Liz Williams's Blog, page 25

OBL

Somewhat cynical about this whole affair, although I am not usually a conspiracy theorist. But we will probably never know exactly what happened throughout the last decade. I hope Bin Laden is dead, although the public scenes of rejoicing are probably a bad move as regards the moral high ground (understandable, however). I am, I fear, a somewhat bloodthirsty person, as there are many individuals in this world in whose demise I would frankly rejoice and it's only the thought of a decent CSI unit which stops me from giving some of them a helping shove into the abyss.

Anyway. I would have preferred to have seen BL tried, as the potential for martyrdom is thereby somewhat reduced. I would like to hope that this episode has given the West pause for thought about exactly which monsters it chooses to support, but no one is naive enough to think that this will happen.

Eastercon and beyond

We are back from Eastercon and the Clarke Awards. It has been an exceptionally busy week. We had a good convention, mainly due to seeing a lot of good folk and the fact that we stayed with my cousin, rather than the hotel (which was simply unaffordable). Most of the complaints regarding the convention have been to do with the prices at the Hilton - they did put on a con rate, which was OK, but I did not regard food prices in the hotel as acceptable and thus we ate outside (in Henley in Arden, which is lovely, or the pub in my cousin's village, ditto).

Warwickshire and Gloucestershire were glorious, although we were a bit disconcerted by the ongoing riots in Bristol. These erupted at the weekend, when the cops raided a squat known in magnificently post-modern fashion as Telepathic Heights, in Stokes Croft. I've been unable to get a grip on this from the media and am indebted to steepholm for some far more balanced and nuanced reporting.

We then went up to London on Wednesday for the Clarke Awards - these went well and as you presumably know, Lauren Beukes won for Zoo City. I have found the judging to be a very pleasant and amicable experience and look forward to repeating it after my gap year for 2013. Great to see everyone and many thanks to purplecthulhu for hosting us at Cthulhu Towers - thanks, too, to A and H for introducing us to the delightful Little Georgia restaurant. I like Hackney and we also went to the Dove, which is one of my favourite London pubs. We wandered around Whitechapel market y'day buying unusual vegetables and drove home through an increasingly busy London.

I have seen some of the wedding - generally I liked it, though not an enormous fan of the monarchy or of weddings. But I do like the clothes and the jewellery, and Britain does put on a good pageant when it puts its mind to it, which bodes well for the Olympics. Kate M's dress was lovely, the Westminster trees looked great and there are some rather odd druidic resonances throughout the whole thing.

MILFORD INVITE 2011

Yes, it's that time of year again! If you'd like to come to Milford, or need more information, email me at mevennen(at)hotmail.com

You need to have had one professionally published piece (SFWA definition of 'pro'), but that is the only entrance requirement.

MILFORD 2011



Dear Writer,






If you've attended a previous British Milford, you will know more or less what to expect and can go straight to the booking form. If not, then a brief introduction may be in order. Milford is a gathering of professional authors, loosely linked by science fiction or fantasy writing. It is not a school for beginners, and there are no 'teachers' or 'students.' However, neither is it an elitist in-group: we welcome new participants, and invitations are extended to authors who have only sold the minimum requirement of 1 published piece as well as those among us who only dimly recall what rejection slips look like (HAH! – ed). Writers who have not attended a previous Milford are particularly welcome.



The conference has been a regular, more or less annual event since 1972, drawing members from Britain, Europe, America and Australia. Over the years it has settled down to a comfortable workable format: demanding and exhausting, with much hard work being done, but it's also convivial, with a lot of sitting in the bar and talking about doing hard work. It's thus a social as well as a literary event.



Here's a brief generalised programme of the week:



* Saturday: turn up late afternoon, bringing manuscripts for discussion during the week. There's no programme, but around mid-evening we convene and get to know one another over a meal.

* Sunday to Thursday: the main working days. Morning is the time to read manuscripts and prepare notes. Afternoons are workshop sessions, at which the day's quota of material is discussed as forthrightly and constructively as possible, with fairly strict time limits to encourage brevity and allow even the shyest member's voice to be heard. Evenings are for more relaxed conversation and discussion, punctuated by occasional silly literary games.

* Friday: depending on the workload, this can be the time for a further workshop, a semi-formal discussion, exploring the vicinity of the centre, or just resting. In the evening we unwind with a special dinner.



The centre



Trigonos is situated on the shores of Lake Nantlle in Snowdonia, among the mountains of the Snowdonia National Park. It is about 10 miles from Caernarvon, which is accessible from Bangor railway station by a frequent bus service. Full travel details will be sent to participants. The centre is comprised of an old Victorian house and converted barns, and has a committed approach to sustainable land development and environmental restoration.



