Hi!

I got home safely on Tuesday evening, and it’s Saturday now, but sometimes you need to let the waves calm down before you start writing about them or the ink will run.

Anyway, this is the report of my first Worldcon! I left home on the morning of Wednesday, August 7, to start on my 10-hour journey by train. It really was more relaxing than travelling by plane, and barely seemed to involve any waiting thanks to Siân, who was so sweet as to meet up with me for a cup of tea in London even though I would only be there for under 2 hours. It was wonderful to meet her in person, and I am very proud and grateful that she allowed me to add her beautiful fore-edge-painted hardcover of The Dragon of Ynys to my hoard!

Here it is, displayed leaning on the yarn hoard I acquired later…

And thus my trip had already become magical before I was even close to Scotland!

The journey went smoothly. I thought I’d be using the 4.5-hour trainride between London and Glasgow to finish preparing for my panels, but it turns out that I do fall asleep in high-speed trains, so the final preparations would end up happening late at night in the hotel room and in the Quiet Space at the con itself. I did get to see some nice Shire landscapes and some gorgeous hills and/or mountains on the way; I’m grateful that my friend Mattea had advised me to look out of the window more often!

After checking in at the hotel, where I was sharing a room with the Ava Kelly, we had a nice dinner and some time just to settle in. We decided to have an easy morning, too, before we headed for the Scottish Exhibition & Conference Centre. I still had to get registered, and in the late morning on Thursday there was a bit of a queue… Luckily, Emily and Chris from Atthis Arts came and found Ava and me in the queue, so we could hug and talk, and what must have been over an hour of queueing just flew by!

And then I was really there! At Worldcon!!! Ready to show off this gorgeous copy of my book (and my convention badge) to everyone!

And Atthis Arts was beautifully present at Waterstones too.

I walked Ava to the greenroom so I’d know where to find it myself the next day, and from that point on I was either listening to panels or finding my way to the next one. I attended “Engineering Solutions to People Problems” with moderator A.T. Greenblatt and panellists Ann Gry, Ava Kelly, Wole Talabi, and Robert (nojay) Sneddon. Up next was “Surviving Late-Stage Capitalism as a Creative” with moderator Terri Ash and panellists Erica Holcomb, Miles Cameron, Sarah Langan, and E.D.E. Bell. Next we were at the Group Book Launch, where Gregory A. Wilson got to present Atthis Arts title Heretic, the third book in his fantasy trilogy. And thus the whole day had been filled with Atthis Arts-related activities, and with so much joy!

On Friday it was time for the very first panel I would be speaking at myself: “Introduction to Cosy SFF” with fellow panellists Rachel Gutin and Yilin Wang, moderated by Caitlin Rozakis. It went well, and Atthis Arts friend Clara Ward even described it as one of the nicest and indeed cosiest panels they had ever listened to. A big thank you to Caitlin, Yilin, and Rachel for making my first panel experience so welcoming!

Knowing that I had survived being on a panel once, I wasn’t really nervous for the other panels anymore, and I went and listened to a panel in the very next time slot, titled “Learning from COVID – An International Perspective”, moderated by Ava Kelly, with panellists Iain Kennedy, Keren Landsman, Sabine Furlong, and Sam Scheiner. Not the most cheerful subject to celebrate my first panel with, but it was still interesting, and after that Ava and I went for lunch and a short walk around the Dealers Hall, and then I was heading for the greenroom again for my second panel, “Great Heroes in Children’s Literature”, moderated by Grace A.T. Worm, with fellow panellists Caitlin Rozakis, H.G. Parry, and Sharon Sheffield. Again, these people were so nice to talk with. The convention honestly felt like one big book club session, because so many people there have more or less the same set of interests, and I feel so lucky about the panels I got! Being on the same panel twice in one day, Caitlin and I realised we had a lot in common, and I will definitely be reading her novel Dreadful soon—it sounds right up my street.

Finally I attended the panel “Fanfic or Re-imagining?” moderated by Ava Kelly, with panellists F.D. Lee, Gabi GL, Genevieve Cogman, and Seanan McGuire, and after that we had a nice little Atthis Arts dinner party thanks to Chris and Emily!

After such a long day, Ava and I made the (perhaps surprisingly) wise decision of taking another easy morning on Saturday, so we could take our time for breakfast and prepare for our events of the day. There was just one for each of us, but sadly they were at the same time—someone really should invent a way to be in several places at once for conventions like this! Though I suppose providing replays of some of the panels is already a good step in that direction. And I was lucky enough to hear Ava’s practice version of their academic presentation “Digital Necromancy: Ethical Implications of Virtual Life After Death”, so I didn’t fully miss out either.

Before it was time for the presentation and the panel, all of the Atthis Arts people were meeting up outside to celebrate Chris’ 50th birthday! Emily managed to herd everyone together, Clara brought a cake and chocolates, and I met new Atthis Arts author Joyce Chng, whose book Wolf’s Path will be out in March 2025. But it really was extremely windy, so Ava and I soon fled inside to spend some time in the convention’s Quiet Space. Singing the song that I’d written for Chris would have to wait for another opportunity. Somehow, the fates actually decided to start playing the right song when we were out for dinner on Monday evening, so that turned out great!

