Well, maybe not really sad. Kind of happy sad. It was a wonderful con and there is so much to blog I don't know where to start. I think maybe I need a night's sleep first. Suffice it to say that I've been going to Swancon since 2003 or thereabouts and this was the best one yet. Perhaps that's at least in part because I know more people now. The con-going community is like one huge extended family, with some cousins you know well and feel at ease with, others you like but aren't too sure of and still others who are friends you just don't know yet. This year I caught up with loads of old friends and colleagues and made some new acquaintances. Some of those I already "knew" from Facebook and the blog round and some were introduced to me at the con. Tomorrow I'll look up all their blogs or web pages and make links.

You'll be glad to know the two panels I was involved with went OK, and I emerged unscathed. One was entitled "Girl Meets Boy: Romance in Fantasy". I felt really honoured to be on the dais with Glenda Larke and Juliet Marillier, to say nothing of fellow fan Ju Landeesse who is a much more experienced con-goer than I. Glenda Larke has a photo of this panel up on her blog. (See link up left, under my photo.) Juliet is holding forth (very knowledgeably, I might add) and I look like a stunned mullett, probably at the realisation of actually being up on a panel beside her. Juliet chaired this panel very skilfully, I thought. It can be hard to keep panels on track as some enthusiasts from the audience tend to get excited and throw in comments with wild abandon, sometimes to the point of being quite disruptive. Not on this panel, though: everyone was very well-behaved:-) We each nominated our favourite romances in Fantasy, and there was a surprising degree of agreement. We three older women loved Jacqueline Carey and Guy Gavriel Kay, although Ju, perhaps because she is younger and has different tastes, selected works by Anne Bishop, Louise McMaster Bujold and Scott Westerfield as her faves.

The other panel I was on was called "Critiquing: how much is too much" and here again Juliet was a great chair. The other panellists were Lee Battersby, Robert Hoge and Cat Sparks. I forgot to get anyone to take pix of that one, darnit. Just be assured we were all confident, well prepared and extremely knowledgeable. Well, the others were, anyway:-) We all agreed, I think, that crit groups can be useful provided the members all have the same aims (it's no good putting occasional writers in with intending professionals) and are willing and able to critique each other's work in an open-minded and open-hearted manner. Everyone, it seemed, had some experience of being in groups that just weren't working for them, and we all agreed that it's best to move on when that happens.

I'll come back tomorrow with lots of links and a bit about the panels and talks I liked best. But right now I really must go to bed!