What I did last weekend
I took Friday off work and went to Bristol to attend Diana Wynne Jones conference. I was looking forward to meeting - most for the first time - a pile of DWJ list friends and other internet acquaintances, and to talking about Diana Wynne Jones books for three days. All of this was marvellous. It was a joy to meet so many interesting people and talk about our favourite books for hours. What I didn't expect was to enjoy the papers as much as I did - I had suspected they would be either too literary or little interest to me but was very wrong. It was great fun to listen to fascinating thoughts about one of my favourite authors, especially as I didn't have to do anything with the information for work afterwards! There were too many good papers to discuss individual ones (especially as I want to go eat dinner in the forseeable future...) but there was lots of insight shared into many DWJ novels, particularly the Howl books and Archer's Goon. This didn't stop me wishing there had been more discussion on Deep secret and Homeward bounders, though!
Other highlights included Sharyn November sharing stories of how she inspired Charmain's piles of laundry in House of many ways, Sharyn pimping one of my other favourite authors, Megan Whalen Turner and a video clip of Diana reading out an excerpt from her novel that will be released next year. We also enjoyed the 1980s BBC version of Archer's goon - it definitely had its weaknesses but I thought it was a pretty good adaptation overall.
In what I thought was a suitable tribute to Deep secret, the campus was quite confusing and there were many dead ends, misleading maps and back stairs to navigate. There was also a strange preoccupation with fire safety, with a veritable proliferation of fire doors and stern notices on our bathroom doors to keep them shut AT ALL TIMES so as to stop the fire alarms going off. However, we found out why there was this fear was because
Even punks! Even students who are not doing anything involved with fire, such as those playing the saxophone or playing hockey!
On that note I am off to look for the blogs of people I met on the weekend, and to check they made it through the journey home without spontaneously combusting.
ETA: Many thanks to the wonderful organisers, steepholm, fjm and lady_schrapnell!
Other highlights included Sharyn November sharing stories of how she inspired Charmain's piles of laundry in House of many ways, Sharyn pimping one of my other favourite authors, Megan Whalen Turner and a video clip of Diana reading out an excerpt from her novel that will be released next year. We also enjoyed the 1980s BBC version of Archer's goon - it definitely had its weaknesses but I thought it was a pretty good adaptation overall.
In what I thought was a suitable tribute to Deep secret, the campus was quite confusing and there were many dead ends, misleading maps and back stairs to navigate. There was also a strange preoccupation with fire safety, with a veritable proliferation of fire doors and stern notices on our bathroom doors to keep them shut AT ALL TIMES so as to stop the fire alarms going off. However, we found out why there was this fear was because
Even punks! Even students who are not doing anything involved with fire, such as those playing the saxophone or playing hockey!
On that note I am off to look for the blogs of people I met on the weekend, and to check they made it through the journey home without spontaneously combusting.
ETA: Many thanks to the wonderful organisers, steepholm, fjm and lady_schrapnell!