Firstly: next weekend I will be attending Reclamation 2022, this year’s Eastercon! I’m currently scheduled to be on 3 panels:
Brave New Babies (9.00am, Sat 16th April)
Growing babies outside the womb is a frequent idea in science fiction, but is it really possible? And if it were, what benefits, problems, and opportunities might it bring? How do SFF books deal with reproduction and gestation more generally?
Besides being something I’m interested in as an SFF reader, the topic of this one is also personal right now – as of the con, I will be 33 weeks pregnant. So if you see someone walking around looking like they’re smuggling something between a palantÃr and a Death Star, it may well be me.
Twisting Tropes (10.30am, Sat 16th April)
Tropes are fun; subverting them is even more fun. Our panel discuss the glorious history of twisting tropes in fantasy, fairy tales, and science fiction, including their favourite tropes to undercut!
This one looks like it’ll be a lot of fun: the real-life equivalent of being sucked down a TV Tropes wormhole. I’m hoping to get to talk about some of the tropes I wanted to subvert in Meet Me in Another Life, and hear about some of the other panelists’ favourites.
The Margins Are Thicker Than The Mainstream (12.00pm, Mon 18th April)
A discussion about genre purity and the creativity and popularity of liminal spaces. Genres constantly overlap, despite the potential tension between the practicalities of bookshop labelling and the creativity of liminal spaces. And fans expand just about every type of original material, not always to the delight of creators and producers. This panel discusses all of the above, and other issues of margins and liminality in SFF.
Since no one can seem to agree on what genre Meet Me in Another Life is, I’m looking forward to this one! There’s a lot of people involved, so it may be more of a quickfire Q&A, which should make it interesting.
On the Saturday at 12.00pm, I’m also hoping to take part in All the Book Launches!, a celebration of all the books published during the pandemic that didn’t get a physical launch.
The full programme is here. You can still register for the con if you’re interested in attending – it’s taking place at the Radisson Hotel & Conference Centre London Heathrow, from Friday 15th through to Monday 18th April.
Secondly: Meet Me in Another Life was nominated for a Subjective Chaos Kind of Award, in the Science Fiction category! This is an award created and judged by a panel of passionate genre readers and bloggers, so it means a lot to be nominated, especially in such amazing company – I’ve already read and loved Firebreak and Far from the Light of Heaven, and will be working my way through the rest of the nominees once I’m done with my preparatory reading for Eastercon.
Thirdly: I got to cross off something that’s been on my wishlist for a while. C. at The Middle Shelf graciously invited me to answer spoilery questions about Meet Me in Another Life! This was an absurd amount of fun – thanks so much to C. for the opportunity. Take a look if you’ve read the book and want to hear me nerd out about all the things I’m usually not allowed to mention.