Speculation, Fact and Fiction

Dunno if who's in the habit of checking in with the British Fantasy Society website, but if you haven't done so lately, you'll find the front page is now full of topical genre news.

Hereabouts, the news is I did five hours of aikido at a course yesterday without any recurrence of back pain. Indeed, some techniques included a comprehensive back-stretch, which I suspect is why my back actually feels better than it did last week.

Younger son also came and did the entire course - despite one over-enthusiastic black belt inadvertently smacking him round the head early on, when demonstrating a technique. No damage of any sort but son was a bit startled. As was the black-belt when he realised husband and I were advancing on him, to explain we would take it amiss if someone broke our offspring.

A couple of others from the club came too and we were pleased to see their technique and understanding compared very favourably with comparable grades from other clubs.

Here's how it's shaping up thus far, and I get the distinct impression this is only the beginning...

February 13th-15th - Boskone - The New England Science Fiction Association's regional annual convention - Westin Waterfront Hotel, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. More details here

February 26th - Stevenage Central Library - "Step into the Unknown" - 7.30-9.00 pm - I'm giving an illustrated talk showing that SF&F isn't just the usual swords'n'sorcery, rayguns'n'rocketships

March 27th-29th - The Phoenix Convention, Dublin - Central Hotel, Dublin. Known affectionately to its many devotees as P-Con, more details here

April 2nd - The Corner Club, Oxford - "Oxford's Tradition of Fantasy Fiction" - an illustrated talk on the city's long association with speculative literature, from Lewis Carroll, Tolkien and CS Lewis to Philip Pullman and other current writers. An Oxfringe event. Tickets £5.00. 7-8 pm.

April 4th - Borders Bookshop, Oxford - Reading and Writing SF & Fantasy - From 6.00 - 7.30 pm - Discussing the fabulous choice of current reading with Sarah Ash, Chaz Brenchley, Mark Chadbourn and Ben Jeapes. An Oxfringe event. Free entry.

June 19th - David Gemmell Legend Awards - the inauguaral presentations at The Magic Circle, London. See here for more details.

June 20th - alt.fiction, Derby further details forthcoming soon

September 26th/27th - Newcon 5 - Northampton - more details here

September 28th - October 3rd - Ty Newydd, The National Writers' Centre for Wales - Fantasy Fiction - residential creative writing course, teaching in partnership with George Green, of Lancaster University's creative writing school. More details here

If some as-yet-unresolved issues go in my favour, I'll also be at Eastercon in Bradford, and hopefully at WorldCon in Montreal. There's the potential for another diary clash with Fantasycon - grrrr - which I'm working on solving.