The Lockdown with... Conrad Williams

Conrad Williams was born in 1969. He is the author of nine novels (HEAD INJURIES, LONDON REVENANT, THE UNBLEMISHED, ONE, DECAY INEVITABLE, LOSS OF SEPARATION, DUST AND DESIRE, SONATA OF THE DEAD and HELL IS EMPTY), four novellas (NEARLY PEOPLE, GAME, THE SCALDING ROOMS and RAIN) and three collections of short stories (USE ONCE THEN DESTROY, BORN WITH TEETH and I WILL SURROUND YOU). He has won two major prizes for his novels. ONE was the winner of the August Derleth award for Best Novel, (British Fantasy Awards 2010), while THE UNBLEMISHED won the International Horror Guild Award for Best Novel in 2007 (he beat the shortlisted Stephen King on both occasions). He won the British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer in 1993. He won another British Fantasy Award, for Best Novella (THE SCALDING ROOMS) in 2008. In 2009 he was Guest of Honour at the World Horror Convention. He edited the anthologies GUTSHOT, which was shortlisted for both the British Fantasy and World Fantasy Awards, and DEAD LETTERS. He is an associate lecturer at Edge Hill University and an external moderator for St Mary’s University. He lives in Manchester, UK, with his wife, three sons and a cheeky Labrador called Coco.

1. Tell us three things about yourself. (If you’ve done this previously, ideally tell us three different things than last time!)

I’m a purple belt at karate, I hold a PhD by publication from Huddersfield University, and I once had a brief discussion with Alan Alda about lifts in a Los Angeles hotel.

2. Many writers have said the COVID-19 outbreak and the lockdown have made it harder for them to create. Have you found this? Has the outbreak affected you as a writer and if so, how?

My parents died within a month of each other at the start of the year (not COVID-19 related), so I’ve been trying to process the fallout from that. It’s causing me more creative and emotional disruption than the coronavirus, to be honest.

3. What was the first thing you had published?

‘Dirty Water’, a short story back in 1988. But I told you that first time around, so I’ll go with my first novel, which was ‘Head Injuries’ in 1998, written on a PC with a 10” screen while living in a B&B in Morecambe during the winter. Over those six months, studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Lancaster University, I won a British Fantasy Award (Best Newcomer), went out with a girl called Amanda who dumped me for a girl called Reg and received a visit from Nicholas Royle, Mark Morris and Joel Lane. I took acid at Christmas, wrote 5000 words in a couple of hours and watched ‘Carnival of Souls’. I woke up to find a Post-it note stuck to the window, a warning I’d written to myself the night before: ‘Conrad, man cannot fly’. Some of my acid experiences found their way into the novel, including tiny babies’ faces screaming behind the skin of my knuckles. It was an interesting six months.

4. Which piece of writing are you proudest of?

I mentioned ‘Loss of Separation’ last time round, so I’ll go with a novella, ‘Rain’, which was a finalist for the British Fantasy Award but was beaten by ‘The Scalding Rooms’, another of my novellas. I still have a feeling the wrong book won.

5. …and which makes you cringe?

The hundreds of poems I wrote between 1985 and 1987. They included ‘Black Butterfly’, which was a paean to the vagina. Jesus Shivering Christ. When we last moved house I burned them in the garden and felt not one iota of regret about it.

6. What’s a normal writing day like?

I don’t have writing days any more. I tend to snatch moments here and there. I miss trips out to the café for an hour to write notes while listening to music.

7. What work of yours would you recommend for people on lockdown and in need of a good book?

I’d love my Joel Sorrell trilogy to get a bit more attention.

8. What are you working on now?

I’ve just finished a ghost story I’ve been tinkering with (slowly) over the past ten years. It was called ‘House of Slow Rooms’ when I mentioned it to you last time. It’s now called ‘One Who Was With Me’ and will be published by Earthling as part of their Halloween series this year. I’m ten thousand words into a fourth Joel Sorrell novel called ‘Catching Up with Dead Men’. And I’m also sketching out a plan for a horror novel called ‘The Backs’, although I’ve been doing that for four years now… I don’t want another decade to go by before I finish this one.

