2009 Australian conventions I’ll be attending

No, I won’t be at over two thousand conventions. I wanted to let you all know about a few convention appearances that are coming up in the remaining months of this year. It’s wonderful when people treat me like a real writer and invite me to be a part of these things.

The first one is coming up in a couple of weeks. It’s the fifth Continuum, in Melbourne, from the 14th to the 16th of August, 2009. I’ll be there on the 15th and 16th (Saturday and Sunday) and I’ll be taking part in a panel at 2pm on the Saturday called Untapped Fears – What is left to scare us in the age of terror? I’ll be joining the eminent Rocky Wood, Robert Hood, Talie Helene and Garry Fay on this panel – all very fine members of the Australian Horror Writers’ Association (as am I). The panel should be quite interesting with the five of us discussing what really does scare people these days. If you’re in Melbourne, come along and check out the con at ether, located at lower level, 285 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne. Stop by the panel to throw tricky questions at us and feel free to flag me down at any time through the weekend for a chat.

After Melbourne I’ll be going to Canberra in October. This is a big one – Conflux 6. I’m very honoured to have been asked to do a whole bunch of stuff at this one. It runs from Friday October 2nd to Monday October 5th, 2009 at The Marque, Canberra. On the Friday I’ll be presenting a 2 hour workshop on writing and the martial arts. It’s all about how to write a convincing and realistic fight scene. There’ll be some hands on self-defence and fighting training as part of the workshop, so it should be a lot of fun. Seriously, when I get to combine kung fu and writing in the same event thousands of angels suddenly sprout extra wings. Also during the Conflux weekend I’ll be sitting on a few panels on a variety of subjects, I’ll be doing an author in residence spot and I’ll be having the official launch of MageSign, which is both extremely exciting and rather nerve-wracking. There’s a draft program up at the Conflux site now, so have a look and plan your weekend. If you’re in Canberra or feel inclined to travel there, you won’t be sorry. This should be a great weekend. I believe it’s Australia’s biggest spec fic convention. As ever, if you see me flag me down for a chat. I’m usually a pretty friendly soul.

Lastly, there’s Freecon from November 27th to 29th at Bankstown Library, Sydney. As the name suggests, this one is free to enter. It’s a small but very cool con – I was there last year and had a ball. It’s still in the planning stages at the moment, but I should be there for the Saturday and Sunday (28th and 29th). I’ll let you know more about that as more information becomes available.

So get out there and visit some conventions. Whether you’re a writer or a reader it’s a great way to meet like-mindeed people, listen to interesting stuff, hear about new things you might not have heard about otherwise and generally have a good time. Feel free to run any questions by me, in comments or email.

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