotel next year, but we were rather hoping that we could get one nearer to a town centre - with, hopefully, better transport links for the non drivers.
Not that there's anything wrong with the Quality Hotel - it's dirt cheap, they've done the rooms up right nice since last year etc. etc. It's just that there's a minimal amount of local facilities for folks if they don't want to eat in the hotel.
Mind you, I really wouldn't mind doing the Quality again next year. Personally, it's easy for me to get to (only about 2 hours max drive up the motorways), the car park's handy (a necessity when you've got to lug the amount of boxes me and the rest of the Fcon girls have to) and it's nice and civilised!
Hmm, think I'll pop over to the BFS boards and start a 2006 poll/thread (will be in the 2005 Fcon section) - do me a favour and drop by to voice your opinions please. Along the lines of what's your most important considerations when you're thinking about attending...
Cheers
Ick, got a severe case of stamp licker's tongue! Yes, that's right, it's BFS mailing time again! In this month's mailing you BFS bods will get Prism, the latest Fcon Reporter (done by yours truly!), the Fcon booking form (do it if you haven't yet,) the awards showcase flier thingy and most importantly, the BFS Awards voting form. (Where you can vote for H&N in the best small press category, if you really want to.... oh, go on....) Also, if you want to nominate an H&N story from Issue 4, just pop it in the 'other' box. (Or if you're using the online form on the BFS site, just type it in any of the boxes in the Short fiction category. Of course box 1 will get you more points!)
Fcon bits
Still not having any luck with next years hotel. Everywhere in Reading is terribly expensive. Which is a shame, cos there were a couple of nicely positioned ones....
So we're looking at other areas.... priorities are:
1) single room rates that don't kill you - plus that are held at same rate for Thurs - Sun nights.
2) good transport links and a car park so everyone can get there easily.
3) size, of course. We need somehwere that has a minimum of 110 ish rooms.
4) Near to some shops/pubs/eateries so that you've got somewhere to go if you want to skip the hotel
5) cost of the function rooms & misc. hotel bits, is, of course, a factor, but the above are more important.
This is so frustrating cos we've got this lovely guest just waiting for us to say what the dates are, which we can't do until we've got a hotel.
Of course, it would be much easier if we just went for this years hotel next year, but we were rather hoping that we could get one nearer to a town centre - with, hopefully, better transport links for the non drivers.
Not that there's anything wrong with the Quality Hotel - it's dirt cheap, they've done the rooms up right nice since last year etc. etc. It's just that there's a minimal amount of local facilities for folks if they don't want to eat in the hotel.
Mind you, I really wouldn't mind doing the Quality again next year. Personally, it's easy for me to get to (only about 2 hours max drive up the motorways), the car park's handy (a necessity when you've got to lug the amount of boxes me and the rest of the Fcon girls have to) and it's nice and civilised!
Hmm, think I'll pop over to the BFS boards and start a 2006 poll/thread (will be in the 2005 Fcon section) - do me a favour and drop by to voice your opinions please. Along the lines of what's your most important considerations when you're thinking about attending...
Cheers
08 June 2005
Ooh ooh ooooohhh, we're on Shocklines now!
Issues 1 - 5/6 are up on this page here:
http://store.yahoo.com/shocklines/henowmasiis.html
Issues 1 - 5/6 are up on this page here:
http://store.yahoo.com/shocklines/henowmasiis.html
06 June 2005
H&N bits
Just when I thought I'd got on top things, a few cock ups come to light! Turns out a couple of orders vanished in one of the computer implosions so if you haven't had your copy of 5/6, tell me. (and if you've got your order details handy, that'd be a help to.)
Competency? I wish.
Ish 7 is bundling along nicely. Should go to print end of June/first week of July for appearance in the latter half of July.
Would love to see some more articles in it so you know what to do...
Just when I thought I'd got on top things, a few cock ups come to light! Turns out a couple of orders vanished in one of the computer implosions so if you haven't had your copy of 5/6, tell me. (and if you've got your order details handy, that'd be a help to.)
Competency? I wish.
Ish 7 is bundling along nicely. Should go to print end of June/first week of July for appearance in the latter half of July.
Would love to see some more articles in it so you know what to do...
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