Things of Last Night: The Hell's Ditch Launch

So the paperback launch of Hell's Ditch went off last night at Waterstones Liverpool One, with Ramsey Campbell and Conrad Williams also reading in an effort to make me look good!

I was glad to see a few friends in the audience, including a few I hadn't met in a while, but even better there were a whole bunch of people I hadn't seen before. Always nice when some complete strangers show up!

Conrad read a passage from his latest, Dust And Desire, the first of a series of crime novels featuring his PI Joel Sorrell. I read it when it was first published as Blonde On A Stick; Conrad did a signing for at that very Waterstones store back in 2010, which was where I met a certain Cate Gardner for the very first time...! Anyway, Dust And Desire is out now and well worth your time: it's a very bleak, blackly funny crime novel, strongly influenced by the 'Factory' novels of Derek Raymond.

Ramsey's reading was from his latest novel too, Thirteen Days By Sunset Beach, in which an elderly couple's holiday on a Greek island with their children and grandchildren acquires subtle shades of menace that may be related to ancient legends. It's a powerful and often poignant tale, and - as usual with Ramsey - necessary reading for anyone who appreciates great supernatural fiction.

We had a great turnout - a lively audience who provided a fun Q&A session following the readings - and as the photographic evidence shows, a good number of books were sold. Our friends Priya Sharma and her partner Mark also came along, and joined us for a massive Chinese meal following the event. I somehow managed to get out of the restaurant without having to be pushed in a wheelbarrow...

Big thanks are due to Conrad and Ramsey for their support, to Glyn Morgan and the rest of the Waterstones team for hosting us, and to everyone who came for showing up! And of course, to Cate, not least for the photographs.

Things of the Week 11th March 2016 feat. Hell's Ditch Event at Waterstones Liverpool One

Well, another week, another blogpost.
First and biggest thing of the week, of course, is tonight's event at Waterstones Liverpool One, for which tickets are still available (hard to believe, I know.) I'll by aided and abetted by Conrad Williams and the legendary Ramsey Campbell, who'll both be reading from their latest works.

I've had book launches before, but this is my first in a proper bookshop where I'm 'headlining' - especially with the likes of Ramsey and Conrad on hand. So, maybe just slightly nervous. I'll cope somehow, I'm sure.

We're continuing our Babylon-5 rewatch, and thankfully the quality's improving. I'm not sure if Cate will ever fall in love with it - space-based stuff tends to be a hard sell with her - but I think she's starting to like it a bit more. No two ways about it, sadly - with no disrespect to the late Michael O'Hare - things started getting markedly better once Bruce Boxleitner took over as station commander. There's a lot less padding in series two, and the Shadows are finally moving to centre stage. The CGI, dazzling in 1994, still looks dated and weak now, but special effects are always the first thing to date.

I'm making good headway with the first draft of The Devil's Highway, hitting the halfway point yesterday. Still a long way to go on typing the bloody thing up, though.

Tachyon Press have revealed the cover for Ellen Datlow's Nightmares anthology, due out in

November. As you can see, it features some great artwork by Nihil. Here's that TOC in full:

• Shallaballah by Mark Samuels
• Sob in the Silence by Gene Wolfe
• Our Turn Too Will One Day Come by Brian Hodge
• Dead Sea Fruit by Kaaron Warren
• Closet Dreams by Lisa Tuttle
• Spectral Evidence by Gemma Files
• Hushabye by Simon Bestwick
• Very Low-Flying Aircraft by Nicholas Royle
• The Goosle by Margo Lanagan
• The Clay Party by Steve Duffy
• Strappado by Laird Barron
• Lonegan’s Luck by Stephen Graham Jones
• Mr Pigsny by Reggie Oliver
• At Night, When the Demons Come by Ray Cluley
• Was She Wicked? Was She Good? by M. Rickert
• The Shallows by John Langan
• Little Pig by Anna Taborska
• Omphalos by Livia Llewellyn
• How We Escaped Our Certain Fate by Dan Chaon
• That Tiny Flutter of the Heart I Used to Call Love by Robert Shearman
• Interstate Love Song (Murder Ballad No. 8) by Caitlín R. Kiernan
• Shay Corsham Worsted by Garth Nix
• The Atlas of Hell by Nathan Ballingrud
• Ambitious Boys Like You by Richard Kadrey

That is a stonking lineup, and I'm blown away to be included.

