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Lurking Musings

~ Musings of a newly published writer

Lurking Musings

Tag Archives: Alex Campbell

Five get literary in Sandbach

16 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by D.A Lascelles in events

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Alex Campbell, Alex James, Batman, Catherine Green, Dianna Hardy, Elizabeth Morgan, Gods of the Deep, Lucy Felthouse, Miriam Khan, Ninfa Hayes, R.A Smith, Sandbach author signing event, Sandbach Town Hall, The Lambton Worm


So, last weekend I was at the Sandbach Author Signing event (SASE). I may have mentioned this event a few times over the last few months, most recently here, because I was incredibly excited by it. Turns out I was excited for good reasons.

#SASE Sandbach Author Signing event at Sandbach town hall

Sandbach town hall (c) Nellie Simpson

SASE was the first event of its kind in the Sandbach area, though it followed a pattern similar to many other events (like the Manchester signing of August this year). A group of authors getting together in a location and a bunch of readers wandering around the tables looking to buy books and get them signed.

I travelled to Sandbach from Manchester in the company of Ninfa Hayes and Alex Campbell, two members of the Tea Society and Vampire Month posters. We weren’t the only members there either, there was also Dianna Hardy and Elizabeth Morgan (who was also the organiser of the event). We were only missing Alex James, Miriam Khan and Russell Smith but we did have leaflets from all of them so they did not miss out too much. We set up our tables in the lovely, modern interior of the Sandbach town hall (nicely contrasted with the older exterior of the building) and awaited the arrival of the public.

D.A Lascelles, Alex Campbell, NinfaHayes and Dianna Hardy

The Urban settings panel  (c) Nellie ZSimpson

There were also some panels throughout the day on a number of topics ranging from Women in Fantasy to Fangs and Fur (vampires and werewolves in fiction). I was asked to moderate two of these – ‘Fangs and Fur’ and one on settings in Urban fantasy. Turnout for these was low (a handful of people) but the audience was keen and the discussions were wide ranging and interesting. From talking to another blogger, it seems that panels are not a common thing in her experience of signing events so this idea is both a way of distinguishing this event from others and also something new that the attendees may not have been too sure of. Personally I feel Alex Campbell’s reminiscences of  the tales of Northumberland to be worth the entry fee to the event by itself. Catherine Green and Lucy Felthouse joined myself, Ninfa and Dianna for the discussion on Vampires and Werewolves and we tackled the age long issue of why vampire fiction never seems to die. In the urban fantasy location panel we explored the idea of the location as a character (something I touch on in Gods of the Deep), how some stories are location dependent while others are not and what locations in our stories were influenced by places in our real lives. There may have been some discussion about trying to set a Batman story in the countryside but I have no idea who came up with that mad idea. As moderator I also posed the question about overuse of location – are certain locations (London, Chicago, New York etc.) overused in contemporary fantasy fiction and should other sites be given a chance to shine. There were excellent arguments from both sides there, with an overall conclusion that the common sites are used for recognition purposes – more people know about London than they may know about Newcastle – and so are likely to remain popular. However, there is scope for stories set in other locations, especially ones with their own myths and legends – Alex Campbell’s use of the Northumberland Lambton worm story being a case in point.

Throughout the day there were visits by some journalists and the event made it into theSandbach Chronicle authors hold masterclass local papers (Sandbach Chronicle headline: Authors Hold Masterclass) and Elizabeth was interviewed by Stewart Green for Sandbach Soundbites. Click the link to listen to the interview in full. This all suggested that there was quite a bit of media buzz about this event which is the first of its kind in the town.

It is to be hoped that Sandbach will return bigger and better next year with more people risking attending the panels and getting involved in discussions. I know the organisers have big plans for next year and any success of this new event would be well deserved.

The photographs in this article were taken by Nellie Simpson.

