Author: Cheryl

CoNZealand – Day 2

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

First up, we had a very successful party. Huge thanks to all who attended, and to Kristen and her team running the CoNZealand parties.

A lot of yesterday was taken up with preparing for the party, but I did get some time to see programme. The Representing the Other panel was very good, and led to some very lively discussion on Discord afterwards. I also watched the Conventions in the Age of COVID-19 panel, and the The Future is Female panel.

The big event last night was the Retro Hugo and Sir Julius Vogel Awards panel. Unfortunately there were major bandwidth issues with the stream and I bailed early on so as to reduce the load. Kevin stuck with it so as to be able to tweet from the official Hugo Awards feed.

This year’s Retro Hugo Award trophy is gorgeous. You can find out more about it here.

The results of the 1945 Retros can be found here. I was very pleased with the recognition for Margaret Brundage and Leigh Brackett. There has been anger expressed about the awards going to Campbell and Lovecraft, but results like this are inevitable with the Retros because most people don’t take an interest in them. According to the official statistics, only 120 people participated at the Nominations stage, and only 521 in the final ballot. If Worldcons can’t drum up more interest in the Retros then they should stop doing them (they are optional, after all).

The Green Man’s Silence Cover

~ Cheryl

For those of you who were not at Worldcon (and missed a great party), here is the cover for The Green Man’s Silence. Juliet read briefly from the book at the party, but it is still in edit so it won’t be out immediately. I’ll be opening pre-orders shortly, but it won’t be out until September.

In the meantime, enjoy Ben Baldwin’s beautiful artwork.

Getting to the Wizard’s Tower Party

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Now that I have had a chance to attend a party at CoNZealand, I know a lot more about how they will work. If you are planning to attend, here are some pointers.

The easiest way to find the party is through Grenadine. If you select the Schedule tab and then Thursday you will find us right at the top of the list. The title is “Parties: 30 July, party band #2”. It is at the top of the list because it starts at 7:00am on Thursday in New Zealand, even though it is still Wednesday for most of us.

If you click on that programme item you will find a Zoom link button. Go through the usual process of starting a Zoom event.

That will take you to a main room where the friendly CoNZealand party staff will direct you to the party you want to join. There are three other parties happening at the same time, so you need to get to the right one.

Zoom’s features for this sort of thing are not great, but CoNZealand has come up with a clever trick to help get people into party rooms quickly. Each party is assigned a number. You need to edit your name in Zoom to put that number in front of your name. We are party #1 (obviously). So if your name is “Kevin Standlee”, you would edit that to “1 Kevin Standlee”. Once you have done that, the party staff can press a magic button and you will be teleported into the Wizard’s Tower party room. You can edit your name back to normal once you have arrived.

As a reminder, the rough schedule (in UK times) is as follows:

  • 20:15 – Tate Hallaway (Lyda Morehouse) reads and does Q&A
  • 21:15 – Juliet McKenna reads and does Q&A, plus we reveal the cover of The Green Man’s Silence
  • 22:15 – I read from a forthcoming collection by Croatian author, Aleksandar Žiljak, which we wll be launching at the Eurocon in Rijeka in October

See you all soon.

One more thing. If you still can’t find us, Info Desk in Discord may be able to help, but in an emergency write something anywhere in Discord including @Parties and one of the party still should get pinged and come to help.

CoNZealand Fringe – Day 1

~ Cheryl

Fringe is underway as well. We don’t quite have 24-hour programming, but there is now something for people in Europe to watch. And you can too. Claire Rousseau has created a YouTube playlist of the panels we have had thus far. You can find it here.

I only had time to watch the Modern Fanzines panel, which I thought was excellent. Here it is.

By the way, links for watching future panels are not all available yet. They will go up in good time.

CoNZealand – Day 1

~ Cheryl

The first ever virtual Worldcon is now fully underway and fans all around the world are getting to grips with the technology. It is a massive learning curve for all involved, but it seems to be working quite well, and certainly much better than many people feared.

The big issue is that there simply isn’t a suitable software package to do the whole thing. It needs Grenadine to run the programme, it needs Zoom to run the actual meetings, it needs Discord for the social side, and a few other things as well. But we are learning. Hopefully I will be able to report back in more detail when the dust has settled.

In the meantime, we have had opening ceremonies, which Kelly and Norm did a fine job of hosting. That included the Hugo base reveals. I’m not sure if they are public yet, but they are gorgeous. New Zealand has done the Worldcon community proud there.