Right. Off to practice tonight's reading...

(Belated) Things Of The Week: 29th February 2016

Things of the Week, as I said a little while back, has started to become almost a regular feature here. Of course, that only works when you actually have stuff to talk about. I've had an incredible start to 2016, in that for the past few weeks there's been a succession of things to report. Naturally, though, that can't happen all the time.


This past week's been fairly quiet, with one exception: the days have been steadily counting down to the paperback release of Hell's Ditch.

My author copies should be here soon (tries not to slaver) and the paperback is officially released tomorrow. Can't wait!

There'll be an online launch party tomorrow (public event, for any who wish to show up) and, of course, the physical launch at Waterstones on March 11th with Ramsey Campbell and Conrad Williams.


In other news, I've finally completed the outline (all nearly 30,000 words of it) for The Devil's Highway and set to work on the novel proper. It's been a little scary, I have to admit. I thought writing the second part of the series would be easier, now that the characters and world of the book are well-established, but now the fears kick in: this won't work as well as the first book, that I won't be able to do as good a job, that it'll be slipshod, sloppy, lazy...

The same as usual, basically.

So the important part is to get the words down. Record it, type it up: once it's there on the page, it's just a matter of fixing it.

I hope so, anyway. There might be a few loose ends and rough edges in the outline, funnily enough, because I was still tinkering and fiddling right up to the last moment until I realised it had become a way of avoiding the real, scary task of writing the book. Or of preparing everything so thoroughly, so well, that there's no chance at all of anything going wrong - which is a guarantee, in writing, that no-one ever gets.

So now the work begins. I'm hoping to have the first draft finished by the end of March. We'll see how I do.

Finally, remember today's the last day for voting in the British Fantasy Awards. Good luck to all concerned, and once again - if you're eligible, please cast a vote. Let's make this is fair and open a contest as it can be.

Have a good week, all of you.

Things of the Week, 15th February 2016

Me, my (remaining) hair and a book.

A belated 'things of the week'...

Various things have taken place. One of them was that my contributor copy of THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF KAIJU arrived. My story 'Now I Am Nothing' shares space with tales by Gary McMahon, Lavie Tidhar, Neal Asher, Jeremiah Tolbert, Natania Barron, James A. Moore, Cody Goodfellow, Tessa Kum, Steve Rasnic Tem and many, many more. There's a lot of names in the TOC I don't recognise, so I look forward to discovering some new writers...

Some contracts were signed. One was for Ellen Datlow's upcoming anthology NIGHTMARES: A NEW DECADE OF MODERN HORROR, out on October 31st from Tachyon Press. It's a follow-up to Ellen's earlier anthology DARKNESS: TWO DECADES OF MODERN HORROR. Here's the full TOC (in order of year from 2005-2015):

Shallaballah by Mark Samuels
Sob in the Silence by Gene Wolfe
Our Turn Too Will One Day Come by Brian Hodge
Dead Sea Fruit by Kaaron Warren
Closet Dreams by Lisa Tuttle
Spectral Evidence by Gemma Files
Hushabye by Simon Bestwick
Very Low-Flying Aircraft by Nicholas Royle
The Goosle by Margo Lanagan
The Clay Party by Steve Duffy
Strappado by Laird Barron
Lonegan’s Luck by Stephen Graham Jones
Mr Pigsny by Reggie Oliver
At Night, When the Demons Come by Ray Cluley
Was She Wicked? Was She Good? by M. Rickert
The Shallows by John Langan
Little Pig by Anna Taborska
Omphalos by Livia Llewellyn
How We Escaped Our Certain Fate by Dan Chaon
That Tiny Flutter of the Heart I Used to Call Love byRobert Shearman
Interstate Love Song (Murder Ballad No. 8) by Caitlín R. Kiernan
Shay Corsham Worsted by Garth Nix
The Atlas of Hell by Nathan Ballingrud
Ambitious Boys Like You by Richard Kadrey

That is some seriously amazing company to find yourself in, some of the finest names in contemporary weird fiction. To say I'm delighted would be a huge understatement.

