August Roundup
The highs of Worldcon and the lows of COVID took up most of this month! Hope you all had a good one!
The start of the month was a lot of preparing for the rest I think. From the 7th to the 13th I was in Glasgow, attending Worldcon, the world science fiction convention, for the middle five days. And oh were they busy days. I didn’t take many photos within the con, but I’ll intersperse some written highlights with what I have.
I arrived on a sunny day after a long train journey, heavy rucksack on, suitcase in tow. It was nice to spot ads for my favourite band (twenty one pilots), on my 30 min walk traversing city streets. I did pop in one of Glasgow’s great Waterstones and Forbidden Planet on the way to the hostel too.
That day, after gathering some energy, I walked through the scenic Kelvingrove Park to the welcoming soundtrack of practicing bagpipes and marching drums, and checked out the Scottish Event Campus (SEC), setting the route in my mind through a tunnel over both the railway and A road. It was never this empty again:
I won’t go day by day, though. The main halls of the convention were great, filled with exhibitions, stalls from organisations as well as the whole hall of retailers, a freebies library, some Batmobiles. And the photo below is from a history of the Hugo Awards display, this year’s award design with iconic images of Glasgow on the base.
The real highlight though was not everything there, but everyone. I spent much more time with creators I’d met before, and met so many new ones whose work I knew or have yet to read! Too many to name.
I have to thank Emma Viecelli though, who really convinced me to come to the event when we met at London Film and Comic Con and was generally so supportive around the convention, and Stark Holborn, the first author I met on the evening on the first day - who recognised me in the crowd! We had such a warm chat about her work and mine since we met last year while she signed my copy of her Factus Sequence - I was very happy with the freebies too.
Another major highlight were the table talks. Seven people sitting round with a writer chatting for an hour. And there was great variety in the three I attended. Paul Cornell’s was a very personal sort of chat whilst also namedropping major TV creators. L.R. Lam’s was such a personal insight into one author’s journey in the publishing industry, so many tips, trials and tribulations (and I was so grateful for the signed Dragonfall!). Kieron Gillen’s was kind of a mixture of both? The funny thing with Kieron’s was that I had to show him the way all the way from a whole different building to where the table talk was!
To get a great look at what the con was like in general, but specifically a brief look at a table talk (featuring the back of my head!), check out L.R. Lam’s instagram reel.
Another highlight was the stroll with the stars. I only attended two of the four. The first was with Gareth L. Powell, who I saw a lot around the con. Gareth’s was one of the first author newsletters I subscribed to last year. We’ve corresponded a lot and been on some video calls but seeing him in person was great.
I’ll remind readers of Gareth and his wife Jendia’s new publishing imprint, which you can help launch with an anthology featuring many authors I met at the con!
Because we know so many readers are excited, we started tiers as low as $5, which gets your name in the acknowledgements of this groundbreaking anthology.
The second walk started off nicely with a brand new signed book gift from Lauren Beukes. She was always another friendly face to see around, after being so nice to me at MCM in May. Plus on both walks I got to chat with the local Carol MacLeod, wife of guest of honour author Ken MacLeod. She’s been to many more cons than me!
Another highlight was the book party organised by Lorraine Wilson (please subscribe to her newsletter for all sorts of writing insights) for the Edinburgh SFF group, which I’m now a part of! That was such a warm event, with three authors I knew - now there’s so many more I know from that great group.
Special shoutout to Yaroslav Barsukov for the amazing loot from his book launch, and for being a supportive writer who similarly turned a novella into a novel!
A great part of the con was really feeling like a part of the SFF community, walking amongst all these fellow writers and fans, and getting to go to an event like the Hugos. It was great seeing fantastic writers’ work that I know up on that screen. What an evening! So many great speeches on that stage, from that late night, but also the opening and closing ceremonies too.
Hopefully that was enough about Worldcon. Maybe more anecdotes will come to me, and I’m sure there were great events and people that I missed out. (One highlight I just remembered was Samantha Shannon saying “For real?” to something I mentioned since we met last May.) But this newsletter must go on.
On the morning before my train back, I visited the incredible Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. It’s a lovely space that really combines those two facets. What follows is a gallery with some highlights from there, to counteract the lack of photos in the second half of this newsletter.
There was also a great example of cupmarked stone and some of those mysterious carved stone balls, through to Viking artefacts too.
There was lots of great art in the gallery sections, both from Scotland and afar.