D.A Lascelles is the author of Lurking Miscellany, Transitions (Mundania Press) and Gods of the Sea (Pulp Empires) and Gods of the Deep. He lives in Manchester UK. You can sometimes see him writing about Zombie porn on http://www.dalascelles.co.uk but he mostly blogs about books, vampires, science fiction and Terry Pratchett. He is inordinately proud of the fact that one of his Pratchett articles was referenced on the French version of the author’s Wikipedia page.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaLascelles

Twitter: @areteus

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Not so secret society

27 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings

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Tags

A.J Campbell, Alex Campbell, Cosplay, D.A Lascelles, Elizabeth Morgan, Erica Hayes, Leeds, Leeds Steampunk Market, MancsterCon, Ninfa Hayes, Pat Keheller, R.A Smith, Salford, Secrets, The Tea Society


I guess over the last few months an insidious and influential group has slowly been showing its hand. You may not have been aware of them, at first. They are an organisation who were cloaked in shadow. However, you may have met some of them, maybe at an author event, maybe passed them in the street. They have guided civilisation from the earliest days, raised kings and toppled princes, manipulated the stock market and contributed to the success of numerous creative artists. They have agents everywhere. Well, mainly in the UK. Actually, mainly in Manchester really with a couple elsewhere. To be honest, not all that many even in Manchester… but, so great are these agents they don’t need many to fulfil their schemes.tea society badge2

The name of this epic organisation? Why, it is none other than the Tea Society.

And if you are at this point thinking ‘Who?’ then that is testament to our ability to so totally blend into the background.

The origins of the Tea Society go back a number of years when a handful of writers who lived in Manchester started having sort of not very regular meetings to talk about writing. The name was a joke that rose out of the fact that we could not think of a name and all we seemed to do at the meetings was drink tea and in the end it sort of stuck.

Later, after some discussions around a shared trade table at a steampunk market, we came to the conclusion that it was really difficult sharing a table as we tended to do and maintaining a solid identity for customers to recognise. So, Elizabeth Morgan arranged for there to be a banner and Rachel Bostwick (Queen of trailers and other graphic design goodness) was hired to give us some brand identity with our official logo.

The banner debuted at the Yorkshire Cosplay con earlier this year and was also seen briefly at the World Book Night event at the Fab Café. It will next emerge this weekend at the Literally Literary event at Leeds Central Library and then at the MancsterCon in Salford on August 29th.

stallSo, now that we are out in the open, you may be able to guess some of our members… they include R.A Smith, Ninfa Hayes, Miriam Khan and of course myself. But there are others such as Pat Keheller, Erica Hayes and Alex Campbell (whose book is out soon, you should totally check it out).

If you see any of us at an event, especially if we have the banner up, feel free to come over and have a chat about books in general or our books in particular (and maybe even buy some). I am also currently pondering a special deal where if you promise to do some publicity – take some leaflets to be delivered to local businesses, tweet or share on Facebook, or otherwise spread the word – you may qualify for a special limited edition Tea Society badge. I’ll get out more details of this once I work them out properly.

Hope to see you all at an event soon!

[Vampire Month] A stake in the heart

30 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Vampire Month

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Tags

A.J Campbell, Alex Campbell, Ann Rice, Bram Stoker, Jennifer Ponce, R.A Smith, Terry Pratchett, Vampire apocalypse, Vampire Month


Waiting for Dawn

Well, that is Vampire Month over with for another year. I’d like to extend my thanks to all the talented writers who have contributed to the fun this month and made this the very special event that it always is.

I’d also like to thank Ste and Izzy of Quattrofoto for supplying some of the photos we have showcased this year including the lovely one above of me as a Buffy style Watcher. They do weddings and other special occasions too and promise to only add lightening bolt special effects and demon horns to your wedding memories if you ask them to.

We’ve learned a lot this year. How to date a vampire, why they are so appealing, a little of the history of Vampire literature and why Alex Campbell rarely gets any sleep (because of all the famous vampires knocking on her window). I was going to contribute a post of my own to add to this collection but frankly I’m in awe and would feel out of place amongst such great articles. Also, the evil time goblins stole all my free hours. Oh and I did my Pratchett obituary and revealed how this blog helped stop the vampire apocalypse, so that was sort of my slot anyway.

Vampire month will be back next year. Same Vamp month, same Vamp url. If you want to get involved, feel free to contact me. We accept contributions from any writers, artists or academics with an interest in the topic of vampires. The format rarely changes – an interview and a guest post, spread over the course of a week. Four victims a year, repeat offenders welcome. First four to contact me get the four slots.

Also get in touch if you want to make suggestions about how to make Vampire month even more awesome than it already is. Suggestions for article topics feedback on posts… anything you want to talk about. You can email me on: dalascelles-writing@yahoo.co.uk, leave a comment below or find me on Facebook or twitter

I’m still waiting for Ann Rice, Rachel Caine or Bram Stoker to get in touch… Though Stoker is proving very difficult to contact for some reason. He doesn’t even seem to have a Twitter account…

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