The other contract was with Pseudopod Magazine, who'll be releasing 'Dermot' and 'The Moraine' on podcast in the near future. More news on that as I have it.

Me, my hair and another book.

In other news, the paperback of HELL'S DITCH is out on March 1st from Snowbooks, which I'm
delighted about. Can't wait to lay hands on it.

As I may have mentioned, there'll be an event at Waterstones Liverpool One to promote it at 6.30 pm on 11th March. Further details now available: I'm going to be in the company of Ramsey Campbell and Conrad Williams, which should make for a fun evening. If you'd like to come, you can book your ticket here.

That aside, the last week or two has been spent gearing up to write THE DEVIL'S HIGHWAY, the follow-up to HELL'S DITCH. I say 'gearing up' because my outlines for novels tend to be ever-longer and more detailed, the better to get the first draft closest to the finished work. They're practically first drafts in themselves these days: the outline for THE DEVIL'S HIGHWAY is nearly 30,000 words.

But I'm having to step briefly back from it now because my agent's emailed me with the second round of edits on my crime novel. The first round arrived at Christmas and kept me out of mischief for a good couple of weeks. The second round isn't as big a deal - touch wood, most of the issues that needed fixing are now fixed - and I'm hoping to have finished up on them by the end of the week.

It's also worth noting that Tom's email contained what has to be my favourite editorial note ever: 'Malnutritioned singing children are better than crucified eviscerated ones.' 

Indeed.

So, I've got a lot to keep me occupied - along with another project I've been mulling over for a while. I'm planning on setting up a Patreon account; those who sponsor it will be supporting the creation of a new serial novel. I enjoyed writing BLACK MOUNTAIN and it would be fun to revisit the form - plus, it would help forestall having to get a day job. More news as it's made - assuming anyone's interested in the project, of course!

Have a grand week, folks. See you on the other side!

The Lowdown with...Conrad Williams

This week's victim - sorry, interviewee - is Conrad Williams.

Conrad Williams was born in 1969. He is the author of seven novels (HEAD INJURIES, LONDON REVENANT, THE UNBLEMISHED, ONE, DECAY INEVITABLE, BLONDE ON A STICK and LOSS OF SEPARATION), four novellas (NEARLY PEOPLE, GAME, THE SCALDING ROOMS and RAIN) and two collections of short stories (USE ONCE THEN DESTROY and BORN WITH TEETH). He has won two major prizes for his novels. ONE was the winner of the August Derleth award for Best Novel, (British Fantasy Awards 2010), while THE UNBLEMISHED won the International Horror Guild Award for Best Novel in 2007 (he beat the shortlisted Stephen King on both occasions). He won the British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer in 1993. He won another British Fantasy Award, for Best Novella (THE SCALDING ROOMS) in 2008. In 2009 he was Guest of Honour at the World Horror Convention. He edited the anthology GUTSHOT, which was shortlisted for both the British Fantasy and World Fantasy Awards. He is an associate lecturer at Edge Hill University. He lives in Manchester, UK, with his wife, three sons and a monster Maine Coon.

1.      Tell us three things about yourself.

I’m a green belt in karate. I excelled at the high jump at school. I like to send people handwritten letters.

2.      What was the first thing you had published?

A short story called ‘Dirty Water’ in Dark Dreams 6 when I was 18. Also making his print debut in that same issue was Mark Morris.

3.      Which piece of writing are you proudest of?

'Loss of Separation'. 

4.      …and which makes you cringe?

There were some short stories that appeared in the early '90s that should have stayed in the drawer.

5.      What’s a normal writing day like?

Coffee. Kids. Cat. Coffee. Cat. Messing with fountain pens. Playing guitar. Coffee. Writing. Cat.

Kids.

6.      Which piece of writing should someone who’s never read you before pick up first?

‘One' would be a pretty good place to start, I reckon.

7.      What are you working on now?

I’m writing the final few chapters of a new Joel Sorrell novel, SONATA OF THE DEAD. I’m also still fiddling with a novel about a ghost in France called HOUSE OF SLOW ROOMS. And then I have to get cracking on Joel Sorrell 3, HELL IS EMPTY. 