I have also watched a few panels, and attended a party. So far so good.

Coronavirus – Day #135

~ Cheryl

Worldcon is underway. So far so good.

The new Salon Futura is almost ready to go.

Today was also my weekly shop day, the first one since masks became obligatory in England. Much to my surprise, all of the customers were wearing them, and no one was making a huge fuss about it. Quite a few of the Tesco staff did not have masks, but I’m assuming that they are all getting regular testing so the only people they are putting at risk is themselves. It isn’t ideal, but it is so much better than I’m hearing about from the USA, and ever elsewhere in the UK.

Welcome to CoNZealand Fringe

~ Cheryl

As promised, here’s details of the other thing I am doing for Worldcon. This year it has a Fringe. This is not organised by CoNZealand itself. Rather there is a bunch of European fans who offered to put on something in our daytime.

I got involved with this because I am very keen on developing online conventions so that we can make Worldcon truly international. I totally understand why CoNZealand isn’t doing 24-hour programming, but if people can help them do that then why not? Also Claire Rousseau, who is one of the organisers, has a lot of experience of streaming and has introduced us to some software I wish I had known about before I did the One25 fundraiser.

I gather than there has been some fulminating on File 770 about how WSFS and CoNZealand are going to sue us into oblivion for violating their trademarks. Kevin and I have had a good laugh about this. And given that the Fringe team have been in regular contact with CoNZealand’s programming team, I don’t expect Norm & Kelly to be upset either.

Anyway, the panel I am definitely doing is on sensitivity reading. That’s on Sunday at 3-4am NZST (next day); 4-5pm BST; 11am-12pm EDT; 8-9am PDT, with Mike Carey, iori Kusano, Yvonne Lin, Corinne Duyvis. I think that will be great.

I am also currently down for a panel on awards, but I will probably be making way for a PoC panelist because we are trying hard to have really diverse programming.

The full list of panels is here. Please note that panel line-ups may change.

Coronavirus – Day #134

~ Cheryl

I am now definitely into Worldcon mode. I might be still in the UK, but most of what I am doing is either online with New Zealand or doing prep of some sort.

That does incude the new Salon Futura, which I hope to get online tomorrow or Wednesday. It will probably ruffle a few feathers.

Combine that with the fact that there’s a silence protest on Twitter today and tomorrow, as a result of which I haven’t been checking it much, and I have no idea what is going on in the outside world. I can’t even comment on the cricket as today’s play was washed out.

But hey, Worldcon! Have at it.

Worldcon Schedule

~ Cheryl

Here we are again. Well, here we are virtually. I am signed into the CoNZealand web presence and Discord sever. Other people are arriving from all over the world, so I am doing the British thing of complaining about our weather.

But what will I be up to at Worldcon? Well, I am not on any panels. Huge thanks to Kalin from Bulgaria for heroic attempts to get me into a translations panel, but I entirely understand that with a virtual con people can’t easily be added to a panel at the last minute.

However, I am running a party. Believe it or not Wizard’s Tower Press is 10 years old. Also we have stuff to promote. The party will be in Band #2 on Thursday, which is 7:00-10:00 in the morning on Thursday in New Zealand. That means it is 20:00-23:00 on Wednesday in the UK. For my own sanity I’m going to use UK times from now on. Apologies to people elsewhere.

There will be entertainment. Here’s the approximate schedule:

  • 20:15 – Tate Hallaway (Lyda Morehouse) will read and answer questions about her work, in particular Unjust Cause.
  • 21:15 – We will reveal the cover for The Green Man’s Silence. Juliet McKenna will read and answer questions.
  • 22:15 – I will introduce a new short story collection by Croatian writer, Aleksandar Žiljak, which we will be publishing in October with a launch at Eurocon in Virual Rijeka

There should be plenty of time for general chat as well.

Pre-orders for The Green Man’s Silence should go live sometime this week, after the cover reveal.

There will be more Worldcon news soon, but lots of stuff is still in the works so I can’t post yet.

Coronavirus – Day #132

~ Cheryl

Cricket, accounts, Worldcon prep.

Oh, and I binge-watched the final four episodes of Doom Patrol season 1. Wow was that good.

I’m trying to avoid the news because all of the hand-wringing over poor, oppressed people being forced to wear masks and dying as a result is getting a bit much. Before we know it, masks will have killed more people than the virus. You heard it first in the Daily Malice.

