Thu, 13 October 2011 Octocon 2011
One of my favourite Irish conventions of the calendar has rolled around again: Octocon.
It’s taking place in the Cameden Court Hotel in Dublin, and features Guest of Honour John Higgins as well as a plethora of guests (including me).
Here’s my schedule for the weekend:
Saturday
12:00 Essentials of Horor Fiction
15:00 “Women in Sci-Fi/fantasy/comics panels” [...]
Tue, 15 March 2011 Golden Blasters 2011
Octocon, the Irish National Science Fiction Convention (15-16 October, 2011), has announced details of this year’s Golden Blasters Short Film and Short Script Festival.
The Golden Blasters Short Film competition is now open to short film submissions from filmmakers from anywhere in the world. The science fiction, fantasy or horror films should be 12-15 minutes long, [...]
Sun, 07 November 2010 three secrets of writing
The picture on the right is Sir Terry Pratchett twenty years ago when he attended the first Octocon convention in Ireland as Guest of Honour.
It was early in his career, and I remember him as affable, friendly and willing to socialise with the fans (not always the case with authors).
The convention introduced me to [...]
Tue, 19 October 2010 Übermensch
If you would like to watch ‘Übermensch’, which won the Golden Blaster for Best Short Film at Octocon, here it is:
ÜbermenschScreenplay by Daniel Poole, adapted from a short story by Kim Newman; Director: Simon Temple.
For those who were at Octocon you can now watch the closing title sequence in full, which I recommend.
Mon, 18 October 2010 blasted winners
I took the above picture of graffiti and tags in Temple Bar in Dublin today. Despite being in the vicinity I never got a chance to drop by to Octocon’s Dead Dog get-together in the Porterhouse as I was busy in the afternoon.
Since I was on the jury for the Golden Blasters Short Film Competition [...]
Sun, 17 October 2010 Goodnight Dublin
I’ve had a lovely Octocon weekend in Dublin.
Tomorrow I’ll be heading back to the West of Ireland, sad to leave friends, but inspired to continue working in the genre I love so much.
I’m already looking forward to the next event.
Wed, 13 October 2010 Octocon 2010
This weekend I’ll be a guest at the 2010 Octocon convention in the Camden Court Hotel, Dublin. The Guest of Honour is George R.R. Martin, best known as the author of the A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy novels.
The first novel in the series, Game of Thrones, is currently being filmed in Northern [...]
Fri, 19 March 2010 Golden Blasters 2010
The Irish national science fiction convention, Octocon (October 16-17), has issued a call for scripts for its inaugural short script competition.
It’s looking for fantasy, science fiction or horror short scripts, less than twenty pages, and in the usual format.
The fees for the competition are on a sliding scale depending on when the script is submitted:
May [...]
Fri, 09 October 2009 death and taxes
It’s been a strange week. There have been two deaths, and I’ve attended one funeral (neither of the deceased were close to me, so don’t proffer sympathies), and a major row erupted in the Irish sf scene that involved a lot of people I know.
My mother had been away on holiday, and she called me [...]
Fri, 21 August 2009 end of summer round-up
I’ve never had such a long gap between blog posts before, I guess that means I’ve been busy.
Time to herd some news stories across the prairies.
I sold my sf-horror story, “Empty Mind Came Back With the Pearl”, to M-Brane SF a while ago. It will appear in issue 9. I’m delighted this story will get [...]