Conrad's Website
Conrad on Twitter

British Fantasy Awards Shortlist

Well, the BFS has published its Shortlist for the 2012 British Fantasy Awards, and I'm delighted to say that my short story, 'Dermot', originally published in Black Static #24 (and now reprinted in Ellen Datlow's The Best Horror of the Year #4,) has been shortlisted in the Best Short Fiction category, alongside work by some very fine fellow writers.

In addition, Conrad Williams' excellent Weird Western antho Gutshot (which features my tale 'Kiss The Wolf') has been shortlisted in Best Anthology.

The short fiction shortlist in full:

Dermot; Simon Bestwick (Black Static)
Sad, Dark Thing; Michael Marshall Smith (A Book of Horrors, Jo Fletcher Books)
Florrie; Adam Nevill (House of Fear, Solaris Books)
The Coffin-Maker’s Daughter; Angela Slatter (A Book of Horrors, Jo Fletcher Books)
King Death; Paul Finch (Spectral Press)

In other news: I've finished the first draft of Hell's Ditch.

And now I'm off to bed.  See you in the morning.

Shot Guts, Getting Stoked and Missing Faces

So, last night I was in Liverpool, for another of their Waterstones' Twisted Tales events, this time promoting Conrad Williams' rather excellent anthology Gutshot.

All great fun, not least because I got a chance to hook up with some good friends. First off was Gary McMahon, on his first trip to Liverpool; we repaired to the Caffe Nero opposite the bookshop, where we met Joel Lane and, of course, the Awesomeness that is The Ever-Reigning Cate. Then the event itself, with readings by Joel, Gary and the very nice and very funny Amanda Hemingway. Following which I was invited to join the panel for a Q&A session. I babbled. A lot. Sorry, everyone else.

Very nice Lebanese meal (yum!) with Ramsey and Jenny Campbell among others, before me and Gary ran for the taxi (well, Gary ran- I had to be pushed in a wheelbarrow) to catch the train home.

All in all, a great evening.

On the 'other nice things' front, I've had a couple of recommendations for the HWA Stoker Awards- my stories 'Dermot' from Black Static #25 and 'The Moraine' from Paul Finch's editing debut Terror Tales Of The Lake District have each received one. Of course this doesn't mean they'll make the shortlist- the list of recommendations is very long- but it's still nice.

And finally, following on from Mark West's great teaser trailer, the lovely Anna Taborska has put up the book trailer for The Faceless. I think it's a stunning piece of work and am really chuffed about it, to say the least. So here it is...

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Fantasycon 2011: Brighton Rocked

Be warned: this will be a huge blog post. Once I started, I honestly didn't know where to stop... So ensure you have a stiff one to hand (or even a drink.)

I’ll be totally honest here; when I first heard the 2011 Fantasycon was happening in Brighton, I was not a happy bunny. It was fun for World Horror, but that was a big international event. Say what you like about the Britannia Hotel in Nottingham (and many have), at least it was central. Brighton is a looooooooooong way to go if you’re a Manc. Even when Sarah Pinborough pointed out that publishers and agents wouldn’t make the trek to Nottingham, but would to Brighton, I wasn’t convinced.

So, was my mind changed?

Read on…

It went something like this:

Thursday 29th September. The Con doesn’t start till tomorrow, but see that thing above about it being a looooooooooong way to go. So- the epic journey commences- Swinton to Manchester by bus, Manchester to London Euston by train, Euston to Victoria by Tube and finally a train to Victoria to Brighton. After a brief spell of giddiness at the sheer frenetic vastness that is the capitol, it was pretty plain sailing. Arrive at Brighton, decide to walk from the train station to the hotel. A cab would be a silly extravagance, after all.

Did I mention that the Con managed to coincide with a fairly sizzling mini-heatwave? Well, I have now. Am also humping a well-stuffed backpack and a shoulderbag. And am wearing dark clothes. Feel free to quote the words ‘Serious Tactical Error’ at any time, people…

Arrive (approximately one stone lighter and quite possibly in the early stages of dehydration) at the Strawberry Fields guesthouse, a nice and highly-recommended little place if you’re ever visiting Brighton. Not only do they do breakfast in your room, but they have these seriously cute pillows:

Yes, I was tempted to nick one. No, I didn’t. Yes, Evil Me wishes I had.

