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Lurking Musings

~ Musings of a newly published writer

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Tag Archives: F.D Lee

SRFC – Interview with Russell Smith and F.D Lee

23 Monday Nov 2020

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Publicity, Releases

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Elemental magic, F.D Lee, Heather Young Nichols, knox publishing, Liz Knox, Russell A Smith, Super Relaxed Fantasy club, The Elementals, Timber Phillips


So, on Friday, 20th November the Super Relaxed Fantasy club (a London based group that used to meet in physical space but during the Pandemic has been doing virtual events instead) played host to myself, Russell Smith and F.D Lee while we promoted The Elementals and discussed random stuff about Urban Fantasy and History. The video is above for you to watch.

I had great fun doing this but it was very nerve wracking. I much prefer doing things like readings and Q&As in person and this was the first time I had done anything like it on video. Turned out it wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be…

The Elementals is released this coming Saturday on the 28th November. You can pre-order the Kindle edition now by following this link:

It includes a selection of 13 stories by different authors, all on the theme of ‘Elemental magic’. It includes my entry – ‘Transgressions’ – and Russell’s ‘The Social Contract’ as well as stories by Liz Knox, Timber Phillips, Heather Young Nichols and others.

Starting this week I am going to be hosting interviews with some of the authors so keep an eye out for those…

My Worldcon experience: Day 4

05 Thursday Sep 2019

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Conventions

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Archive of our Own, Astounding Award, Brian Smith, Dublin 2019, F.D Lee, Fangorn, Former Campbell Award, Ginjer Buchanan, Hugos, Hugos Losers party, Jeanette Ng, Literary beer, Logistics in Fantasy, Paedar O'Guilian, Russell A Smith, worldcon, Yoon Ha Lee


After the relative relaxation of Saturday, Sunday was back to full steam ahead with a packed schedule. It was also the day of the now notorious Hugo award ceremony but more on that later…

I started out the day over at the Point where (at her request) I photographed the second show of Death Ingloria. This one, unlike the show of the previous day, was ‘unplugged’ and an excellent performance. I talked with them afterwards (while waiting to be interviewed for a Podcast) and we discussed the concept of ‘interactive comics’ and the use of QR tags in a printed media to add audiovisual elements. Their comic, issued free to the audience, included such tags that linked to concert performances when scanned with a smart phone.

Death Ingloria, musical artist, sat in chair with guitar

Death Ingloria plays unplugged in Warehouse 2

After that concert, I headed back to the CCD where I had agreed to meet with Robin Shantz of the Invaders from Planet 3 podcast. There I was interviewed alongside Galina Rin of Death Ingloria for an episode that will be available on the linked website soon (I guess…). Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to hang around and socialise after that because I was moderating a panel and needed to get to the Green room in order to prep for it.

In the Green room I met one of the panellists. Yoon Ha LeeYoon Ha Lee, author of Ninefox Gambit, and we had a chat about the panel and other things. They said they were practising drawing people and so asked if they could sketch me, which I agreed to, meaning I got the honour of being sketched by a Hugo award nominee!

After a short while, Brian Smith turned up. He was our ‘logistics expert’ for this panel and also got his portrait done. At that point, we were only lacking our GoH panelist – Ginjer Buchanan and my anxiety by that point was already thinking she was standing us up (she wasn’t… but you know paranoia…). We headed down to the room without her and got as far as my announcing the start of the panel and apologising for her absence when she turned up.

20190818_132432.jpg

The sketch of me…

Apparently, she had been at a previous item and had turned up at the door to the panel to be told it was full. Luckily, she was recognised and allowed in and the panel could start with a full complement.

The discussion was another good one with a lot of references to Star Trek: Voyager and the infamous shuttle replicator (for some reason). Yoon Ha Lee introduced themselves as someone who ‘always does it wrong’  with logistics and gave an amusing anecdote about their mother sending them beef jerky from South Korea to the US ‘as a special treat’ despite beef being very easy to obtain in the US. A variant on the coals to Newcastle analogy. Brian Smith commented on various examples of authors not really understanding what logistics is. The Romans were mentioned too. There was also a discussion about ‘going too far’ and obsessing on the ‘little details’ too much. Though Ginjer did point out that the examples given (usually the sort of military/tech thriller/spy thriller adventures in which they take a whole page to describe the technical specifications of a gun) were considered ‘didactic* fiction’ which is, apparently, very popular. Finally there was also reference to the infamous Game of Thrones (TV Series) ‘teleporting characters’ situation – which I have blogged about elsewhere.