These three scenes, painted on flower bags, were made by an Italian POW in the camp of Lafaruk in North Africa, displayed in a small chapel there. They were given as a gift to the British commander in charge of the camp, known for treating prisoners well, once the war was over.
There was something about the composition of that one.
Anyway, onto other news. The discovery that Stonehenge’s altar stone is actually from the north of Scotland, specifically the Moray Firth I visited in January, and the islands above it. Some story potential there… Here’s the BBC News article.
The Neolithic wonders continued as I hopped on a video call with Win Scutt, an archaeologist and Senior Properties Curator for English Heritage! We talked through my gem journey short story, on the hunt for any anachronisms while Win shared some of his personal experiences and beliefs about ancient cultures on these isles, from Neolithic to Roman times.
Which leads us nicely on to the five year anniversary picnic for the North Leigh Roman Villa Volunteers, a group I’ve only been a part of for a few months! But I really felt like I belonged and was valued amongst volunteers that have been there for the whole time, and the heads of various English Heritage departments that were present. I volunteered before then, having a few great visitor encounters, and checking out the progress on the mosaic house’s new roof!
The last few days of this month will probably be spent packing - I’ll be on my way to a restful couple of weeks on the Isles of Scilly when this newsletter goes out!
Writing Update
A week isolating in a room leads to a lot of writing time. Who knew? That included another article for Vlogger Beat, the post about my second Star Wars Insider article, the latest A Long Time Ago and this post. Let’s break those down.
While I was away, jacksepticeye not only announced the issue 2s of his two comic series, but also a New York Comic Con signing and panel! So I got to write the news story for Vlogger Beat, where I’m now on the site’s about page and have my own stream of articles! Every view on the articles helps me and the site out - thanks!
But let’s talk about the (clone captain) elephant in the room: I announced my article Rex & Roll, a biography of one of my favourite childhood characters for the official Star Wars magazine! Most of you will have already read that, but here it is again!
To coincide with that, I also neatened up my Linktree, going to a Captain Rex blue, and adding some photos to go alongside each link.
And as already mentioned, I’ve been continuing to enjoy sharing my passions of Star Wars and ancient art. This month’s releases:
I have also done a lot of work on a much longer work this month. I’ve got a good feeling about that…
This month's books
This segment showcases the new additions to my research and fiction collections. A book not pictured (as it arrived early this month, and it didn’t really fit any of the photos below) is Marc Guggenheim’s In Any Lifetime. From what I’ve read and heard so far, I’d really recommend this book. I’ve linked to Marc’s post about the novel - with a free excerpt - above.
The usual monthly Star Wars comics. As the above two series near their conclusions, this month also saw the beginning of two new exciting series, the adaptation of Ahsoka and a brand new story focussing for the first time on the Empire’s Inquisitors.
Those are all the books I took to get signed at Wolrdcon. You can see the swag related to Stark Holborn’s trilogy, some Star Wars stuff signed by Mur Lafferty or Kieron Gillen or both in the case of the anthology on the right, plus Kelly Sue DeConnick. Then there’s Gareth’s duology and books by L.R. Lam and Lauren Beukes. So that’s ten books that I took with me. That amount doubled for the trip back!
This is all the books and related loot/goodies/freebies from Wolrdcon. Samantha Shannon wasn’t down for a signing so I picked up a signed copy of her book in Waterstones on the way to the con - and managed to get it personalised. I also bought that copy of Historia, the Hugo nominated comic, as I knew after reading the voter’s PDF I wanted the beautiful story in physical. I passed by Tristan’s stall after seeing him at Edinburgh SFF’s party, and when I saw his writing was about early medieval Scotland, somewhere I hope to explore in my fiction, I couldn’t resist a copy.
But the rest were amazing freebies. I feel so special to have these rare ARCs, most signed, as well as all that stuff on the bottom row. I mentioned Yaroslav earlier but you can also see an amazing model of the structure on his book cover. Can’t wait to read about it! The Smith’s book has the two signatures I got from the con when there wasn’t anything else physical to hand - wish I’d have got more. But the one from Emma was great, as was getting Ai Jiang’s. (I went to her fantastic reading of her book due out next year, as she’s going to appear in that Stars and Sabers anthology. We had a nice conversation, two authors in our 20s!)
And that's the end of this month’s roundup. Thank you so much to everyone that reads these, especially if you’ve made it this far. Please share with your friends and family and ask them to subscribe - that would mean the world to me. I do love sharing my various exploits with you all, and would treasure having more people with me on my writing (and life) journey.
Cheers,
Harvey