Anyway! On to the Royal Albion Hotel, home of the Con. Boozing follows with the likes of Gary McMahon, Rio Youers, Mark Morris, Steve Jones, Mandy Slater and Sarah Pinborough. (Bit dizzying to find myself in such exalted company. :D ) Everyone else goes to freshen up. Potter round and end up helping the host of organisers fill up the last few goody bags. A drink or two with TTA Press’s Roy Gray, plus Paul and Audrey Campbell. Then further boozing- alcohol blurs the recollection here, but I get to meet Sandra Norval, who’s on her first Con. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s lucky- this will be one to remember.

Anyway, a good time is had by all. And so to bed.

Five hours’ sleep.

Friday 30th September
Up bright and early. Breakfast in bed arrives at 8.00 am. Virtuously decide on a brisk hour-long walk- sweat those toxins out! Better still- a walk on the beach! Why not?

Well, as I discover the beach a) appears to have been built on a 45 degree slope and b) is made entirely of loose pebbles which swallow the unwary walker’s feet up to the ankles. Bollocks to that. Scramble back to terra firma. It ends up being a half-hour walk, but ah well. At least some exercise was taken.

Head to the Albion feeling virtuous. Nose around the dealer’s room in the basement although it’s not officially open yet. Am lassooed by Pete Crowther, proprietor of PS Publishing, and given a stack of cover-sheets to sign for the limited edition of Gutshot. Scribble industriously. Escape to the ground floor and find my way to the first panel on ‘Small Press Publishing’. Had planned to stay for the next two- ‘Maintaining Your Web Presence’, chaired by the lovely Adele Wearing, and one on ‘Making A Living As A Writer’- but have almost been boiled to death by the end of the first panel. Apologise to Adele with much batting of eyelashes and seek out something cold and wet. Catch up, among others, with the equally lovely Anna Taborska, writer and film-maker (and maker of the forthcoming book-trailer for The Faceless.)

Later: attend Rio Youers’ reading and finally get to hear some of the boy’s prose. Oh, he’s good, folks; he’s very very good. Read him! Then on to the PS launch, which includes Gutshot. Sit between Pete Atkins and Conrad Williams sweating like Gary Glitter on a schoolbus and quenching a burning thirst with glasses of white wine. Am vaguely aware this may not be a good idea. Am pathetically grateful when a carafe of water appears. Find myself giving Graham Joyce an autograph. Dazedly think that this should be the other way round. Join Mark West, post-signing, in singing the praises of Graham’s novel The Silent Land. (Which is, like pretty much everything Graham Joyce writes, exceptionally good.) Graham takes the praise with his customary grace and good humour.

Curry with Sandra Norval, Jonathan Green and another chap whose name I shamefully can’t remember.

Back upstairs to the reading room for a succession of readings: Simon Kurt Unsworth, Gary McMahon, Joel Lane and (Lord) John Llewellyn Probert. In temperatures approaching that of the sunward side of Mercury. Morituri te salutant.

Somehow survive. To the bar. Further debauchery, the memory of which is mercifully blurred.

Four hours’ sleep.

Saturday 1st October
White rabbits!

No walk today. My morning exercise consists of intensive groaning and high-speed coffee consumption. Totter to hotel later than intended but sadly miss Reggie Oliver’s reading. Potter round the dealer’s room and am surprised to find I seem to own some new books by the end of it. However did that happen?

Solaris are giving away free books! But before I can join the queue, I bump into the ebullient (and insanely tall) Gardner Goldsmith, singing the praises of ‘Dermot’ in Black Static 24. By the time I remember the Solaris book giveaway, there’s almost nothing left. An object lesson on the price of vanity…

Shortly thereafter sleep deprivation starts to take its toll. Veg out on the sofa, much to the amusement of Gary Cole-Wilkin, John Travis and Soozy Marjoram, who swiftly immortalises the event on camera and posts it on Facebook.

Back to the hotel for a couple of hours’ unconsciousness. Rise and walk, feeling hungry. However, back at the Albion, nearly everyone I know has already decamped in search of an eatery.