Talking of the virus, the official government stats has had the number of new cases per day at under a thousand since early June. Whereas this medical study group has the current number at almost 2,000 per day. I have no idea who or what to believe any more. The only thing that is hard to fudge is the actual number of people who die (of all causes) and that data runs at several weeks in arrears for obvious reasons.

Coronavirus – Day #131

~ Cheryl

Doing your accounts is boring. Thankfully I had plenty of distractions in the form of email and social media stuff needing addressing. Worldcon stuff is taking shape nicely.

Talking of Worldcon, there has been a lot of discussion of late regarding the unsuitability of the sites for current bids. Lots of people no longer want to travel to the USA, and the likes of Saudi Arabia and China are not warm and friendly alternatives. It is all moot to me. I couldn’t even go to New Zealand. But this is a serious problem, and not one that can be solved by insisting that Worldcon only be held in nice countries. Anyone with a Muslim-sounding name can tell you how silly that is. There has to be another solution, though I suspect that people won’t like it.

Also there is cricket. No rain in Manchester today. I can’t see that lasting for 5 days, but you never know.

Doom Patrol continues to be excellent.

Coronavirus – Day #130

~ Cheryl

I forgot to post again yesterday, didn’t I. In my defence, I was rather enjoying myself. I finally got to see the Danny the Street episode of Doom Patrol. If that means nothing to you, well Google is your friend. Or you can wait for the new Salon Futura in which I shall explain all. In any case, it was fabulous, and that rather distraced me from anything else last evening.

Things are happening with Worldcon. Announcements soon.

Apparently Bozo went to Scotland today. The SNP were celebrating like it was all of their birthdays rolled into one.

Coronavirus – Day #128

~ Cheryl

We got a first peek at the Worldcon schedule today. Most of it is on New Zealand time, which is entirely understandble, but a bit of a pain if you are on the opposite side of the planet. I’m hoping I can get to catch up with the likes of Glenda Larke and Catherine McMullen anyway.

What I can say is that I will be providing some entertainment in the evening UK time on the 30th. Wizard’s Tower is holding a party. There will be things happening. I’ll let you know more when I have a firm schedule.

Also I have finished my Hugo voting, which is a good job to have out of the way. Tomorrow is the last day, if you haven’t done yours yet.

I did my weekly shop at Tesco today, and also went into town as I had a couple of things to do at the Post Office. There are a few more people wearing masks these days, but still a minority and social distancing has pretty much disappeared, especially in coffee shops. This is a fairly low risk area of the country in which to live, but if someone infectious were to visit then the virus would rip through the town pretty quickly.

Lots of politics news in the UK today. Yesterday evening the House of Commons was voting on a trade bill. They voting for selling the NHS off to foreign corportations, for allowing foreign companies to import food that doesn’t meet UK environmental standards, and against the devolved assemblies, or even themselves, having any say in approving trade agreements. So much for “taking back control”.

Also the much hyped Russia Report was finally published. This was supposedly the in depth investigation into Russian influence on UK politics. Except it wasn’t. Basically what it said was that our glorious intelligence services are well aware that the Russians are targeting the UK, but they decided not to check on what they were doing because that might upset our government.

Which of course it would. The entire point of the current government is to sell off bits of the UK to the highest bidder and earn ministers enough money so that they can go and live elsewhere when the economy collapses.

Coronavirus – Day #127

~ Cheryl

There was no need to do any Day Job work today, so I have been able to get on with other things, including doing some planning for Wizard’s Tower’s presence at Worldcon and the cover reveal for The Green Man’s Silence.

Also the cricket was quite exciting.

Elsewhere Bozo has apparently announced that no announcement will be made on trans rights issues until the start of the next Parliamentary session in September. This does not surpise me. Announcing a hugely controversial new policy at the start of the summer recess and giving those affected the whole summer to campaign against it is so monumentally stupid that only this shambles of a government would ever have thought of it.

Of course this does mean that trans people in the UK have at least another 6 weeks to wait before we find out if we all have to start seeking political asylum elsewhere, which is not great for the mental health, but I will try to use the time constructively.

One of the other things I have done today is add a new section to this site about booking me for various types of speaking engagements. You can find it here. Let me know if there’s anything you think I should add.

Coronavirus – Day #126

~ Cheryl

Another full day of Day Job today, punctuated by a Grand Prix.

I had hope to spend much of the weekend doing Hugo reading. I have finally made a start.

We have fairly clear skies at the moment. Bet it clouds over before it gets dark.

