Category: News

So, it’s been a few days since I got back from Continuum 8 and I thought it was about time I wrote a “wrap up” post (now that everything has had a chance to sink in).

Those that have been following along with my day to day posts (day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4 and the awards ceremony) could probably tell that I enjoyed the convention immensely. I was attending more from a writing perspective than a general fan perspective, but the program was varied enough that there was usually always something on that I was interested in. It was also a great time to sit back and think about my own writing, while listening to experienced and knowledgeable people talk about the craft and the industry more generally.

Given the ongoing commentary about gender issues in the publishing industry, I was very interested to see how the gender balance on the panels went. A quick count over the sessions I went to comes to 53 female panel members compared to 21 male panel members, so certainly not male dominated (keep in mind this is just the panels I attended – the effort required for the task of checking the gender balance across the entire convention exceeds my laziness level).

Sydney seems to be quite fallow when it comes to speculative fiction events, but Jason Nahrung did mention GenreCon in Paramatta later in the year. According to Jason this is more of a writers conference than a fan conference. I’ve signed up for it, sounds like it will be very interesting.

I still have a bit of “credibility cringe” when it comes to approaching people at these kinds of events. It reminds me of the early years of my day job – you can’t help but wonder what on earth you could add to a conversation by people that are obviously experienced in their field. So I didn’t avail myself of the social aspects of the convention over the first two days. But even given my natural reticence, I did meet up with a few people that I had interacted with online. Sean Wright (Sean the Bookonaut to his internet fans) and David Golding made excellent dinner companions on Sunday night, and I really enjoyed my conversations with authors Jason Nahrung and Kirstyn McDermott on Monday. There were a few shorter conversations with some people who seemed quite cool and it would have been interesting to speak to for longer – Ian Mond (from The Writer and the Critic), Alex Pierce (from Galactic Suburbia and one of my favourite reviewers) and Russell B. Farr from Ticonderoga Publications to name a few.

My lesson for future conventions would be to explicitly organise to meet up with people I know earlier in the convention. From reading a few other convention round ups, the conversations in the bar seem to be a big part of the appeal. Hopefully next time I’ll know a few more people and I’ll be able to enjoy this part of the convention experience a little more.

I tended to pick which panels I would attend based on the subject matter the panel was covering. Without naming any names, there were panel members that were more prepared and perhaps slightly more thoughtful in their commentary. I think in future conventions I’ll be picking panels based as much on the people on the panels as the subject matter.

Attending the award ceremony was a good part of the experience. Because I’ve been paying a bit more attention to the Australian speculative fiction scene over the last year, I was more aware many of the works on the short lists and had voted accordingly. The atmosphere at the ceremony itself was great and it felt like a bit of a capstone for a lot of the reading and reviewing I’ve been doing lately. I’ll certainly be making sure I participate in the voting process again in future years.

All in all, I am really pleased that I attended Continuum 8. I feel recharged with respect to my own writing, and had quite a few interesting ideas inspired by the environment and the people I interacted with. If you are an aspiring writer in the speculative fiction field, I’d certainly recommend attending the national convention. In 2013 it will be based in Canberra, at the Conflux 9 convention. If you decide to go, make sure you let me know. We’ll organise to meet up on day 1!

Last day of Continuum 8. Another later start, thank goodness. This convention attendance is exhausting!

First up was a bit of blood sucking with Vampires: From Horror to Heart-Throb. It was chaired by Narrelle Harris, with fellow panelists Jason Nahrung, Sue Bursztynski and Amanda Pillar. The session started off with some interesting historical perspective of the vampire in fiction. There was a lot of discussion about the way vampires have been used to reflect particular societal issues of the time, from sexual repression in Victorian times to issues of empowerment in more modern times. In examining the more recent shift toward viewing the vampire as a romantic interest, it was postulated the removal of religion from consideration of the vampire switched us to being a representative of the other – and with growing awareness of the exclusion of the other (racism, sexism etc) we have naturally drifted into a more sympathetic treatment of vampires.

Of course some of the panel just thought that teenage girls like sexy, immortal beefcakes who will allow them to become immortal as well. Takes all sorts I guess.

The panel covered a lot of other ground including what is next for the vampire (most people seemed to think a period of inactivity followed by a reinvention guided by whatever societal trends were in vogue), issues with choosing evil vs having evil thrust upon you and the choice of metaphor that guides your representation of the vampire as an author.

Next I went along to Suffragettes in the Citadel, Amazons in the Engine Bay moderated by Jane Routley, with fellow panelists Jo Spurrier, Lucy Sussex and Kirstyn McDermott. This session focused on the role of default sexism in the creation of speculative fiction, fantasy in particular. The panel discussed the drivers of a default male pattern on societies and noted how seldom speculative fiction built worlds that were free from the default biases that exist in our contemporary society.

I found this session very interesting from a writing point of view. There were a lot of issues raised regarding world building and societal structures, including the use of matriarchal societies to provide a critique of gender imbalance, deriving alternative societies that are still based on biological history, using how work is valued rather than division of labour as a way of creating different societies and thinking through the role of a mother as a protagonist and what impact that has on story telling.

This was one of the most interesting sessions of the convention from a writing perspective.

Next was the guest of honour session with Sue Ann Barber, interviewed by Emilly McLeay. This was a very informal session, with Sue Ann Barber interacting as much with the crowd as the interviewer. The session covered Ms Barber’s involvement in Lego fandom, her trip to Britain representing fandom at an English convention (EasterCon), her involvement with the Star Trek club The Neutral Zone in Western Australia and programming AussieCon 4.

After lunch, I went along to see The Awards Debacle compared by Dave Cake, with fellow panelists Robin Pen, Kirstyn McDermott and Jason Nahrung. Given some of the commentary about awards controversy I’ve heard over the last year I was expecting some Jerry Springer style antics, but it was disappointingly calm and respectful. The panel talked about whether there were too many awards (conclusion no – the Aurealis Awards and Ditmar Awards fulfil different purposes), should authors be able to remove themselves from contention for an award (conclusion no except in special circumstances – but they can refuse to accept the award), the value of the short list (conclusion – great way of spreading the word about works), do awards actually make a difference to sales etc (conclusion no – but publishers think they will), the nomination process and how it works in practice (conclusion – perhaps room for some changes), whether or not “block voting” occurs (conclusion – not as much as people think) and some interesting commentary of the history of awards in Australia.

The most potential for biffo came when one of the audience started criticising the William Atheling Jr Award for criticism as not including works that were substantive enough, with one of last night’s winners sitting directly behind him. Unfortunately for my personal entertainment, it didn’t come to anything with the crowd member conceding that the work that won was indeed substantial.

After this I went to the bar for a drink with Sean Wright, Jason Nahrung and Kirstyn McDermott. Quite a few people drifted through during the afternoon (including Stephen Dedman, Robin Pen, Russell B Far and many more. I found when you are sitting with “known quantities” it can make a difference to how involved you can get in conversations. I had a great afternoon, and I don’t think I embarrassed myself. Jason gave some excellent advice regarding writing and writers groups, how to organise them etc and there were some interesting discussions about the state of the speculative fiction scene in general. I had a fantastic time.

In fact I was having such a good time that I missed going to the closing ceremony (sorry Continuum 8!).

All in all it was a good convention. I learnt a lot, with some good panels and very interesting people. I think I’ll sit on my experiences for a few days, then write up some more general thoughts on the convention as a whole later in the week. But for the time being, my tram is rolling towards my stop so I think I’ll publish this and say “farewell from Melbourne”.