Alt.Fiction - Hagelrat's Day

My first Alt.Fiction was my best con experience so far, which is odd since didn’t get to see any of it. I was delighted to be able to run some podcasts on the day and at 8:30 was setting up in the cozy alcove of the Quad’s excellent Mac suite.

I had a schedule to eight podcast running in quick succession and with the last minute addition of a small audience. A format I think we will repeat in future years as it worked very well. Less formal and more intimate than a panel, and much more open than a straight interview there was a lovely atmosphere in the room all day.

We started off with An Audience with Stephen Jones and Ramsey Campbell where they focussed on The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror but also talked more generally about horror and editing anthologies. I think we could all have let them talk all day quite happily but sadly there was a timetable to keep.

Next was a podcast called Blogging and the Internet with Lee A Harris, Alasdair Stuart and Un:Bounds Vincent Holland-Keen. In truth we took a wider approach looking at the impact of technology for publishing and authors and as Al says in his post for SFX, ‘using the death star for forces of good’.

Kate Griffin, Alex Bell and Mark Lachlan came to talk about new writers and breaking in and brought wonderfully varied experiences to the discussion, I think if I am learning anything about getting published it’s that there is no single proper route.

Tie in authors Simon Guerrier, James Goss, Graham McNeill & Gav Thorpe came to talk about the nature of tie in writing and the issues and joys it provides and the discussion had a palpable enthusiasm from both Black Library and BBC authors about being part of those shared worlds.

Alex and Kate returned, with Mark Charan Newton this time to talk about the New Generation of Fantasy Writers and discuss subgenres and the bleeding of genre tropes into mainstream fiction and acceptability.

For SF Writing the Future of the future I was joined by Tony Ballantyne, Michael Cobley, Colin Harvey for a lively and entertaining chat with some great audience contributions and some great discussion of the balance of real science in fiction.

Steve Tribe, Marc Gascoigne, Jon Weir & Jenni Hill joined me to talk about the publishing side of things and all coming from very different angles there was some real debate about the ebook situation and piracy as well as the issue of age appropriate branding. Jenni was at once point called upon to represent the entire female reading world and did so admirably.

Finally, I was joined by Raven Dane and Kim Lakin Smith for a really fun joint interview. There was a lean towards the titular Dark Fantasy and Horror but it was a pretty general chat about the two of them and their writing and again the audience really got involved so it was a lovely relaxed end to what Alasdair has coined out “podcastathon” (stealing that Al).

Huge thanks to everyone involved in the podcasts. They are going to go up one a week, hopefully in the order of recording on Alt.Fiction’s new podbean account. I am intending to post the first one for Monday 21^st June and every Monday after and I will post a big notice here if that changes for any reason. Podbean supply an embeddable player which will be embedded into Un:Bound and Alt.Fiction and all the best places on the internet.

I will also be supplying a short article and the supplied bio’s of the participants of each podcast for the Alt.Fiction blog to accompany the audio. Needless to say there will be reminders going up on Un:Bound.

I believe it is the intention to follow these up by podcasting the panel discussions (possibly highlights) on a similar schedule, so eventually you will be able to catch up with everything you had to miss because of the superb and packed programme. I will confirm this when I have more info but in the mean time hang on.

For me sadly after the podcastathon I needed to eat, rehydrate and chat away from the mic so didn’t make any of the rest of the programme although there were many things I would love to have attended. Fortunately Vince did some attending and will be providing his impressions of the day for Un:Bound.

In the café after I chatted some more with Steve Tribe, the lovely Antoinette Burchill, Vince and later Juliet E McKenna. I finally got to meet the likes Emma Jane Davies, Ghost finder and meet for a little bit longer SennyDreadful and others. Sadly there was no where near enough time to talk to everyone, there never is at these things but it was an absolute joy to see so many people having a lovely time and to meet so many of you. (If you aren’t named it’s simply because it would take too long to mention everyone I was delighted to meet, or sorry I didn’t get to speak to). The atmosphere was relaxed, friendly and fun and everywhere I went I was hearing how fantastic the workshops and panels and things were.

The team were amazing, the volunteers did and incredible job and having prepped for being locked in my box for 8 hours and forgotten about I was regularly checked in on for water etc. The level of competence and enthusiasm from everyone working on the day blew me away. I am hugely proud to be part of it and am really looking forward to next years Alt.Fiction and the podcastathon becoming a tradition at the event (can it be a tradition in it’s second year? I think so).

This being Un:Bound once our own reports are all in I will do a round up of everything else I can find on it and will as I said pop up weekly reminders f the podcasts going up.

Next year is going to be even better!