The centre runs many courses and workshops, and there may be smaller other groups during the time that we will be there. It is full board (breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks) and caters to both vegetarians and non-vegetarians, and can cater for vegan guests also. The centre grows much of its own organic produce.

Eastercon - Good Friday

Very smooth trip so far. We came up yesterday, had lunch in a nice pub outside Worcester, then drove straight into the NEC, parked without incident, unloaded, and were set up in the Dealer's Room by 4. Spent the rest of the afternoon in the countryside around Stratford, which is glorious at this time of year, then went into Henley-in-Arden for dinner. We found a nice gastro pub which is selling my cousin's beer, so yay for Purity (http://www.puritybrewing.com/), then returned to my cousin, who lives nearby. Little traffic on the motorway this morning, so here we are, back in the Hilton and gradually catching up with everyone who is filtering in.

Eastercon

Heading up to Birmingham now, leaving the home team with the house and dogs. We'll see some of you there!

I am conscious that a couple of people have not yet had their sale items - I am on the case and your various items will be with you next week.Thank you for your patience!

Conferences

This weekend has been conference-tastic, with the symposium on Friday that we have been organising for the last 6 months or so, and the Pagan Federation Conference yesterday.

The symposium came about because of the increasing numbers of academics (sociologists, anthropologists, historians) who have been coming to Glastonbury, and sending students on theology courses. It is a diverse community, which, despite our difficulties, possesses a remarkable degree of coherence and tolerance. The place is increasingly becoming an object of study, and the symposium was set up to explore the various ways in which we, as a community, might support future research. Speakers were Ronald Hutton, Marion Bowman (OU), Miguel Farias (Oxford) and Sarah Goldingay (Exeter), Denise Cush (BSU) and John Wadsworth, who is one of the local writers. Mainly academics, but some local writers, attended and it generally seems to have gone very well: it was extremely diverse, with witches and priests (all of whom went down the pub later).

The PF conference was, as usual, well-organised and interesting. Speakers included Trevor and myself (with some of the outcomes of the Symposium), Penny Billington, Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone, plus talks on mummers and guisers and a man named Simon Costin, who is trying to set up a Museum of British Folklore, which you can find out about here:

http://www.museumofbritishfolklore.com/

He's just been involved in a Vogue shoot, as apparently their July issue is on the theme of folklore, and model Erin O'Connor has been involved in the museum's launch. I think this is a great project, and the more publicity that Simon gets, the better.

Currently, Janet and Gavin are running a workshop up at the Grail Centre now, while Trevor and myself try to catch our breath. And then it's Eastercon....!

I am of the Cat Nation

A woman went into the Benedict St shop lst week and made overtures to Phineas, J and J's strange small cat. Phineas bolted under a table, as usual, and the woman announced that she 'was of the cat nation,' whatever that means, and had an 'affinity' with nature's felines. Phineas did eventually come out again, and to everyone's secret delight, bit her.

Weekend

T's graduation ceremony took place in Torquay yesterday (no Fawlty Towers jokes, please!) and it all went very smoothly, from arriving in Torquay to discover that £7+ of car parking had been commuted to £1 for the entire weekend, as a result of a special offer, to the pub at the end of the road that did quick lunches, to the ceremony itself. T has now been duly beaned, suffered a free glass of champagne, and then we hightailed it to Dartmouth, the car ferry, and subsequently the Cherub pub, which dates from 1380 and is small, low-ceilinged, friendly and bears a remarkably good selection of single malts.

We drove back to dinner at home and, after feeding someone else's cats, had been intending to head out again, when I was hit by some kind of massive hay-fever plus temperature kind of thing, which has left me feeling somewhat rough today. I am, however, at work: you can tell summer is coming, as horses (of the rough-coated traveller-owned variety) are once more charging up and down the High St. Eventually, there will be a ghastly accident, since half of them are ridden by kids with no hats, usually preoccupied with a mobile phone.

That's more or less all I have to say....

У меня нет проблем с Живого журнала.

The week

A busy one, with a lot of running around. I have a teaching stint in Exeter every week, teaching EFL to a French rugby player, and am enjoying the run down the motorway through the Devon landscape. Next week begins an intensive session of exam revision with a Chinese student. Plus, obviously, there is the shop, and other commitments, a conference I'm organising in Glastonbury next week, and then Eastercon, so it's going to be a fairly full-on month.

For the time being, however, we have a roast in the oven, asparagus on the stove and a selection of dogs and cats sprawled around the place. We went for a walk this morning on the bird reserve - nesting swans, and a toad whom T had to rescue from the main pathway. Spring is really doing Stuff right now - lots of willow out already, plus birch and beech starting to bud. The big horse chestnut tree in our drive is following suit.