This year it took place in my home town of Nottingham. Despite my being local, somehow Steve Byrne got to the venue before me, so when I saw on Facebook he was hanging around in the hotel bar I set off. We were soon chatting away over a pint and gradually other people arrived and joined our table: Ross Warren, Lisa Childs, Phil Sloman, Alison Littlewood & her partner Fergus, Simon Bestwick, Cate Gardner, Priya Sharma (who it was lovely to meet for the first time), Theresa Derwin, Steve Shaw and Dean R Drinkel.
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| Neil Williams, Wayne Parkin, me, a glass of free wine |
They'd been a stir of excitement in the hotel when Joe Hill (a late addition to the convention) entered, wearing a Haunting Of Hill House t-shirt no less. When I came back from the bar I found he was stood talking to our little group; Theresa was somewhat flushed and flustered, and managed to introduce me to him as if I were the important celebrity writer: "Joe, have you meet James Everington?" I could see in his eyes he was thinking 'who the hell is this guy?' but he was charming enough not to say it out loud. I just played it cool and told him I liked his t-shirt.
Me and Steve Byrne then went to get signed in and pick up our free books - in terms of choice it was far superior to last year, and I got some lovely hardback editions of Alison Littlewood, Joe R Lansdale and Sarah Pinborough novels, a Conrad Williams collection from PS Publishing as well as several interesting looking paperbacks.
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| Stephen & Mark |
We then went off for some food, which given the rather poor quality of food in the hotel (already notorious even on the first day) and lack of other options nearby meant a walk to a Toby Carvery. The glamorous life of a writer. So let's gloss over that - back at the convention, Mark had a panel/mock gameshow to attend called The Atrocity Exhibition, which was different to say the least, and got some laughs. I had to leave that before the end to get to Victoria Leslie's reading. I've not managed to review it on here as yet, but I consider her collection Skein & Bone to be among the finest released over the last few years and her reading of one of the stories was predictably brilliant. Later, Victoria and I had a good natter at the bar about all things horror - these kind of conversations that you can't have with 'normal' people are why I relish events like Fantasycon. Somewhere in the midst of the next few drinks I meet both Nina Allen and Simon Kurt Unsworth, who I wanted to say hello to as they were on my panel the next day, and also Neil Williamson, a fellow Infinity Plus author who I've know online for awhile; we've been talking about meeting up at some point for ages.
It was then time for Simon Bestwick's reading, the late night atmosphere suiting his rather bleak extract from his forthcoming novel. After that (I think - bit hazy by this point) I spoke to Alex Davis who will be publishing Trying To Be So Quiet soon and we discussed some of his ideas for the design of the hardback, which sounded amazing.
Saturday started with the launch of Adam Nevill's new novel Lost Girl, complete with a free bottle of local ale - lovely. Adam's a great guy and very supportive of other writers - a fact shown by the fact he let a few of us take over the last fifteen minutes of his launch for a surprise event...Jim McLeod is the man behind The Gingernuts Of Horror website, one the best sites out there, and he's been a tireless supporter of the horror genre for years, both of the big stars and us lesser names working in the small press. So Phil Sloman put together a book for Jim... a very special book, of which they'll only ever be one physical copy printed. Jim McLeod Must Die! features stories from over 20 different horror authors; in all of them a character called Jim McLeod dies or suffers a fate worse than death. My own story is called Peephole and it was an absolute pleasure to be asked to be included in something so special. The look on Jim's face when he realised what was going on was priceless and for me a moment that sums up Fantasycon: the friendships made at conventions really do lead to great moments like this.
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| Jim McLeod, Mark West, Phil Sloman (with Sue Moorcroft in the background) |
The it was on to my first panel. Gulp. Which I was moderating. In the main theatre. Double gulp. British Horror Present & Future featured myself, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Nina Allen, Stephen Jones, Cate Gardner, Alison Littlewood and Adam Nevill. Of course, with a lineup as good as that I didn't really have to do much as moderator - we got through less than half the questions I had prepared because everyone's answers were so good. Someone said later that it had the feel of a proper discussion rather than just a back-and-forth Q&A so I was really pleased with that. And as with all these things, once you're actually doing it your nerves vanish.