Wander the streets of Brighton in search of a Chinese restaurant, or maybe that nice Indonesian restaurant we went to at World Horror last year… after half an hour, on the brink of giving up and heading or Harry Ramsden’s I find myself outside the Indonesian place. (It’s called Warung Tujuh, if you’re ever in Brighton.) Which goes to show something or other, I’m not sure what…

Back to the hotel to read from The Faceless and Angels of the Silences. Pretty good turnout considering it’s 9.30 pm. on a Saturday.

Then on to the Regency Lounge to witness Lord and Lady Probert’s ‘Teatro Proberto’ presenting Blood On Satan’s Claw- The Panto, followed by a reprise of their 20-minute version of the Peter Cushing classic(?!) Corruption.

Then follows the burlesque. Attractive young lady with not much on alternately conceals and reveals her curves with a big black pair of feathery things (my descriptive powers are getting taxed here.) Not sure how well it fits in with the Con as a whole, but hey. Then a fairly terrifying male performer appears in an act that culminates in him disembowelling and eating a (toy) rabbit (with very realistic internal organs) onstage. And garlanding himself with rabbit innards. Before collapsing, apparently dead, and being dragged off to the strains of Bright Eyes by Art Garfunkel. (Another childhood memory desecrated.) The crazy train leaves from ‘O….K,’ passes through ‘What the…’ and ends its journey at ‘Sod this for a game of conkers, I’ll be in the bar.’

It takes a couple of stiff drinks and a pint or two of Diet Coke with Sandra N. to get over that one. As a result I miss the panel on 'How To Scare Your Readers' (a description of that bloody burlesque would’ve done it.) Get up to go to Ramsey Campbell’s midnight reading, then discover the chap I’m squeezing past is Stephen Gallagher. Who’s actually heard of me. Chit-chat follows. Midnight reading also missed. Bugger.

Ah well- on to the disco!

This is a new development, but one of the highlights of the convention. FCon’s excellent Mistress of Ceremonies, Sarah ‘Potty Mouth’ Pinborough, intros our DJs, Rio Youers and Guy Adams, and the games begin. It’s actually enormous fun; only sorry not to have caught Year’s Best Horror editor Steve Jones getting down on the dancefloor, or Gary McMahon’s rendition of the funky chicken, on camera, but here’s Joel Lane boogying away with Lord and Lady Probert. This may be the first time I’ve seen Lord P with his tie loosened…




The disco ends amid much cheering and rejoicing. Sarah reminds the congregation that ‘What happens at the Fantasycon disco… stays on the Fantasycon disco.’ Surely she means ‘…ends up all over Facebook come Sunday afternoon’?

Three and a half hours sleep.

Sunday 2nd October
Awake, pack, head back to the Albion for the last time, this time early enough to catch the day’s first reading, from the lovely Ali Littlewood. Interviewed by Gardner Goldsmith for his podcast- Lord alone knows what they’ll make of that across the Pond. A last raid on the dealer’s room. The rest is hugs and goodbyes.

The odyssey back to the rainy North begins. A cab to the station this time; not making the same mistake twice. Sit next to a pleasant Norwegian student on the train home and the weekend gets rounded off with a chat about the brilliant Norwegian horror film Cold Prey.

All in all, it is, truly, the best Fantasycon I’ve been to, ever. Full stop. However…

I left before the British Fantasy Awards were presented. There’s already been a lot said about it and I wasn’t there, so I’ll direct interested parties to Steve Jones’ comment on the whole business here. There are questions to answer and be addressed.

I’ll put my hands in the air and freely admit I was utterly, utterly wrong about the location for this year’s Con. It played a big part in its record turnout of over five hundred people, plus representation from the big publishers, which I haven’t seen at FCon in a while. We need more conventions like this year’s.

I’ve heard that some have said the Awards debacle soured the whole Con for them. I really hope that’s not true. It was a truly brilliant weekend on so many levels.

I’d love to list all the ace and funky people I met for the first time or got to catch up with, but I’d end up missing someone out. You all know who you are.

Finally, a big shout-out to those brave, busy, red-shirted folks who helped organise everything and ran about making everything else happen on the ground: Marie O’Regan, Paul Kane, Martin Roberts, Helen Hopley, Jenny Barber, Pixie Pants and anyone else I’ve left out.