Hello, and welcome to a fantastically overdue P-CON newsletter! We’ve been working away on the con, though, bringing the con website up to date, and keeping in touch with guests. We’ve even been selling a load more memberships, especially at Octocon in Maynooth last October.
Our Guest of Honour, as I mentioned the last few times, is Susanna Clarke, author of the multi-award-winning Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I hardly need to tell you all, I imagine, that it won the 2005 Hugo Award at WorldCon in Scotland last year. We are absolutely thrilled to have her coming along to P-CON this year, a fact only made all the more wonderful because she will be accompanied by her partner, writer Colin Greenland, who has not been seen at a con in Ireland for far too long. You can find Susanna Clarke's Guest Profile here and you can find Colin Greenland's Profile here
We also have Special Comics Guests in the persons of husband and wife Leah Moore and John Reppion. Leah & John are currently writing Albion, which is being published by Wildstorm in the US. This is a relaunch of lots of old UK comics’ characters, like The Steel Claw and Robot Archie, and is meeting with considerable critical acclaim. You can read more about Leah Moore here and more about John Reppion here
However, we have received news that Eugene Byrne will not be able to attend after all, as he is working on the Brunel 200 project, to mark the anniversary of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and has a meeting on the Saturday morning of the con. He’ll be missed, as he was always a good guest, a good panellist, and a good egg all round.
However, a few days later, we had confirmation that Charlie Stross is coming along, accompanied by his lovely wife Feòrag. It’s always a pleasure to have Charlie & Feòrag along, especially as this will be their third time at P-CON, out of three! Read more about Charlie Stross here.
We have lots of other guests at the con, and you can see details of the full guest list, along with the relevant bios, on the cons website.
However, the full guest list now consists of Susanna Clarke, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Ariel, Paul Cornell, Diane Duane, Maggie Furey, George Green, Colin Greenland, James P Hogan, Paul Kearney, Ian McDonald, Juliet E McKenna, Peter Morwood, Leah Moore, John Reppion, John W Sexton, M J Simpson, Charlie Stross, Colin Smythe, Steve Westcott, and the editorial team of Albedo One.
An embarrassment of riches, indeed.
As I write, there’s exactly two months to go the convention, so there’s no time to waste! You can still join up for the con at the old rate of €25 by going to the Join Up page on the con site. If you’re not going to the con, but are feeling particularly generous (and remember that conventions are expensive things to run!), you can also make a donation of €5 to the con on the same page, all through the magic of PayPal. Click here for the Join P-Con Page
In the interests of science, and also to further another project of mine, concerning a website of genre writers’ birthdays, I asked all of the guests what date their birthday fell on. Statistically, the probability of two people having the same birthday in a group starts to exceed 50% once you have a group of 23 people. I asked, as it happens, 23 people for their dates of birth. And, thankfully, science came to my rescue. I can now exclusively reveal (for certain values of the word ‘exclusive’) that Diane Duane and Colin Greenland share the same birthday, on the 17th of May. You can read more about the statistical probabilities of birthdays here or a much more intricate explanation here.
Thanks to everyone I asked for their tolerance of my foolishness!
Pádraig Ó Méalóid, chairman of P-CON, is to retire in March.
Yes, that’s right. That’s me. I’m retiring from con-running after P-CON III in March. I’ve been involved in running cons in Ireland for fifteen years now, and I think it’s time to hang up my con-running boots, and let some younger blood take over. I’ll still be going to as many SF cons in Ireland as I can, and I’ve a load of stuff I want to write, so you won’t have heard the last of me yet.
I can’t leave this, however, without thanking all the people who came to P-CON over the last few years, and especially all the people who came to the cons as guests. Their friendship and support is something I’ll cherish always. Over all the years of doing this kid of thing, I’ve met lots of wonderful people, a lot of whom have become close friends. Sometimes the work was hard, but it was never unrewarding. It’s one of the things in my life I’ve enjoyed doing most, and I’d urge you, if you’ve ever had the urge to step forward to do something like this, to go for it. Getting involved with something, con-running or anything else, is just the most rewarding in the world.
I have been given a few copies of Susanna Clarke’s book by Bloomsbury to give away. So, here’s a competition. To enter, all you have to do is be, or intend to be, an attending member of the con, and be in attendance at the con to claim your prize. Even if you haven’t joined yet, you can still enter. I’ll put all the correct entries into the hat and pull out the winner at the opening ceremony of the con. However, if you’re not there on Saturday morning to collect your prize, I’ll keep pulling names until I find someone who is!
So, to be in with a chance of winning a very nice three-volume boxed
set of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, along with a promotional t-shirt
and poster, answer me this:
Where did Susanna Clarke go to college?
And that’s my lot for today. You’ll hear from me again a few more times before the con!
I look forward to seeing you all in March.
Best wishes,
Pádraig Ó Méalóid
Chairman
P-CON III