My dragon panel, “The Purpose of Dragons” moderated by J E Hannaford, with fellow panellists Eliza Chan, L.R. Lam, and Paolo Bacigalupi, was in one of the big halls. Getting to speak about what I love most in front of so many people gave me such a rush! We really had a lot of fun on this panel, and I think it sparked new story inspiration for most of us. After the panel, I sold the final two copies of The Dragon of Ynys present at the convention (aside from my own pretty painted one, which obviously wasn’t for sale! Mine!!!), to two very kind Dutch-speaking people. It was strange to be speaking Dutch in this setting! When I came out of that panel, I was skipping over purple clouds and rainbows; it really had gone as well as I could have hoped. Thanks to Eliza Chan for the photo of the dragon panel, and thanks to Ava Kelly for the other 4 photos of panels in this post!

Sunday was a very busy day for me: I was on Stroll with the Stars at 9:00, walking to the Tall Ship Glenlee. (Photo source: The Unicorn – Glasgow 2024 Newsletter, Issue 7.) I was happy to find time for a cup of tea before my first panel of the day, “Reality Bites: Escapism in SFF”, moderated by J A Mortimore, with fellow panellists Julia Rios, M H Ayinde, and Phoenix Alexander. This was another really fun talk, and I loved that I’d kept bumping into J A Mortimore before this panel, as she was the one checking me in for most of my panels in the greenroom (leading to the question: “How many panels are you on??!” “I don’t know how this happened either!”).

My final panel of Worldcon 2024 was “Flash Fiction: The Art of Storytelling in Under 1,000 Words”, moderated by Stephen Granade, with fellow panellists Aimee Ogden, Istvan Vizvary, and Örjan Westin (@MicroSFF). This interesting and inspiring panel led me to writing a new welcome post on Paranatellonta, in which I’m linking to the flash fiction recommendations that were mentioned in the panel discussion. Of course there was also a new Paranatellonta edition on the 15th—that’s number 384!

After the Flash Fiction panel, Ava and I finally finished our walk around the Dealers Hall, where we’d also had a lovely chat with the owner of The Portal Bookshop earlier that day. They had anthology Love & Bubbles (James & Rossman, 2018) on display! I signed my story in the three copies they had. If you’re near York (or ordering online from anywhere in the UK), please consider getting your books by Portal.

Then it was time for a quick dinner and to go outside and queue for the Hugos ceremony in the Armadillo. I thought it was so cool to actually be in the room where that yearly celebration of the SFF genre happens!

Cute friends in the Hugos queue: Clara Ward, Ava Kelly, and Emily Bell! I was wearing the adorable dragon hat Clara made for me; it proved far more useful already than either of us would have expected in August! That’s Scotland for you. (Can I have that weather back now, please?)

With my final panel behind me, Monday was an easy day for me, enjoying the words of others and learning from them. I had been planning to attend “Can We Turn the Machines Off?” moderated by Ava Kelly, but by the time I arrived, the room was already full! I still had time to figure out where else I could go in that time slot, and I ended up listening to “Finding Story in the Landscape”, moderated by Kathleen Jennings, with panellists Ai Jiang, Garth Nix, Terri Windling, and Tiffani Angus. That way I unexpectedly got the chance to take up my book club friend Aline’s recommendation of listening to a panel with Terri Windling! And I have to repeat it again: it was interesting and inspiring!

Afterwards I rushed to have a quick lunch and then to the book launch, where Clara Ward was presenting Be the Sea. And then it was time to attend my final panel: “The Art and Craft of Literary Translation”, moderated by Denis Taillandier, with panellists Hildur Knútsdóttir, Igor Rendić, Yaroslav Barsukov, and Yilin Wang.

Suddenly it was over! The convention had rushed by so fast, and I’d love to do it all again someday. We had a lovely final evening with Atthis Arts, and on Tuesday morning it was time to start the journey back to Belgium. Luckily, whenever I feel sad about it being over, I can dive into the hoard I brought home! (Along with the plan to buy more books that had already sold out at the convention by the time I had time to go look for them. And with the beautiful yarn I showed in the pictures at the top, which I’d preordered from Third Vault Yarns and picked up at the convention.)

The Neurodiversiverse totebag was a Kickstarter reward—in case you missed it between all my Worldcon news, anthology The Neurodiversiverse: Alien Encounters has now come out and includes my neurodivergent alien teleportation story “The Space Between Stitches”! Get it here.

See you at more conventions in the future!

Minerva

P.S. Don’t forget to vote for your favourite Sea Creatures at the bottom of this page, and if you missed the Be the Sea Kickstarter, you can add a pack of Sea Creature postcards to your order here as long as preorders are open!

P.P.S. The tagline for this convention was “A Worldcon for Our Futures”. If you are, indeed, in the future reading this, and you’re preparing for your first convention yourself, feel free to contact me or leave a comment or some questions here that would help with your preparations!