Swancon 2017 was just as enjoyable as previous years. I was only on two panels - the focus was not, for the most part, on writers and writing, but that meant there were many enjoyable talks and panels on topics as diverse as Wayfinding by the Stars and Should Women be Freemasons? My favourite, I think, was a talk by Guest-of-Honour Sean Williams on his time in Antarctica!

My two panels were  Writing: from Idea to Page (with Glenda Larke, Luke Kendall and Meg Caddy) and Publishing: Where to Begin? (with Amanda Bridgeman, Glenda Larke, Luke Kendall and Heidi Kneale). All my fellow panelists are practised and published authors, several having many works under their belts.

The incredibly gifted Cat Sparks took a great many photos, as did several other camera enthusiasts. Most of the ones below are Cat's work. Cat also launched her first novel, Lotus Blue - but it sold out before I could grab a copy! I did buy lots of other books, though, including Meg Caddy's Waer and Luke Kendal's Wild Thing.

Two awards were on the program - the nation-wide Aurealis Awards and Perth's 'Tin Ducks'.  In the pic below you will see Glenda Larke with her award, which is definitely a Swan, not a Duck! She won it for 'Best Long Written Work'. I was invited to present two of the Aurealis awards - Best Fantasy Novella and Best Fantasy Short Story. You can find a full list of Aurealis winners at https://aurealisawards.org/

Glenda's  lovely Tin Duck!

Luke Kendall, Glenda Larke, Satima Flavell and Meg Caddy

Me trying to look glam, Juliet Marillier succeeding!

Three elegant ladies: Juliet Marillier and Glenda Larke with Guest-of-Honour, long-standing fan Davina Watson

Terri Sellen shares a joke with Yours Truly. (No, I don't think that's a  real sword...) Hurrah - fellow fan  Grant Watson has put the Tin Duck winners up on Facebook, so I've copied them and here they are! Best WA Long Written Work: Fall of the Dagger, Glenda Larke (See pic above) Best WA Short Written Work: To Take Into the Air my Quiet Breath, Stephanie Gunn Best WA Production: Australian SF Snapshot project   Best WA Artwork: A Matter of Scale, Alicia Smith Marg Hughes Award: Samara Morgan All over until next year! Now I'm starting to feel post-con blue-ish!

This Easter, as usual, I am attending Swancon, WA's annual speculative fiction convention. Great guests-of-honour, including, inter alios, Traci Harding, Sean Williams, Alan Baxter, and Davina Watson. I'm not on any panels for the first two days, so I'm free to roam into other panels, go the restaurant for coffee, or to visit the Traders' Room to buy BOOKS!

I'll come back to this post later, and meantime, you might like to betake yourselves to Swancon 42's Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/swancon 

Or go to their website:
https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/swancon/en/swancon2017 

I'll get back to you later with a proper report and news of all the new BOOKS! (I won't mention the state of my credit card, though, after buying all those BOOKS!)

Did I mention that I like new BOOKS?

No further word on the publishing front. Not being very techie myself, I have to rely on others to get the books back on the market and of course that means waiting until they have time to do the job.

Meantime, I continue with other activities. Keeping fit is my main priority, given that I am now seventy-four years old. I still teach my adult class in Theatrical Dance on Mondays, and most other days I go out to attend Yoga, Bellydance or Keep Fit classes. And, of course, the usual problems of old age demand fairly frequent visits to a medical doctor, chiropractor, dentist or one hospital department or another. I hardly ever seem to be at home for more than a few hours at a time, at least in the daytime. So - nothing to report on the writing front. I'm having trouble finding an ending for the novella that follows The Cloak of Challiver, and the proposed final volume, The Seer of Syland, exists only in my head.


Anticipation keeps me optimistic. Next month comes Easter, and with it, Swancon, Western Australia's speculative fiction convention. It's always enjoyable for many reasons, not the least of which is the opportunity to catch up with fellow writers and fans. I've been asked to sit on two panels on writing and publishing, in company with several other authors, mostly better known than I am. If you're in Perth, Western Australia, do consider attending the convention. Further details - cost, venue etc - can be found  at https://2017.swancon.com.au/

The guest of honour list is like a who's who of spec-fic, including Sean Williams (right) one of our best-known and loved SF writers. And the draft program will make your mouths water!

As you know, I was bitterly disappointed when Satalyte shut up shop as it might have meant the end of my admittedly short career as a published author. However, my friend the Dragon is in the process of publishing The Dagger of Dresnia under his own label, and hopefully The Cloak of Challiver will soon follow.

I have purchased the remaining copies of The Dagger of Dresnia from Satalyte Publishing, and I'm happy to sell them for $AU25 per copy, including postage within Australia. Or, if you prefer e-copy, the Dragon will be offering that format for sale shortly. If you want to buy a copy from me, you can always find me on Facebook!

I have just uploaded a new 'page'. It's a genealogy paper I wrote a couple of decades back on the FLAVELL (et var) surname.

It's quite a long paper, and I know it won't interest many people, but I'd like to make sure it's available for other FLAVELL researchers to access. In one incarnation or another, it is already up on a couple of different websites, but I thought it might be a good idea to have it here as a backup. It's OK to quote from it, but please do the right thing and list the source in your appendices.