Posted by

7 comments

Saturday was jampacked! After breakfast in the hotel with Terri, Tansy and Finchy and Jonathan and guest appearance Kelly Link and where we invented the drink The Hypocrite, we hightailed it to the panel Masters of Podcasting. It was the only panel I did all weekend and it was such a pleasure – Terry Frost for PaleoCinema, myself for Galactic Suburbia, Jonathan Strahan for Coode St and Kirstyn McDermott for Writer and the Critic who moderated. We had a smallish room and almost all the audience were podcasters too, though I think we had some more nonpodcasters fill the audience after we took the poll. The panel turned into a really relaxed podcasting community discussion where we just kinda shot the breeze and bonded as podcasters and podcast listeners. It was really cool.

I then scooted on to the TPP A Stitch in Time pattern beta testing workshop in the bar. I was sure that noone would turn up. Tansy said she’d come and sew with me as company and then someone wielding a crochet hook accosted me in the hall so we headed over to the bar. I pulled out the pattern we had to test – a little stuffed Roswell grey – and crochet hooks and yarn and everyone dived in. We had I guess 4 or 5 of us trying the pattern and a couple of others who sat with us and did other crafts. And I have to tell you, I had the best time. I was so happy to be crafting in a group with some fellow geeks. There were others who did an awesome job interpreting some of the instructions, working through the pattern and then helping and explaining to others. It was such a fun hour. And I spent it thinking how awesome fandom is. (Photo from Cat Sparks)

There should be more crafting circles at cons. Actually something I really loved was the scattered boxes of craft throughout the con – you were encouraged to pick up works in progress and work on them and if I’d had time I would have. I wonder if that could be something we could carry on through – even something like working on blankets or scarves over the course of a con and then donate the finished ones to a hospital or somewhere?

A photo of how far we managed to get in the hour (photo of our crochet thanks to Tansy and Finchy). But I saw Jo’s later on in the con and she’d managed to make it past the head and body and onto the legs!

I headed off to lunch, which is where I was when Tansy rang me to tell me about the catastrophe that was the printing of Through Splintered Walls. It was at this point that we discovered that there had been a terrible printing error in the book and would need to stop selling it and try and recall all those sold. (If you’re reading this and didn’t know, please contact me to organise an exchange or replacement. The printer is currently reprinting the entire print run and I expect to have those by early next week.)

I then returned just in time for the Galactic Suburbia live recording panel. It’s still weird recording in front of an audience and also where we can actually look at each other whilst we talk. I figured that it wouldn’t be rude to craft on the Galactic Suburbia panel since I do normally do so when recording. Apparently, I’m told, you can tell? Anyway, I was balling up a skein of sock yarn from Blue Moon Fibre Arts during the podcast. This is a photo of the sock I started during the con after balling the yarn and where it got to by the time we landed back in Perth yesterday. I’m just turning the heel.

After the podcast, we headed back to the dealers room and prepped for the Embiggen Books Event. I was very excited about this and not just because I might have been really wanting to find a way to visit this store this time in Melbourne and bring everyone I knew who loved bookstores with me. It’s a truly gorgeous specialist store that’s really really supportive of small press and generally funky and interesting books. We all traipsed down Swanston Street to set up at 4pmish for a 5pm start. The Writer and the Critic were so generous to host, record and produce the podcast. Yes I’ve been dying to be on their podcast for ages! And it was so awesome to watch Kirstyn do her audio technical stuff. Very cool.

First some shots of the bookstore:

Mondy graciously hosted the podcast and interviewed 9 of the Twelve Planets authors and myself. Ian did what he really has a great skill in doing – he asked the exact right questions in the right way, with lots of humour, such that everyone opened up and really said such interesting things. I sat that there listening to everyone talk about their individual collections, their approach to the project and their own style and approach to writing and I realised just how great the sum of these parts this project will be. And what a vibrant, creative and thoughtful group of writers I have been lucky enough to collect. I’m so looking forward to hearing the podcast. And discussing it with others.

Here’s a few action shots from Finchy and Jason Nahrung.

And Jason has a few more shots of the event over on his Flickr stream.  A big thank you to Warren at Embiggen Books for letting us take over his store at 5pm on a Saturday evening. And also thank you to those who helped carry books and food and wine down and to those who came down to watch. Especially those who came down just for the event outside of the con. And also thank you to the TPP authors who came in great spirits and enthusiasm.

After the event we all headed over to a cool little place near the Wheeler Centre for drinks. Check out the beer in beakers!



Tags: , , , , , ,