A particular sticking point for the panel was when I asked a question about whether there was a SFF story where the logistics issue was the story. We all drew a blank on that one (even me since it was an off the cuff question so I hadn’t even prepared any answers of my own). However, the audience were full of wonderful ideas. If any of you are reading this and want to comment with your suggestions, please feel free (I’m afraid I did not write them down).

After this I went along to sit with Russell Smith on his literary beer and managed to drag Fangorn along for the ride too. Much was discussed…

20190819_013332-1.jpg

Fangorn and F.D Lee

After dinner I went along to Martin’s bar to watch the live feed of the Hugo awards. Much has already been said about this – about the issues with closed captions, the too loud music in the bar that detracted from the events on screen, the controversial speech by Jeannette Ng and the issues with the Loser’s party. I won’t spend too long reiterating those issues other than to say that I totally agree with Jeanette’s comments and am pleased they later agreed to change the name of the Campbell Award to the Astounding Award. I also would say that I quite liked the rowdy nature of the Hugo watching in the bar. OK, we could not see nor hear the speeches but the atmosphere was very jovial and energetic with popular winners (especially ‘Archive of our own‘) getting cheered. It felt very convivial and I think we all knew that we could, if we wanted to, watch the ceremony again at a later date with full sound. I also did not disagree with any of the winners and heartily endorse many of them. Though, I still feel Peadar was robbed…

The evening ended with more Barconning…

*In case you were not aware, didactic refers to a teaching method where you tell the student what they need to know (traditional, old fashioned lecturing) as opposed to more modern methods. Obviously, in writing it refers to a similar idea – the author is explicitly describing an object rather than giving vague details and expecting them to fill in the gaps with imagination.,

My Worldcon experience: Day 2

03 Tuesday Sep 2019

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Conventions

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Charlie Jane Anders, Cora Buhlert, Darlene Marshall, F.D Lee, Jeffe Kennedy, Mary Watson, Nicole Kurtz, Romance, Tasha Suri, Transitions, worldcon


The black superhero panel.

Friday involved me being on two panels.

The first was entitled ‘Guiding Star: discussing the Lodestone award shortlist’ and was moderated by the wonderful writer, Charlie Jane Anders. It also featured three other great writers in the form of Tasha Suri, Dr. Mary Watson and Nicole Kurtz. Our job was to discuss the nominees for the newly minted Lodestone award for YA fiction and speculate on which one would win.

Building up to this event, having known I was on this panel, I had spent an awfully long time reading the books on the list as soon as it was revealed. My Kindle was loaded with most of them (only Tess of the Road was unavailable in ebook for some reason) and they formed my holiday reading. The list, for those who didn’t know, was:

  • The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton
  • Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
  • The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
  • Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
  • The Invasion by Peadar Ó Guilín
  • Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman

Our brief was to gush about them and gush we did. Though we were also suitably critical. After all, I am a BSFA reviewer, and there is an ancient oath we reviewers must take to never give an unbalanced review. It was interesting to see where we agreed and where we disagreed, especially on some of the different interpretations of each work, and we each presented a different favourite to win the prize. My personal bets were on Peadar Ó Guilín to take it, partly because I always love his writing (and I nominated him) but also because I felt it apt that a local talent would win it. Of course, as we all know by now (unless you don’t, in which case SPOILERS!) Children of Blood and Bone took the award – a book which I think would make an excellent Anime adaptation.

Overall, I considered the nominees to be a great mix of writing styles and character diversity – incorporating gender, ethnicity, disability and trans issues in different but always entertaining ways.

Though, one final thing to say about this panel was the location. We were located at Point square, in the Odeon cinema which basically meant we were sat at the front of a small cinema. This made me feel that we were less like a group of authors and reviewers doing a panel and more like the cast and crew of a new Hollywood blockbuster lining up to introduce the premier.

My next panel was heading into more adult areas with a talk on Romance. Specifically, an ‘Introducton to SFF romance’. In this I was harkening back to my days as a romance writer (my introduction to the audience did say I was a ‘lapsed romance writer’) and the panelists were all there to talk about how romance can be better incorporated into SFF. In this were moderated by Cora Buhlert, and joined by Darlene Marshal and Jeffe Kennedy. We started with the SFWA’s definition of ‘romance’ which lays down some rules for what ‘SFF romance’ should look like, including ‘there must be  a happy ever after or happy for now’ ending and ‘romance must be a substantive part of overall character transformation’. This is to distinguish from ‘Fantasy with Romance elements’. With the rules laid down, we started to discuss examples and give thoughts on how romance can drive a plot. In all a very useful discussion was had. It (along with other discussions had later…) led to me making a decision about ressurecting a particular character from my repertoire.

