Fantasycon 2019 - Glasgow (ish) 19th-20th October

So, on the 19th October I started a five-train journey up to Glasgow (possibly Clydebank) for my second ever Fantasycon! Overall a great experience its nice for UK genre to move to other places and apparently the firs time in Scotland! After the size, scale and I think pressure of Worldcon it was nice to go to something small scale and relaxed. The Golden Jubilee Convention Centre was a lovely hotel (with some gorgeous views) and the presence next door of a hospital made us both feel safe and very suspicious what would happen to those who asked comments not questions.

There were no queues for panels, but it was a little strange that we know GollanczFest was going on a few hundred miles away and Bristolcon the following weekend (please schedulers have a look at this!). I really like the atmosphere of this con its small and relaxed with a mix of small and large publishers and for those who enjoy writing a few workshops on things such as public speaking; building a character or submissions. For me it’s more a chance to hear authors talk about their work and perspectives.  Plus, I can catch up with old and new friends in an actual meat-space environment. Quite a busy timetable and I’d had loved a time turner on several occasions. 

 Lived the Dealers Room and especially The Portal Bookshop stand – despite some vicious rumours I was totally not lying in wait to tempt unsuspecting people into books.  I promised myself 1 or 2 books and came away with 12 which I think encompasses the goal and those two integers nicely!

So, what did I see?

Won’t mention everything as it would be a loooong list, but I’ve also live-tweeted many of these in my guise of @runalongwomble)

Friday

Fantasy Bucket List 101 – Charlotte Bond, Juliet Mckenna Jeannette Ng and the disembodied voice before the late arrival of RJ Barker – what people would like to do in Fantasyland. Rather than quests the panel went for feasts, business ventures with dragons and invisibility. A nice fun icebreaker to start the weekend

Breaking the Glass Slipper Live – the now British Fantasy Award Winning podcast recorded a live episode (now available on their podcast feed)  where Lucy Hounsom aka Hermione Granger; Meghan Leigh aka Princess/Senator/General Leia Organa; Commander Shepperd aka Marguerite Kenner; Charlotte Bond aka Magrat and the superbly hatted Anne Lyle aka Granny Weatherwax took three genre scenarios for their characters to triumph in. All I will say is Dead Lupin; Masking Tape and Orbital Strikes…go get it in your podcast feed.

Medical, social, fantastical: models of disability in fantasy narratives – Ruth de Haas, Jeffrey Collyer, RJ Barker and Mike Brooks. One of my favourite panels at the weekend as it really tackled the pros and cons of how fantasy can tackle disabled people in stories. There was a lot of good debate on when it works; that narratives where people are magically cured are terrible and the line between representation and ensuring your characters can work within the story. Ruth de Haas has done a great article here expanding on the subject much better than I could at the link here .One observation made was that disability panels were getting quite popular (and there were several themes discussed at the con) but possibly it would be better to have this incorporated into wider panel discussions. I think as I’ve seen now various ‘women in fantasy’ and ‘people of colour in fantasy panels’ where everyone present writes hugely different things it would be something to think about in future organisations – but I really found this a very good and thoughtful discussion on the subject matter with four authors all with disabilities/chronic illnesses.

 Saturday

Feasts for the Senses – Arts, Banquets, Fashion, Gardens and Music in Fiction – how do you convey the tangible? Juliet Kemp, Anna Smith Spark, Jeannette Ng and Neil Williamson. A fascinating study on how writers approach giving texture to their worlds. There were a variety of approaches used from using a form of historical context; aiming for the weird/beautiful and a lot of discussion on the use of words. There isn’t a single way of making worlds come alive was my conclusion but loved how each writer approaches their world’s creation.

Reviewing and Non-Fiction – Cheryl Morgan, Rob Malan and Alasdair Stuart – From a selfish perspective I thought would be great to listen to three very very good reviewers talk about their approaches and how fiction and non-fiction reviews differ. The difficulty of reviewing a bad book/film was discussed and the danger of showboating where the review is more about the reviewer than the story the reader wants to find out about. Very useful!

