I’m going to try and make this post not too long, but this trip was the first time I’ve been overseas since 2017 (Helsinki WorldCon) so there was a lot going on! I’ll try to be succinct.
Celsius 232, Aviles Spain
Aviles
I started off in Aviles in Spain as a guest of the Celsius 232 speculative fiction festival – my first trip to Spain and my first time at this festival and it was absolutely incredible. Honestly, I’ve never been treated so well by any festival ever in my 20 year career! The organisers, Cristina, Jorge Ivan and Diego were just amazing, terrific hosts, and they pulled together the most enjoyable and jaw-dropping program. Other guests included but were not limited to Holly Black and Cassie Clare, Adrian Tchaikovsky and Travis Baldree, Barbara Hambly and Eileen Gunn, and many many more. I did two solo signings of about 2 hours each and the readers were so warm and lovely and it was an absolute joy to interact with them. I was also fortunate to have an author interview in the auditorium, do a breakfast table talk with 12 readers, get to spend time with one of my Spanish publishers (Duermevela), and to eat a lot of phenomenal food. Oh, and get an award from the Director, and got to spend bonus time with the excellent Cat Sparks!
Research & Writing Retreat, Chagford Dartmoor
Next, I headed to the UK, met up with artist and author Kathleen Jennings, and we drove to the village of Chagford in Devon for a research and writing retreat. I’m working on two novels at the moment, A Forest Darkly and A Book for the End of the World, both of which deal with women of a certain age, witches in the woods, menopause, homelessness and finding a new life – all mingled with the folklore of a very specific place: Dartmoor. So the time spent in the village involved researching local folklore, exploring various locations such as Wistmans Wood, the Boscastle Witch Museum, Jamaica Inn, and talking with local folklorists and storytellers; we also visited the grave of noted folklorist Sabine Baring-Gould, and met author Lucy Holland. I was able to get a lot of words on the page and also was able to work out the structure for both novels, and got them both started. I was also very fortunate to meet and spend some time with writers and artists: Terri Windling, Alan and Virginia Lee, Wendy and Brian Froud, William Todd-Jones and the amazing Elizabeth-Jane Baldry. An amazingly productive time was had, and Kathleen and I also got to discuss some future projects to work on together.
Kathleen Jennings
Lucy Holland
We then drove up to Glasgow over the next week, stopping in at Stourport-on-Severn and Brough in Cumbria – the highlight of that being meeting with Dr Shaton Blackie, psychology and folklorist who uses storytelling in her practice.
Elizabeth-Jane
Glasgow WorldCon
Glasgow WorldCon was huge, a really big event and over 6000 people in attendance. It was pretty overwhelming after not going to any major cons since 2017! I was fortunate enough to appear on a panel Don’t Go Into the Woods: Monsters and Feminism with Juliet E McKenna, Genoveva Dimova, Rivers Solomon and V. Castro. It was a great discussion and such a pleasure to chat with the other panel members, all amazing writers! I also saw some fascinating panels. I got to finally meet my agent and publisher face-to-face – pandemic has interfered with many things! – Carina Bissett, Vida Cruz Borja, Cass Khaw, Joyce Chng, Rina Weisman, Jaymee Goh, Sarah Rees Brennan as well as catching up with Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman, Alyx Dellamonica, Kelly Robson, Haralambi Markov, Jonathan Strahan, Kate Forsyth, Alex Pierce, Ellen Datlow, George Sandison, and so many others. I also missed a bunch of people! That’s just the nature of this sort of event. I got to go out to Glasgow Uni and chat with Dr Dimitra Fimi about the workings of the Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic.
Photo by Cat Sparks
Don’t Go Into the Woods: Juliet McKenna, V Castro, Genoveva Dimova, me, Rivers Solomon
London
After WorldCon, I flew to London for a few days to do some publicity stuff. Tuesday night I went to the Super Relaxed Fantasy Club and did a reading from The Briar Book of the Dead and answered a bunch of questions about inspiration and writing and reading and fairy tales. A great crowd, really engaged and hopefully I didn’t traumatise anyone too much with the graveyard scene.
Titan haul
On Wednesday, I went to Titan House and met with my editor and some of the excellent publicists with Titan Books. Had a very productive conversation and also took away a LOT of books. The next day I was meant to meet Ally Wilkes and go to the British Museum to stare into John Dee’s scrying mirror… but unfortunately that was when I tested positive for my very first dose of covid. I was fortunate because it was a very mild case, but still: not really a fun way to finish such a big trip.
Acknowledgements
Huge thanks to Kathleen Jennings for doing so much driving during the trip; to Elizabeth-Jane Baldry for taking care of us in Chagford; to the Celsius 232 team for making my first Spanish festival an amazing experience; to Cath and Bahar at Titan Books for helping make my books beautiful; to Meg and Fab at Ki Agency for looking out for me and my career; and many thanks for Creative Australia for an Writers and Artists International Travel Grant which helped with some of the costs of this enormous trip and helped me develop my audience and keep in touch with readers and publishers.