E________, first draft: 55,000 words
Just back from attending the Cymera SFFH book festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. Awesome, just awesome. It was held in the Pleasance, one of Edinburgh University’s atmospheric stone buildings near the center of town: a rambling rat warren of rooms and stages where, no matter where you turned, there was always something going on. It was fun getting lost in it. And if you were tired of getting lost, there was always a helpful volunteer nearby to put you right. So many panels, so many interesting discussions, I lost track. It was incredible. I’ve never been to a book festival before, so I’ve nothing to compare it with, but I will definitely set aside time next year to just go as a visitor, or maybe even as a volunteer. I am totally hooked! My only regret was that my day job kept intruding (thank you, President Putin), otherwise I would have been there every second it was open.
My own panel “Ad Astra,” with Ken MacLeod (Beyond the Hallowed Sky) and Harry Josephine Giles (Deep Wheel Orcadia) and moderated by Annie Rutherford was a blast. The venue was an actual theater, so it felt like being on stage for the high school play (pretty much the last time I trod the boards!) and, like a play, the stage lights were so strong I only had the faintest sense of the audience, which, for me at least, is a cast-iron shield against stage fright. Just as well because we were required to give a short reading from our books. It was intriguing to hear authors read their own works. Ken, having written 18(!) books, is clearly an old hand at this. If you like SF stories about space exploration, Beyond the Hallowed Sky is definitely one for your to-be-read list. And then there is Harry Josephine. Their book is written in the local dialect of Scotland’s Orkney Islands, with an English translation. I had wimped out and only read the English, so listening to the Orcadian, as it’s called, was fascinating. And not so hard once you hear how the various words on the page are pronounced! We then answered a slew of intriguing questions from Annie and the audience, not one of which was what are you doing here, which I half expected to be fired my way any minute.
After that the three of us did a book signing above a Blackwells pop-up bookstore (I felt like I was in a movie scene rather than real life) and then down to the store itself where (as I did on several occasions) I bought way more books than I intended. My checked bag on the way home barely came in under the weight limit. Twenty pounds of book will do that for you.
The last panel I was able to attend was Sunday afternoon’s “Growing Pains” with Kate Campbell, Judith Crow and S.K. Marlay, on the subject of YA fantasy. On top of the inherent interest of listening to authors talk about their work and why they are attracted to it, I was reminded about how hard people work at this. Stella Marlay, for instance, had to write most of her novel, The Stone Keep, in her car because it was lockdown and there was nowhere else to work. Not something I would have had the fortitude to do. The Stone Keep was my last purchase – and I got it signed!!!
Book festivals. Awesome.