My Experience of Edge Lit 2 : A Pictorial Guide
1. I am aghast at your suggestion! Aghast!(1)
2. About to deploy wrist-mounted blaster cannon / interviewed by a Dalek
3. Consumed with horrid glee.
4. I disagree with what you say and shall destroy you later.
5. "With a look of pensive meaning / as of ducks that die in tempests" (2)
6. Dropping phat beats.
7. With friends (the gap in the middle is where Stalin was sitting before I redacted him) (3)
8. And this is one where Stalin got to me first.
With thanks to my wife Annie for the pictures.
(1) Iain Banks memorial panel with Tricia Sullivan, Tom Fletcher and Gavin Smith
(2) from Hiawatha's Photographing by Lewis Carroll, but then you knew that.
(3) With Gav Thorpe, Peter Newman, Jen Willians, Lou Morgan, Adam Christopher and Emma Newman.
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10 Top Tips for enjoying Literary Events
As demonstrated at Edge Lit 2:
1. Read stuff by the authors at the event beforehand.
I re-read the story The Room Upstairs by Sarah Pinborough from the Anthology House of Fear on the bus on my way in on Saturday. I was sat in Cinema Two just finishing it when Sarah walked in — spooky or what? We talked about the story and she then signed it.
2. Buy stuff in the Dealers Room.
I always buy back issues of Black Static from Roy Gray on the TTA stand. At conventions the older back issues are 3 for £10. I also bought a T Shirt from Terry Martin on the Murky Depths stand and he gave me some extra badges for wearing it all day.
3. Go to the Workshops.
Don't just sit listening passively to panel discussions all day. You must go to at least one workshop and actively participate. In Andrew Hook's workshop we each wrote down a character, scene and a conflict. We then jumbled them all up and everyone had to start a short story based on what we had received. An excellent start to the day.
4. Go to Guest of Honour Q and As.
Go even if you do not know who the person is. They are more informative than panels. Tricia Sullivan's session was poorly attended, but her reading was excellent and we had the most serious discussion about the relationship between studying Science and writing Science Fiction.
5. If you don't like the stuff in your goody bag keep an eye on the swaps table.
I swopped one of the books in my bag for one by Adrian, which I then got him to sign.
6. Get the authors to sign stuff.
They don't mind. No really…they really, really don't mind. I brought along The Concrete Grove by Gary McMahon for him to sign. I also wanted to bring the Orcs Trilogy by Stan Nicholls for Stan to sign, but it was just too big and heavy and I knew I'd have too much other stuff to take home.
7. Ask questions.
Especially ask the panels questions. They get too comfortable chatting amongst themselves and usually it is all about their concerns of how their books are selling and how there is too much rubbish self published on the Internet and why literary authors are all up themselves.
8. Grab all the extra stuff you can.
Authors, dealers and the show organisers often have extra free stuff they are happy to offload. Don't turn it down. Also take workshop notes. I have notes this time from Gaie Sebold on story ideas. People pay a lot of money to go on creative writing courses to pick up this sort of information.
9. Take a big bag AND
10. Feedback
So you get the event you want next year. I want to see Simon Clark and Nina Allan. Who does anyone else want to see?
Stephen Tollyfield 14.07.13