I see that the web site for the 2010 Imaginales is now live. The guest list includes Joe Abercrombie, Jacqueline Carey, Kirstin Cashore, Greg Keyes, Elisabeth Vonarburg and Robert Charles Wilson, as well as all of the regular French authors. So, anyone up for a fun weekend in France?
My video diary from Imaginales 2009 is now available here. Hopefully this gives you a much better feel for the convention that just a dry report and static photos.
I should start off this diary by apologizing for mis-pronouncing the name of the convention in the first few videos. As some of you may have seen me note from France, I think I’ve picked up Spanish-language habits from California. For non-French-speakers, the ‘s’ on the end of Imaginales is silent. The first video is […]
Thanks to a comment on David Anthony Durham’s con report, I have found some more photos from Imaginales. These are by a professional photographer and are therefore much better than mine. There are two sets, one mainly of the costumed persons, and one of the body painting. See, I wasn’t fibbing about the nakedness.
Progress. I now have text as well as photos. You can read the con report here. Hopefully the video will all be done before I head off for the southern hemisphere.
Well, that was my first convention in France, and I have to pronounce it a great success. Where to start? Probably on the Eurostar. Mostly when I go to conventions I fly. In the USA it is often the only sensible way to get from one city to another. But Europe has trains, which are […]
First up I have discovered to my embarrassment that I have been mis-pronouncing the name of the convention for ages. The final ‘s’ of Imaginales is silent. I have been spending too much time with Latino people, I think, and my mind processes foreign languages as if they are Spanish. Today has been amazing. Around […]
Hello everyone. I am writing this from the Internet lounge at the convention, which is an interesting experience as the French keyboard layout is subtly different to the UK/US one. My laptop is back at the hotel and it is raining heavily. I don’t want to get my fur wet. If you have seen the […]
I have my train tickets (except the ones you have to get from a TGV ticket machine in Paris), I have my hotel reservation (I’m in the Ibis – many thanks to Jean-Louis Trudel for the help), I’m all ready to go. There will be a con report, and I’m told that Epinal is a […]
As I obviously need to know more about French language science fiction before August, and I can’t go to cons in the US at the moment, I was thinking I might head out to Epinal in May to attend Imaginales. It is quite easy to get to by train (and I can make Kevin happy […]
There has been some discussion on Twitter today about potential future Worldcon sites. Washington DC has been awarded the 2021 convention. It is probably too late to do anything about 2022, for which Chicago is unopposed. That leaves us with 2023 as the next possible non-US Worldcon. Prior to Dublin the extant bids for 2023 […]
A couple of days ago I wrote about the French convention, Imaginales, run by my friend Stéphanie Nicot. Now I am even more annoyed that I could not go this year, because I learned from Rose Fox on Twitter that Stéphanie has just got married. What’s more Rose saw the story in Le Figaro! Why […]
Had I not run into some fairly severe financial problems, I would have spent last weekend in France. As it turned out, I had a lovely time in Oxford instead, but my Melbourne friend Trudi Canavan did make it to Epinal (she’s on a book tour) and she has posted some lovely pictures of the […]
It is convention time again. Tomorrow I will be in Oxford for the The Write Fantastic’s annual get-together. There is a fabulous line-up of guests including Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Pat Cadigan, Mary Hoffman, Stan Nicholls, Anne Gay, Ben Jeapes, Mike Shevdon, Ian Watson, Sarah Ash, Juliet E Mckenna, Kari Sperring, Freda Warrington, Liz Williams and […]
With SMOFcon over, that’s the 2010 convention season wrapped up. It is time to look forward to 2011. This year’s con-going was thoroughly messed up by the US immigration issues and the hotel problems in Epinal. Hopefully I’ll have more luck next year. Here’s the preliminary schedule: February 26th: Cardiff International Comics Expo, Cardiff March […]
Alt.Fiction is a rather different sort of convention. Indeed, a lot of fans would not recognize it as a convention at all, because it isn’t run by a fannish group, but by an arts organization. And, like Imaginales, it is funded in part by the local council. The current parent organization is Writing East Midlands, […]
As people have been asking, here’s what’s coming up in the next couple of months. This Saturday I will be in Oxford for the Write Fantastic 5th Anniversary Convention. Juliet McKenna has a great collection of writers lined up. Hopefully I’ll see some of you there. I doubt that I’ll make the first panel (sorry […]
Well, that’s annoying. I was planning to attend Gaylaxicon in Montréal this year, but now I can’t, because it has been canceled. Obviously I won’t be able to go next year, because the convention is in the USA. Rats! It also looks like my attendance at Imaginales is in doubt. There’s another event in the […]
If I’m going to do the seasonal posts thing I might as well go the whole hog and try to look forward to 2010. Right now I do not have any sekrit projekts, which is probably just as well after last year. A little consolidation is probably required. My main priority for the year will […]
I don’t normally go for “end of year” posts, let alone “end of decade”, but thinking back over 2009 I have realized that it was fairly interesting in many ways and therefore probably deserves a retrospective. The year began in a very worrying way with a real possibility that I might never be allowed back […]