Authors Electric

A blonde, a brunette and a redhead walked into a bar. They really did. I was the brunette.  It’s November 1991 (I think – give or take a year – it was a long time ago) and we’re in Earl’s Court, London at a fantasy convention. I’d met the blonde (Jan) and the redhead (Lindsey) six months or so earlier at a writers’ conference – we were among the dozen or so writers whose work wouldn’t be pigeonholed into romance, or memoirs or even thrillers. We were fantasy, science fiction and horror writers and affectionately dubbed the weirdos by the late and lovely editor Carolyn Caughey , who took us under her wing! Carolyn was a senior editor at Hodder & Stoughton and she made an effort to keep in touch with me over the years – even as far as making sure I got an invitation to the Stephen King party in London in the late 90s (Storm Constantine and I asking Mr King to dance is a whole other story …)  Jan and Lindsey knew each other already, and I lived only 20 miles or so away, so w...

Not too sure why I'm sharing a name with Tina Rath! This past month I've been "appearing"! On radio, in public, attending events, doing book signings - I almost feel like a celebrity. Around this time last year, I was gadding around the country on the White Witch book and DVD tour . This year, I've been out and about too. Is it the time of year, maybe? Or just co-incidence? Towards the end of September, I was in Nantwich at a writers' event. I blogged about it last month . As a result of that, I was invited to visit  Radio Northwich - a local independent digital radio station - to talk about my books and my writing. So in early October, with much trepidation, I arrived at the radio station above a small shop in town and met my host Jeff Stuart. Five minutes later we were live on air! Now I hate the sound of my own voice (yes, I know that might be hard to believe for those who know me...) and I was dreading the idea of headphones, so I turned it all of...

I've blogged in the past about conferences and conventions. I've done a fair few over the years - from the early days of the Southampton (later Winchester ) Writers' Conference to the many years of attending and/or running British Fantasy Society conventions. I've been as a 'guest' to Sci-Fi Weekender , and I even once went to a Star Trek convention - purely for research , you understand? A couple of weeks ago, I went to CrimeFest - one of the annual crime festivals around the country. Harrogate is the other biggie and I'm sure there are more. When I first booked for CrimeFest, I was a little miffed to see that they really don't recognise indie writers at all; there's one small panel featuring indie writers and to be considered for this, you have to satisfy a long string of criteria. But conferences and conventions are not all the same. Winchester for example is very much about learning . There are talks and workshops about how to do stuff ...

(c) Peter Coleborn Last month, I posted that I was going to be at this year's FantasyCon in Nottingham. I'm figuring that I haven't been to a FantasyCon in six years - I seem to remember taking Clare when she was thirteen, which made a change from taking her aged two (when she had great fun stuffing goody-bags). But they don't stuff goody-bags anymore. These days you get your nice cotton bag with an event programme and a souvenir book, and you select your goodies from the mountains of free paperbacks, plus flyers, leaflets, postcards, badges etc on the tables. It's actually a far more sensible system as you only get the books you want! So. East Midlands Conference Centre. Fantastic venue, although a bit far away from civilisation, making guests far more reliant on the shockingly overpriced and sub-standard food served in conference centre and the attached De Vere hotel. Breakfast was excellent, however, and the hotel itself was new, shiny and comfortable. An...

After a few years out, I'm back on the conference/convention scene again - starting with the British Fantasy Society 's FantasyCon later this month. I haven't been to a FantasyCon for a long time - I used to run them back in the day, which was a huge amount of fun, but also a huge amount of work co-ordinating a weekend for 300+ people. But since I went to the dark side and started writing crime, I've been out of the fantasy loop - that and a lack of funds - but I thought I'd venture back to sunny Nottingham this time. At least it's cheaper than London!  Back in the day - way,  way back - I'd do conventions on about three hours sleep. Over the entire weekend. I have fond memories of a London Con, still drinking while the cleaners were hoovering around us; an hour's sleep and then we'd be down to breakfast at eight ... The Cons I was involved in running - I'd meet with the conference manager and the conversation would go something like this: ...