What a day!
Being my first ever con, I was a little apprehensive however I soon got into the swing of things. Here are some quick comments in point form for clarity:
Professionally run – took 5 minutes to register, staff are all volunteers too.
Melbourne Convention Centre is an amazing venue – easy to find via public transport. Comfortable chairs, well laid out, got lost (I know how lame) a few times trying to find room xyz.
People – Diverse crowd, a few unusual outfits. Plenty of interesting people across fans (Sci Fi and Fantasy) – people selling, buying, listening, talking – all sorts of activity and late night party invites. I met someone for lunch, another Melbourne based writer and we chatted away.
Dealer Room – Too many great books. If you like Sci Fi and or Fantasy, this room is evil… Every bookstand had 20, 30 or maybe 40 plus books I could have purchased on the spot. Staff on the stores are very friendly too.
Food – not much onsite, just coffee’s and cakes. Right next door in the Hilton hotel and next / under that is DFO with a decent size food court. Yay Subway!
Sessions – Best of all are the sessions. Opportunities to listen to experienced writers, editors and publishers discuss their various experiences and hear their take on current trends (vampires are on the out, btw).
Some of the topics covered; Young Adult book editing & publishing, interpretations of the TV show Lost, Orphans in books, writing across genre’s, a chat between two industry legends Robert Silverberg and Kim Stanley Robinson.
I mentioned in previous posts that I regularly listen to podcasts. One of my favourites is
I Should Be Writing by the talented Mur Lafferty. Mur is a published author who has been podcasting for 5 years. I am grateful for her time today as she skipped almost an entire session just to speak with me. Wow, this blew me away!
I made the most of it. Poor Mur suffered a detailed info dump on my two novels. Hey, I had a few specific questions and I made the most of the opportunity. She is here with her husband and daughter and loving the trip. If you read this Mur, thank you very much!
I’m a little tired to go into it all in detail, suffice to say the content was excellent. In fact it exceeded my expectations and everyone I met was positive and genuinely helpful as I seem to have a lot of writing questions of late.
Here are some pictures from today. A few are average as I’m no photographer.
More to come when I cover Sunday’s sessions, I can’t wait 
All sorts of different things, make your own light saber – how cool is that?
Glad you enjoyed yourself. Happy Father’s Day! 😛