Busy, y'say..?

Absolutely run off my feet at the moment; mostly with work-related projects, which is absolutely great.

In brief:

Jo and I were guests of Pete and Nicky Crowther (of PS Publishing fame) last weekend, at their absolutely wonderful home on the East Yorkshire coast. Their house is one of our very favourite places on the entire planet: partly because it contains a veritable cornucopia of sf stuff - books, toys, DVDs, memorabilia; decades worth, and it would take a decade to read / watch / play with it all - but mostly because it's home to Pete and Nicky, who are two of our very favourite people (an opinion widely shared in genre fiction circles, I know) and spending time with them is always an absolute joy. We ate, we drank, we laughed. A lot. Of all three. And we watched Hollywoodland, which was... interesting. Dark, and definitely... interesting.

We also thrashed out a last few remaining issues on the PS website re-build, which means I'll now be able to crack on with that project as soon as possible. Got another few jobs to finish as well, all of which are tantalisingly close to completion, as well as a few new ones in the pipeline. Plus, I'm off down to London on Thursday to have lunch with a few of the fine folks from Gollancz Books and meet with a certain Mssr. Lynch, a word-smith whose acquaintance I'm absolutely dying to make. Will tell you all about it later next week, all being well.

Then on Friday afternoon Jo and I are heading down to Derby for Saturday's Alt.Fiction event, which I'm also thoroughly looking forward to. It'll be a great chance for us to catch up with a whole load of fantastic people that we haven't seen since last year's Fantasycon (or perhaps last month's Eastercon, or even last weekend...) and hopefully we'll get a chance to talk to everyone I've been saying "catch you at Alt.Fiction!" to for the past few weeks. Packed panel programme allowing.

So, yes, incredibly hectic schedule just now, absolutely loads going on. And I'm afraid that it does all rather mean that I might not be posting properly until after the weekend. I'll do my best to prep a couple of bookish entries sooner rather than later. Six hours of quite, quite wonderful reading time on the train to and from London on Thursday should help no end with that. Luxury!

April 24, 2007 | Filed Under Life, Work | 3 Comments

Alt.Fiction mission control, we may have a problem…

Freaky pointing hand thing by 'CraigPJ' courtesy of sxc.hu Damn, this could be tricky and then some. I've just seen the programme for the Alt.Fiction event in Derby on April 28th. And frankly, it's rather superb...

I mean, just look at that line-up: top-name authors, publishers, editors... panel discussions, workshops, readings, interviews... and all going on at the same frickin' time.

I reckon a certain event organiser - one Mr Alex Davis esq. - has genuinely out-done himself this year. Considering it's a follow-up to last year's hugely impressive event this is some achievement, but it is going to leave me with quite a few 'who to go see?' dilemmas.

Seriously, there's enough in the way of programme items here to last an entire convention weekend, never mind the one day that Alt-Fiction actually occupies. Alex mate, please tell me you're going to be taping the sessions so I can check 'em out after the fact? I hate to think what I might be missing here...

Anyway, if you're not already booked in, sort it out! You'll be kicking yourself afterwards if you miss it (or the quarter of it you'll physically be able to see, anyhow...) Hey, here's a thought: book in with a friend, then you can go to alternate sessions and swap notes. It might be the best way forward.