I had a brilliant time in Melbourne at Continuum! However, I am still exhausted after getting home late last night and going to work today, so I'll just write a few things tonight and post pictures, deeper thoughts etc tomorrow.

I have to start by saying that I was incredibly foolish in not arranging to meet Kathleen at a pre-arranged time and place - I never expected there would be so many people (500 in all I think) and so many women of our age! However, while walking around peering at name tags (and trying not to look as though I was leering at chests) I found Ros from the Diana Wynne Jones mailing list! It was a lovely surprise! She is a really nice person and great fun to talk to. Together we managed to track down Kathleen the next day via the communal notice board. It was also great getting to meet Kathleen, and I look forward to seeing her further in Brisbane, which is after all our home city.

I just have to comment here that people at work thought it was strange to meet people off the net - "what if they were a murderer?" etc. I personally think that if a murderer joins a children's literature mailing list and sends off nice emails for years in order to accidently bump into me a con and kill me, they kind of deserve the kill because of the efffort they've invested.

Anyway, back to the con. At this point I have to say I think I'm in love with Neil Gaiman (sorry talisen ). It was quite bizarre seeing him in real life, the reaction of the crowd were closer to what you'd expect for a movie star or some other sort of performer. I mean, I personally can't get over the fact that over 850 000 individuals visit his blog each month and that if you put "Neil" into Google you get his website! It's just mind-boggling that an author (outside of JK Rowling) has this much reach! But he was a really witty guy and seemed genuinely nice, so it's deserved attention ;-) He drew very nice rats inside my copies (one a gift) of Coraline, and commented that he feels bad about not being able to spend much time on his blog when travelling, in a similar way that not tending a garden makes you feel guilty.

Robin Hobb was really interesting as well. She was fairly quiet in the panels (although compared to Neil most people would be) and later started her guest of honour speech by explaining that the life of an author, consisting as it does of sitting alone in an office writing, does not prepare one very well for giving speeches to hundreds of people! Her main talk was about the parent as a writer and the writer as a parent, and how the two jobs have interacted with each other for her. Robin had her first baby not long after she married at 18, and said she received resounding condemnation from acquatainces etc who thought she obviously wasn't very committed to writing and was now doomed to a boring life as a housewife in a small Alaskan town. However, she struggled through and published lots of good books as Megan Lindholm before becoming a bestselling author of fantasy as Robin Hobb. It's always good to hear these stories! It was especially interesting how many similarities between parenting and writing Robin drew. And Robin was very funny as she explained how she was planning on finally becoming a cool writer at cons, losing the nappy bag and attending late night parties once her eldest child turned 13, only to find herself pregnant again!

Poppy Z. Brite (docbrite ) was a great guest of honour as well. She sounded very cool with her New Orleans-ish accent (mixed from having lived elsewhere she explained) and the bulk of her guest of honour speech had her reading her short story The heart of New Orleans, which was spooky and moving. And she was very kind at her signing and wrote a lovely message in my copy of Prime. Poppy seems to have enjoyed her time, which is great, and she's off birding up North, which should be fun.

I'm much too tired to talk about the panel and Maskobalo now so I'll write again tomorrow!

Tags: books, brite, friends, gaiman, hobb, interesting outing