Academic – noise and sparks

March/April ’18: BFS Open Night, Edinburgh International Science Festival, FGTS 40 Launch and more!

Readings, a workshop and more – here are my official plans for March and April.

March 15th – BFS Open Night (Waterstones Argyle Street, 6:30pm)

My next reading will be part of the British Fantasy Society’s Glasgow Open Night on 15th March. Joining host Shona Kinsella (Ashael Rising, Mirnya’s Oath), Neil Williamson (The Moon King, Secret Language), and I (other stuff) will be R. J. Barker, author of Age of Assassins, and we’ll all be reading and chatting about fantastic things for your entertainment. The night kicks off at 6:30pm on 15th March at Waterstones Argyle Street, Glasgow. For more details, see the Waterstones event page or Facebook event page.

If you can’t make this, I’ll also be doing a warm-up reading as part of the MLitt in Fantasy Reading Party on 7th March at DRAM! If you’re interested in attending this, please let me know and I’ll pass on the details.

March 30th – April 1st – Eastercon: Follycon (Harrogate)

~~More on this soon!~~ Click here for details of my full schedule!

April 5th – From Glasgow to Saturn: Issue 40 Launch (The Raven, 6pm)

From Glasgow to Saturn will be holding a launch party for issue 40 at The Raven in Glasgow on 5th April. We’ll be hosting readings from some of this issue’s authors and poets, plus music, an open mic, and the infamous FGTS raffle. This is the first issue for which I’ve been an editor, so I’d love to see you there.

Update: Click here for the facebook event page!

April 7th – Workshop at Edinburgh International Science Festival (Summerhall, 2pm)

Edinburgh area writers, I’ll be joining Oliver Langmead (Dark Star, Metronome) for ‘Discovering New Worlds Through Writing: A Creative Writing Workshop’ as part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival on 7th April. We’ll be taking you through exercises on exploring the galaxy, new worlds, and what it takes to get there – and this will be the first workshop I’ve given! Be warned this event will be limited availability, so best pick your ticket up sooner rather than later. The workshop runs from 2pm – 4pm on 7th April at the Anatomy Lecture Theatre, Summerhall. Click here to buy tickets.

April 26th – 27th – GIFCon 2018 (University of Glasgow)

Finally, GIFCon 2018 takes place over 26th – 27th April at the University of Glasgow. If you’ve submitted an abstract to the event, you should be hearing from us soon, but in the meantime, please keep an eye on our twitter, facebook, and instagram accounts, and on our website for announcements of details of how to register.

Hope to see you at one of these!

In the meantime, Shoreline of Infinity have uploaded video footage from February’s Event Horizon — where Hal Duncan, Neil Williamson and I staged a GSFWC invasion — to their facebook page. You’ll find us starting at about 1 hour 13 minutes in.

*UPDATED* Reading Party, Oliver Langmead’s Metronome, and GIFCON

Blimey, February already. Here are three bits of news for you, in chronological order:

Firstly, I’ll be reading in Glasgow this Monday 6th February, as part of the University of Glasgow’s MLitt in Fantasy Reading Party. It’s a casual affair, BUT will feature a rare UK appearance from Canadian YA author Caighlan Smith and Dark Star author Oliver Langmead, as well as the chance to hear some exciting fresh new writers and some performative readings. So why not come join us? We’ll be starting at 6:30pm at Dram, where we’ve hired the backroom.

Talking of Oliver Langmead, I’ll be doing interview honours when he launches his second novel, Metronome in Glasgow on 9th March (event page). Ollie’s a witty guy with a love of language, so I’m looking forward to discussing his writing – and considering his first novel was an SF detective noir in the form of an epic poem, this should be a fascinating chat. Join us at Waterstones on Argyle ST from 6:30pm. UPDATE: You can now find the facebook event page here.

Finally, a little academic news. I’ll be presenting my first paper at GIFCON, which takes place the end of March at the University of Glasgow. ‘Gods Rebooted: Liminality in the Neil Gaiman Multiverse and the Expansion of the Superhero Canon’ will be an exploration of Neil Gaiman’s use of America as a liminal space in American Gods as rooted as much in comic books as the great American novel, tracing this back to his earlier work on the Sandman series (and possibly Black Orchid, if there’s time).

I should add that, while I have been helping out with GIFCON, the abstract judging used a double blind procedure where the reviewers (who did not include me, in this case) were unaware of the authorship of the paper. Unfortunately, that means it’s a good idea on its own merits and now I have to make a good paper out of that. Bugger.

If you’d like to see if I manage it, GIFCON takes place over 29th – 30th March at the University of Glasgow (see www.gifcon.org for more details).

Add about ten thousand words of non-fiction writing, creative writing, classes and photo editing, and that’s my schedule until the end of March. Hope to catch you at one or more of these!