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| Me, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Stephen Jones, Cate Gardner, Alison Littlewood, Nina Allen, Adam Nevill |
After that a bunch of us went to Priya Sharma's reading, which was excellent, and confirmed what I already knew: that I need to read more of her work. I think it was just after Priya's reading that I said hello to Laura Mauro for the first time, another writer who I know online but was glad to meet in person. (Nearly all horror authors turn out to be lovely people, in my experience.) Then myself and Mark bumped into Andrew David Barker, whose novel Dead Leaves was being launched at the con. Andrew's a great guy but very modest and he couldn't have looked more abashed as me and Mark praised his book to heaven and back...
Then I went to see the Weirdness, Darkness & Madness panel, which was obviously right up my street. It was moderated by Terry Grimwood and featured Mark West, Kim Lakin Smith, Helen Marshall, Deborah Walker and Timothy J Jarvis. It was a great panel, one of the best I've seen at a convention.
Outside, we gathered in the foyer for one of the most important parts of any con - curry. Before setting off I had a quick chat with Timothy Jarvis - some of what he had said on the panel had been really interesting, and he gave me a copy of his book. He had a reading later, which I said I'd attend after the curry - after all we had nearly three hours, so what could possible stop me?
Unfortunately it wasn't to be - despite having booked, when so many of us turned up at the restaurant they were woefully unprepared. It was nearly 90mins before starters arrived, never mind the main course. (To be fair, my food was great.) So with the 20min walk either way, we were gone for hours, meaning I missed both Timothy's reading and the Undertow launch of Skein & Bone and Aickman's Heirs. Still, during the loooooong meal I was introduced to Simon Clark and had some good chats with Phil, Dean, Jay Eales & Selina Lock and Benedict Jones.
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| Paul Woodward, Phil Sloman, Stephen Bacon, Mark West, Alison Littlewood, Jim McLeod, me, Gavin Williams (front) |
I only attended one event on the Sunday, but it was a corker: a reading by Helen Marshall. Like all her work the story was simultaneously funny and moving. I saw a lot of great readings this year, but against tough competition Helen's was the best. I then perused the Dealers Room, having a chat with Terry Grimwood and then the boys from the Sinister Horror table. And then after a few more beers it was time for goodbyes. It took about an hour to say goodbye to everyone there at that point.
Reading back, somehow I've not even mentioned meeting Ruth Booth, Gary Couzans, KT Davies, Paul Holmes, Fiona Ní Éalaighthe (and her ear!), Andrew Hook, Carole Johnstone, Tom Johnstone, fellow Outsider Rosanne Rabinowitz, John Travis, Tim Major, Ren Warom (we'll have a proper chat next time!) or Paul Woodward. Which just about sums FantasyCon up - there's so many great people there, so many friendships to forge or renew that's it's impossible to remember it all.
A special mention must go to Adele Wearing though, who I didn't manage to see all weekend, despite the fact that she apparently waved at me on a few occasions. That's my professional networking skills for you - completely blanking an award winning publisher (Fox Spirit deservedly won this year's Small Press award) even when she beckoned me over...
There was a nice coda to the convention when myself and Phil headed into Nottingham to have some food and a few pints before his train. Phil had never been to Nottingham before, so I took him to The Broadway cinema (largely on the basis it has The Shining quotes on one window) and then, of course, to Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem (or 'The Trip' as everyone in Nottingham calls it) which is meant to be the oldest pub in the UK, and is built into the cliffs under the castle. We had a great chat about our hopes for our writing in the future and then Phil left to get his train and it was all over...
I got home, dumped my bag... and later that night logged on and order my ticket for FantasyCon 2016.
