Eastercon 2009
This past weekend I attended the 60th Eastercon. Or maybe it was the 61st. There's an ongoing argument about this.
Anyway, Eastercon is a large science fiction convention with a literary (as opposed to TV or film) slant. It's held -- wait for it -- every Easter. This year's event was in Bradford, and my husband and I drove up in our VW camper van. The idea was to stay at a nearby campsite to save money, but there was a bit of a SNAFU with the campsite. Their web site said they had toilets and showers, when in fact all the place was, was a little field and a hosepipe. Not seeing any reason to pay for parking in a little field with a hosepipe, we bade the campsite goodbye and wound up camping in the convention hotel's car park. This arrangement, while somewhat lacking in scenery, turned out to be surprisingly comfortable -- as well as free. The only real down side was the lack of showers. Washing in the van's sink just wasn't a proper substitute.
Now, I think the camping in a car park anecdote is fairly amusing, but my main reason for blogging about the convention is this: the event boasted more published authors than you could shake a stick at, both as guests of honour and ordinary participants. There were also quite a few publishing types floating around. If you have aspirations in the science fiction novel department (1), you could do a lot worse than turning up next year and doing the networking thing.
(1) I have no ambitions in the science fiction novel department because I can't write prose. I wish I could, but I also wish I could sing the Queen of the Night at the Royal Opera and I don't think wishing is going to make that happen either.
Anyway, Eastercon is a large science fiction convention with a literary (as opposed to TV or film) slant. It's held -- wait for it -- every Easter. This year's event was in Bradford, and my husband and I drove up in our VW camper van. The idea was to stay at a nearby campsite to save money, but there was a bit of a SNAFU with the campsite. Their web site said they had toilets and showers, when in fact all the place was, was a little field and a hosepipe. Not seeing any reason to pay for parking in a little field with a hosepipe, we bade the campsite goodbye and wound up camping in the convention hotel's car park. This arrangement, while somewhat lacking in scenery, turned out to be surprisingly comfortable -- as well as free. The only real down side was the lack of showers. Washing in the van's sink just wasn't a proper substitute.
Now, I think the camping in a car park anecdote is fairly amusing, but my main reason for blogging about the convention is this: the event boasted more published authors than you could shake a stick at, both as guests of honour and ordinary participants. There were also quite a few publishing types floating around. If you have aspirations in the science fiction novel department (1), you could do a lot worse than turning up next year and doing the networking thing.
(1) I have no ambitions in the science fiction novel department because I can't write prose. I wish I could, but I also wish I could sing the Queen of the Night at the Royal Opera and I don't think wishing is going to make that happen either.
posted by Christine at 10:21 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home