Coronavirus – Day #125

~ Cheryl

Well, I seem to have spent most of today doing Day Job stuff. That wasn’t exactly the plan, but so it goes.

I gather it rained all day in Manchester anyway, though we did get a bit of F1.

We’ve had cloudy skies for days here, so no comet watching.

Coronavirus – Day #124

~ Cheryl

Today I finally managed to dig myself far enough out of urgent work to be able to start doing my accounts for last year. Huzzah! I think.

Never mind, there’s cricket and F1 on the TV, and I have the new Lianne La Havas album.

Coronavirus – Day #123

~ Cheryl

Having spent all day yesterday on the Day Job, I was able to spend a bit of time today on other things, including Wizard’s Tower, a history article, and a couple of book reviews for the next Salon Futura. Variety is good.

There has been a whole lot of nonsense going on in social media about Bristol. I do wish that concerned left wing people would try to find out a little bit about the city before launching into denounciations. It is hard enough for Black people to get into positions of political power in this country, without them being denounced as Evil White Folks by people who haven’t got a clue what they are talking about.

Also, of course, one thing guaranteed to get people’s backs up in Bristol is people from London telling them how to run their city.

Coronavirus – Day #122

~ Cheryl

Today has been all Day Job, because sometimes I get an urgent request for help and need to respond.

Meanwhile the farce that is British politics keeps on giving. Remember what I said yesterday about face masks becoming mandatory next week? Well apparently Wormtongue was spotted in a sandwich shop without one today, and the government hastily issued a clarification that take-away food establishments were exempt. Apparently all it takes for a change of policy these days is for someone in the Cabinet with more power than Bozo to disobey him.

Meanwhile Bozo had annointed the serial failure, Chris Grayling, to be head of the important Intelligence & Security Committee (with oversight of MI5, etc.) Grayling, of course, has no experience of this sort of thing, and a track record of incompetence longer than the River Nile. So one of the far-right Tories, Julian Lewis (who does at least have a lot of Defence experience) cooked up a plan with Labour to have himself put forward as an alternate candidate and he got the job. That’s yet another embarrassing failure to add to Grayling’s record.

A furious Bozo has expelled Mr. Lewis from the Tory party. It would be nice to say that this reduces the Tory majority to 78, but given that Lewis is very far right I don’t think that his explusion will make any difference in most cases.

What is does mean is that the Intelligence & Security Committee might actually be able to release the long-delayed report into Russian meddling in UK politics, which is expected to be deeply embarrassing for a certain person in the White House, and quite possibly for the chap in 10 Downing Street as well.

Coronavirus – Day #121

~ Cheryl

Masks. Some have them, some don’t. They have been mandatory in shops in Scotland for some time. Over the weekend Michael ‘Wormtongue’ Gove said on TV that he didn’t think that masks were necessary. So obviously yesterday the government he is one of the leaders of decided to make them mandatory. That’s how government works here.

Oh, and it won’t be mandatory until the 24th, so there is plenty of time for a u-turn yet.

The assembled snowflakes of the right wing media are all having fits of the vapours and whining about how they won’t be able to breathe and will look ugly and their right to bodily autonomy has been compromised. This is, of course, nonsense. What they mean by this is that fewer poor, non-white, disabled, aged and queer people will die if we wear masks, and what point is a pandemic if it doesn’t kill off undesirables?

I made my weekly trip to Tesco today. There was a slight uptick in the number of mask wearers, but we were still a tiny minority. Also they have stopped queuing for entry and the one-way system. They had yeast, for the first time since the pandemic started.

According to the informed leaks from Westminister, today was to be the day that Liz Truss announced her rollback of trans rights. It had been planned for International Non-Binary People’s Day for maximum trolling effect. It did not happen. The announcement is now scheduled for probably next week and no later than the morning of the 22nd. Someone, it seems, got cold feet.

So what has been happening. I mean, apart from a supermajority of the GRA consultantion respondents supporting reform, and an opinion poll last week confirming this, and the Welsh and Scottish governments backing reform, and the massive letter-writing campaign that crashed the Downing Street servers, and LGBT+ MPs from all parties getting together the complain to Bozo. Maybe it was because the LibDems introduced two bills addressing non-binary rights issues today (one on passports, the other on school uniforms). And maybe it was because Bozo got a letter from a group of media companies, including Disney, the Financial Times, Warner Media, Discovery and, of course, Diva Media Group (who publish the UK’s leading lesbian magazine) urging him to support trans rights.

You are all doing incredibly well. Thank you! Please keep up the pressure.