Originally published at Juliet E. McKenna. Please leave any comments there.

Bristolcon is a splendid one-day, regional SF&F convention in, unsuprisingly, Bristol. This year it’s on Saturday October 29th, at the Doubletree Hotel, which is convenient for travel by car or by train - within easy walking distance of Bristol Temple Meads station. ( Read more... )

Originally published at Juliet E. McKenna. You can comment here or there.

This year sees Novacon 46, the UK’s longest running regional SF convention and I have the considerable honour of being the Guest of Honour. As programme and other plans are now being finalised, it’s safe to say I’m going to have a hugely enjoyable weekend on 11th-13th November ( Read more... )

Originally published at Juliet E. McKenna. You can comment here or there.

Over at SFFWorld, the assorted authors of the Fight Like A Girl anthology have been having a say about oh, all sorts of things. Part One of the mass interview is now up and Part Two will follow at the end of this week.

Meantime, Roz Clarke has posted her video highlights of ( Read more... )

Originally published at Juliet E. McKenna. Please leave any comments there.

A while ago I wrote a post commenting on an article on the reasons why women smile at men who harass them. I explained how, from a martial arts point of view, that’s a winning strategy. To de-escalate a situation and leave without a fight. But that’s not always possible, so ( Read more... )

Originally published at Juliet E. McKenna. You can comment here or there.

I’ve worked with aspiring authors on an ad hoc basis for well over a decade now; running workshops at conventions and literary festivals, guest-lecturing at universities and colleges and occasionally running longer courses*. Most recently, I’ve spent a thoroughly enjoyable ( Read more... )

Originally published at Juliet E. McKenna. You can comment here or there.


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Originally published at Juliet E. McKenna. You can comment here or there.

I honestly cannot recall what started that particular Twitter conversation. I’m guessing it was probably something about ‘fight like a girl’ being used as some throwaway insult, prompting derision from the very many of us women with hands-on experience of a broad range of ( Read more... )

Originally published at Juliet E. McKenna. Please leave any comments there.

I’m extremely pleased to see Philip Pullman making a stand on the issue of literary festivals not paying writers - when everyone else involved gets paid - and to see a host of other authors backing him.

But I am also seeing a degree of confusion, particularly from SF& ( Read more... )

Originally published at Juliet E. McKenna. You can comment here or there.

Well, I know this much; my year will be bookended by teaching. I’ve got a trip to Lancaster University scheduled for late January and in early December I’ll be tutoring alongside Pippa Goldschmidt at Moniack Mhor’s residential creative writing course on Science Fiction and ( Read more... )

Originally published at Juliet E. McKenna. You am leave any comments there or here, as you prefer.

Getting ready to go to Nottingham for Fantasycon last Thursday, I told myself resolutely that this was going to be a weekend about the art, craft and business of writing. If only for a few days, I was going to be an author again, not an EU digital VAT ( Read more... )