We had a great time at Conflux 5. It was a small enough convention to be cosy but large enough that I still didn't manage to spend enough time with everyone I wanted to catch up with. Highlights include:
Meeting and chatting to con guest Liz Gorinsky, associate editor at Tor (who liked my boots).
Friday night's Dreaming Again launch. The last of the first print run was sold out there and people were racing off to Borders to get a copy.
Mark Shireff's guest presentation on his Bafta and Oscar nominated short animated film The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello.
The auction, at which I bought an Aussiecon bid t-shirt. (Worldcon is going to be in Australia, in my home town of Melbourne, in 2010.)
All four panels I was on for Sunday:
'Achieving the Dream', where we discussed what our dreams were/are and if we'd attained them.
'Choosing an Overlord', in which we pretended to be henchmen discussing our bosses and giving advice to minions aspiring to be henchmen (and we decided that the male version of a wench was a wrench).
'Dreaming Again', where the process of making the anthology was discussed.
'Making the Jump', at which we discussed moving from short stories to novels, or the reverse, or both at the same time...
The cosy and conversational Conjecture room party - Conjecture is a convention that will be running in Adelaide, South Australia, next year.
Going to conventions usually leaves me all inspired and abuzz. But this time when we got home we had a mad, frantic day of house cleaning (the dust bunnies had evolved into tumbleweeds) and then yesterday we finally moved the last of my furniture from my old house here - three years after I moved to this house (the delay thanks to the Great House Extention Debarkle). Now I'm too stiff, sore and tired to be buzzing, and I really need to get stuck back into writing The Ambassador's Mission.
And on top of that, I'll soon have 1338 signatures to scrawl, on a whole lot of first editions and uncorrected proofs of The Magician's Apprentice, and some bookplates. Pity my poor hands!
Now Dreaming Again is out and about, gathering some great reviews, including in The Australian, and it was pick of the week in The Age. The launch is fast approaching. It will be held at 