I also got time to attend two panels as an audience member. One, entitled ‘let’s do the time loop again’ was an entertaining discussion moderated by E. Lily Yu which touched on all the many and varied examples of time loops in SFF and fantasy and came up with some interesting thoughts on some classic tropes. It was, however, unfortunately impossible to say how many times the panelists and audience had been forced to endure the panel repeating… The other was moderated by my old friend, Russel A Smith and looked at Black Superheroes in TV and Film. This one looked back to the days of Blaxspoitation and forward into what is hopefully going to be a more diverse future in comics, TV and film. The Time loop panel

The day ended with more Barcon work… hanging out with F.D Lee and associates where we each frothed about each other and shared reviews… incidentally, her review can be found here and our discussion not only led me to want to bring Helen back for more torment but also made some ‘character arc driving decisions’ about her that will hopefully be seen when the story I am working on at present is published…

My Worldcon experience: Day One

01 Sunday Sep 2019

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Conventions

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Tags

Alicia Faires, Chris Corbitt, Cosplay, Dublin, F.D Lee, Heidi Lyshol, Helen Pennington, Keith Byrne, Photowalks, Roz Kaveney, Scott Edelman, worldcon


Dublin 2019 An Irish Worldcon August 15 - 19 Convention Centre DublinThose of you who follow this blog regularly (I’m sure there are a few of you…) will know that my ability to keep a consistant way of writing about events is somewhat sporadic. For my first Eastercon, I did a daily blog but wrote it after the event. For the more recent Eastercon, in London, I actually managed to write my blog every day while at the event (including photos taken that day) and include a bonus preCon day.

For the 2019 Worldcon in Dublin, I am writing my account about 10 days after I got home from the con and I have no idea how many posts I will make…

This was my first Worldcon, though I didn’t manage to get the coveted ‘First Worldcon ribbon’ as they had ran out of stock by the time I got there. I also didn’t really feel like it was ‘my first time’. Partly this was because I’m an old hand at other cons now, being a regular at Eastercon since 2016 and, if I am being honest, a lot of the people I was seeing in Dublin were also Eastercon regulars so I didn’t feel left out socially – there was usually at least one person I could say hi to and get a conversation with. It was also because I’d spent the last couple of years working behind the scenes on the con – starting out as a member of the Brainstorming group (whose job it was to suggest really crazy panel ideas that the organisers would inexplicably consider worth doing) and progressing to being a member of the Literature programme team (where our job was to take these crazy ideas, add some panelists and write a description of it). So, compared to some other first time Worldconners, who might have been walking in and feeling a little out of place, I was already in a quite privileged position.

I arrived for the event itself on Thursday morning. Early on Thursday morning. And I didn’t really have time to have a rest after my 5am wake up call and flight. I had to queue to register at the Con, head to my accomodation to drop my bags and then get back in time for lunch with the Milford/Northwrite possee (that turned into drinks with them as lunch options were limited in the convention centre…) before heading to the first panel I was moderating – Franchise Characters.

Author F.D Lee and me at WorldconIn this, I was joined by F.D Lee (fantasy and SF indie author). Scot Edelman (writer for Marvel comics), Keith Byrne (Artist and character designer with Tantalus) and Roz Kavenay (writer, critic and all round great person to talk to). We mostly discussed Marvel vs DC and the reasons why one was better than the other at maintaining a franchise. However, this also led into a discussion on Pennyworth (Roz’s current new obsession – one I totally intend to check out for the promise of fascist 60’s Britain) and a few other franchises – including trying to define what a franchise actually is. There seemed to be some agreement to my definition of it being a creation that appears in more than one format but the focus of the panel was more on how the use of ‘background characters’ can help to build the depth of the world. Here I think we were all in agreement… I was a little disappointed we never got to discuss Pratchett’s Discworld as a franchise as much as I would have liked as that is a perfect example of  a franchise where main characters from one book become minor ones in others and I had a whole thing planned around Gaspode the Wonder dog… Also, the fact that Death appears in every single Discworld novel and how that is SIGNIFICANT.