Grimdark & Hopepunk – Cameron Johnston, Juliet Kemp, Peter McLean, Anna Smith Spark and RJ Barker – you possibly would have imagined this would be a confrontational discussion on who’s approach is best but actually it was a really well-balanced discussion on approaches to looking at humanity. The grimdark authors were all clearly saying it should not be taken to the extremes of purely violence and amoral characters for no reason it should be about the world that has created them while in Hopepunk the stories there too are a reaction but often try to rise above violence (but not always without some).  I’m of the view that grimdark is now matured into a really interesting (when done right) socio-political genre and I think Hopepunk is going to do similar great things too.  I suspect more panels on this will be seen in future events, but this was a very useful one to get your head around the perspectives.

Pseudopod Live! – Alasdair Stuart, Marguerite Kenner and Eliza Chan – the longest running horror podcast that delivers weekly episodes to your ears performed live. The story expertly narrated by Eliza Chan you MUST track down when it comes out for Halloween – its deliciously funny and dark. But really liked Marguerite’s very useful discussion on the story selection and production process. A one-hour podcasts takes three hours to produce – an audio drama will take NINE!! You really need to listen to these if you’ve not already done so.

Sunday

Folklore, Fairy Tales and Mythology – Sandra Unerman, Dan Coxon, Telka Bellamy and Ali Nouraei – myths and folk horror tend to often are my catnip, so this discussion was a delight. Taking a global view of how stories are shared and used across history and even now. The symbolism of tales; their danger of being appropriated by people and their usefulness today was a great and warm discussion. I always find our current genre is just the next step in these tale’s journey so it’s sometimes useful to remember these stories of the fantastic are not just a recent invention.

History, Her Story - Lucy Hounsom, Peter Sutton, Justin Lee Anderson and Juliet McKenna – This discussion on how to write historical fiction in a gender balanced way was AMAZING! Talking about the pitfalls that even historians made about not noting women playing a part as well as discussions on class we had four authors all trying not to make the same mistakes and erasing people from history. As well as informed, I was so happy in particular to see authors all clearly saying they were taking care to not default to the stereotype.

The British Fantasy Awards – last part of the day and I was hugely happy to see Jen Williams, Tasha Suri and Breaking the Glass Slipper gets well deserved wins, but the wider list of award winners and nominations was super strong.  Our genre is producing some mighty fine stuff and analysis now.  I may have now picked up a few other books for stories I’ve managed to miss out on. And promotion of talent I think is just as useful in an award as honouring the great work the winner has done.

Final thoughts?

Overall impressions of the con were that the new organisers did a good job and guests I spoke to all seemed to be enjoying themselves, but a suspicion is had there was a lot of paddling underneath the swan. Special thanks to the team of Redcloaks the people who hold all cons together especially Marguerite Kenner and Alasdair Stuart.

Someone I was speaking to on Sunday thought I was a stalwart of the convention circuit and as I as explaining I was quite new to this con. But later on I did realise I’ve been now coming to a form of con each year since 2012 (even if more just one a year until recently) and on the way home this got me thinking about the cons I’ve been to since the SFX Weekender 3 in a delightful January Pontins where they carved the scrambled eggs. One of the most impressive things was how far we have come I remember the weirdness of a panel entitled Females in Fantasy and four intelligent authors all explaining that they’re puzzled how they had been placed here when they wrote all very different types of story. In some ways that has come on a lot – just look at the panel guests and subject matter to see how much that has changed but as the discussion on disability and illness highlights we still seem to treat some groups as sort of adjacent to the main genre and not as they are part of the whole. 

Seeing panels where guys are actually clearly showing and importantly understanding why we needed to get out of that straight white male fixation is really encouraging. There is a however a lot of work to do.  When there were just five bestselling BAME authors last year on the best-selling lists we clearly need to do a LOT better – publishers, agents, reviewers and readers - to find and promote different types of stories and there were reminders that indie presses too do a great job of finding new voices. Add in the discussion on disability we can still see huge parts of society not being represented in a genre that I always feel has the job of interrogating what humanity was, is and can be. It’s easy to say you only want to read great stories but when you only read consecutive white men in your reading choices, I suspect you may be falling towards constant bias. Stories should be there for us to understand everyone not just ourselves.  I went back on the train hopeful that the genre is showing it wants to do better. Hope in 2019; in the UK, is not something I’ve really felt for a while – we have work to do people lets get to it and make this the best genre!