After a break for food, I headed to another panel. This one was entitled “How close are Cosplay Tony Stark and Pepper Potts outside the Dublin CCDwe to Frankenstein’s Dream?” and I was with Dr. Helen Pennington (Plant scientist from DEFRA) and Heidi Lyshol (of the Norweigan Institute for Public Health). I was actually a little nervous about being on stage with some very eminent names in science with my mere MPhil and teaching background (I guess it could have been worse… someone of the academic oopmh of Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell could have been there, even though her area is more physics) but it worked out great and we had a wonderful discussion with lots of audience questions and the line “We could do that but it would be just slightly unethical” was uttered many times. We touched upon cloning, 3D printing of organs, head transplants, building a complete body out of 3D printed organs and several other bizarre applications of biology, medicine and engineering. I also got to talk about gerontology, which is my secondary area of expertise after immunology, and discuss things like the calorie restriction diets. In all a fun panel.

After this, I had planned to meet some people for a photowalk around Dublin. I was expecting no one to show up so was pleasantly surprised that we got two more photographers and a couple of Cosplayers (Chris Corbitt and Alicia Faires). So, we started the evening with some shots of the Cosplayers before the sunset then did a post sunset walk along the river.

After that, it was time to hit the bar and then to bed… but before I do, have a photo of the Liffey looking rather Cyberpunk…

The river Liffey, Dublin, at night.

Ytterbium – Eastercon 2019 Friday

20 Saturday Apr 2019

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Conventions, events

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Anxeity for Writers, Eastercon 2019, Emma Newman, F.D Lee, Frances Hardinge, John Scalzi, London Heathrow, Newcon Press


Yesterday was just the fringe event, a small taster. Today, Eastercon started properly.

Also worth noting that this is the first time I have managed to actually post about the event on the day. I always promise to do day by day accounts but always end up sidetracked (usually by the bar) and don’t make it back to my hotel in a state in which I can coherently write. This time I cleverly made no promises so here is the report on time and (vaguely) coherent…6C1A8313

Day one at Eastercon is always quiet and this was no exception. As usual, members of the con were arriving all through the day in dribs and drabs. Most of the morning sessions are actually staff briefings to make sure everyone is up tp speed with conference policies and what jobs need doing. However, by 3pm, when the opening ceremony runs, a good majority of people are in place and ready to go.

6C1A8335Said opening ceremony introduced us to the co-chairs (both dressed fabulously in evening wear), discussed some of the upcoming highlights and introduced us to three Guests of Honour – Frances Hardinge, John Scalzi and DC- while explaining that the fourth (Sydney Padua) would be be arriving tomorrow. The ceremony was basic but also quick and efficient – allowing members to head off to whatever they wanted to get on with for the rest of the day.

I decided to head to the Newcon Press launch because there was free wine. There were also books discussed and some interesting new releases from Newcon are promised, including the ones on this page. The atmosphere was very friendly and open and everyone looked like they were  having a great deal of fun.

6C1A8341

The Newcon Press Launch… well, the wine from it…

Then I attended a wonderfully useful workshop on Anxiety as a writer by Emma Newman. This was very useful for me as it helped me to pinpoint some of the causes of my own anxiety and link these to reasons why procrastination might happen. Emma knows her stuff on this topic, mostly through having lived through it herself and, she says, having to go through the same anxieties every time she starts a new book. If you ever happen to be at a Con where Emma is running this workshop, it is definitely worth checking out if you can get a place (this event was oversubscribed).

Much of the rest of the day was spent socialising and discussing, well, books. Including a very scary conversation with F.D Lee who admitted to having read (and promising to, one day, maybe review it) Transitions. I, of course, had to retaliate by telling her I was currently reading hers (The Fairy’s Tale – read it, it is good) and enjoying it…

And that is it for Friday… Saturday currently has many more things planned including guest of honour interviews and some interesting panels…

Eastercon (April 2017) Part the first.

01 Thursday Jun 2017

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Conventions, Musings

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Tags

Adrian Tchaicovsky, Birmingham, BSFA Awards, EasterCon, Emma King, F.D Lee, Inominate 2017, Joanne Hall, Kari Sperring, Pat Cadigan, Peadar O'Guilin, R.A Smith, Royal Institute


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Dr Emma King demonstrates thermodynamic principles (by blowing shit up)

I’m late in submitting my Eastercon diary. I blame work in the real world for sapping all the time I have available to blog – most of my spare time lately has been spent on writing (working on something new, it’s not going well but at least it’s going) and photography. I am also scrimping a lot here as, unlike last year’s diary, I am not planning to do an entry for every day. I had planned to do a daily diary while at the event but circumstance, alcohol and Russell Smith happened. Repeatedly.

This was my second ever Eastercon and already I felt like a veteran. I’d upped my game by actually staying in a hotel rather than going home each evening (arguments that they should have relocated to Manchester for my convenience were met with flat refusal, apparently the committee mostly live in Birmingham and they wanted the easy commute, strange coincidence…). I’d also been given three programme items to be on, two of which I was moderating and the third was with Pat Cadigan, one of the guests of honour.

There was an opening ceremony. The guests were introduced. Then Dr Emma King of the Royal Institute took the stage and proceeded to blow up bits of it using flour, gherkins, a lot of electricity and jelly babies. This sort of thing is apparently normal when the Royal Institute of Science put on shows and, according to her potted history of the institute, such things have been normal since it was first founded and evidence that it was almost certainly set up by Time Lords.* Luckily the stage survived (or was time shifted back to a time when it had not been blown up…) and proper health and safety procedures were followed. The only casualty was a single Jelly Baby.

6C1A0889After a Friday afternoon panel on communication in science and a wonderfully instructive workshop on preparing manuscripts for submission by Joanne Hall**, I started the weekend properly with a beer with R.A Smith. The fact that I have been having beer (and annual birthday dinners and parties) with R.A Smith since we were both at university does not make this unremarkable because this was a concept known as a ‘Literary Beer’ in which attendees at the conference can book onto a session with an author and sit and drink beer (or the drink of your choice) with them and talk books. A similar concept, the Kaffeklatsch, takes place during the day and supposedly replaces beer with coffee. However, I was aware that there were some drinking beer at Kaffeklatches and some heretics were even drinking tea! Russ had a good turn out for his beer and he proceeded to entertain with anecdotes and secret spoilers about upcoming events in his as yet unwritten book 3 of the Grenshall Manor series. He also performed an adequate re-enactment of a turret in the very obscure computer game Beachhead…

The next day I was at a loose end as I was not slated for any programme items until Sunday morning. However, I decided to check out the Women in Star Wars panel which played out to a packed room despite the early time of day. The discussion ranged over tropes that apply to women, particularly the idea of George Lucas riffing off Japanese ideas for female characters, as seen in anime and Japanese cinema and how that explained the paradox of Leia as the Princess who needs to be rescued but is also a strong, independent woman who is a leader in her own right. Apparently in Japanese cinema that is a common theme.

I followed this with a workshop on self publishing by F.D Lee that looked at many of the pitfalls that a self published author might get into. Some good tips, including pointing out that if you are publishing mainly on Amazon and other online sources, your cover is only ever really seen as a tiny thumbnail and so you should design it accordingly.6C1A0935

The afternoon was spent pleasantly in a Kaffeklatsch with two outstanding authors – Peadar O’Guilin and Peter Kalu. Originally it was supposed to be two separate events but because of very few attendees it was decided to merge them into one. The low numbers seem to have been across the board for this afternoon slot and one theory was because famous fantasy artist Fangorn was doing an art tour and everyone wanted to do that.  So we ended up with five in total, all writers in some form, and as Peadar generously pointed out we were all attending each other’s Kaffeklatschs.  There was a lot of discussion about Irish myth, African and Caribbean myth, football, zombies and zombie footballers. The last due to Peter’s latest book which apparently sees the 1966 England World cup squad coming back from the dead. As they do.

6C1A1064 In the evening I attended the BSFA awards to watch awards begin given out to some very worthy people and to see Kari Sperring’s Eurovision host impersonation. I then yet again demonstrated my lack of geek by failing to attend the screening of the new series of Doctor Who which was taking place at 7 but instead opted to attend another Kaffeklatsch, this time with the wonderful Adrian Tchaikovsky. This was very well attended, despite the draw of Peter Capaldi on a big screen, and according to Adrian much better attended than his first Kaffeklatsch where he was able to buy coffee for all the attendees for very little money. There was much discussion on various topics and, as you might expect insects were a theme.

Once that was over it was time for food and drink and, eventually, bed…

*This is undeniably true. I have evidence. Good evidence. Well, had… it seems the entire body of evidence linking the RI to Gallifrey has apparently just vanished. As if it had never existed. Removed completely from time. That in itself is suspicious enough. Also, I am sure I saw Emma wearing a scarf once.

**I am not sharing any secrets, you can go to a workshop on your own… It was very instructive and did confirm that I was at least doing most things right when submitting to publishers, though I needed to up my synopsis and cover letter game a touch. Publishers look for any excuse at all to reject.

 

 

 

Twitter Updates

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