Donna Maree Hanson, Author and PhD Candidate

This blog post is also delayed. No excuses this time.

This will be a short post because I hung out in the dealers’ room promoting Conflux 9 (the 52^nd Australian National Science Fiction Convention) in April next year. Link here. So I didn’t get to many panels (1.5 I think) so I can’t rave about how fantastic they were.

What I can report is that it went off swimmingly. The atmosphere was lovely and supportive and there were more people that I thought were coming.

I’d been helping out with payments in the lead up to Conflux 8, but the sheer luck of having the eftpos machine. The workshops were selling like hotcakes and so were memberships. So by helping out a little bit, I got an invite to the night before dinner with the committee and guests. We went to Sammys and that was awesome.

I met Tor Roxburgh at dinner, and she was great to talk to. She had been previously published in the young adult area many years ago. Took a break from writing and is now writing fantasy. Apparently, her agent doesn’t do fantasy so she went down the self-publishing route. I was very pleased to make Tor’s acquaintance. I got to say a quick hello to Keri Arthur, Traci O’Hara, Kaaron Warren and Dawn Meredith.

The interesting thing about Conflux 8 was that there was a lunch on the Saturday, included in the cost of the membership. It was a great idea and there was plenty of food and the theme was 1950s. There was a prize for the best 1950s get up and the best Hawaiian shirt. So all day I wore my lovely 50s dress and I’d made a little fascinator/hat thing with a veil. I don’t have a photo. Pooh! If someone has a shot, please let me know.

Kaaron Warren and I were the only ones to dress up. We tied for the prize. She wore her amazing pineapple dress she bought in a market in Nadi, Fiji. I was there. I saw her. She was very clever and told a story about the dress. Me…nah my head was empty.

At lunch I got to sit with Ingrid Jonach, who is soon to be published with Strange Chemistry. We had a long chat about her book, about books and about the convention. Fab Oh!

In the dealers’ room I had been tasked with supervising the decoration of Dalek cookies. This was fun and wiled away the time a bit. I got to mix with people. Pressure them into decorating cookies!

Here are some shots.

There is Yaritji in the purple scarf having a go at decorating the cookies.

One of the decorated cookies

I even have a shot with Nicole, who had the munchies, I think.

Nicole Murphy with her fire spitting cookie

Even the big Keith Stevenson got into the dalek action.

Keith Stevenson with the icing in his hand

On Saturday night I went to the book launches. I dressed in my jeans and t-shirt by then. I think there were five books launched, Craig Cormick’s, Greg Mellor, Jodi Cleghorn’s anthology, Gillian Polack’s and Tor Roxburgh. (I don’t think I left anyone out). That was a hoot. Jack Dann worked hard launching those books.

I got to hang with Keri Arthur, Janeen Webb and Kaaron Warren at the launch. Then we nicked down the pub for steak and chips.

Let’s see if this works.  Photo by Cat Sparx here.

Sunday I was in my Victorian gear to promote Conflux 9 and my ol’ time fav event, the steam punk themed high tea. This time Cat Sparks did manage to get a shot of me in it. I was wearing my new hat.

Let me see if I can link to Cat’s photo of me. Here.

I talked to people, got a few people to sign up to the high tea, chatting with KJ Taylor (as she was author in residence) and she talked to me about her latest idea and read a bit from her notebook. It was a fantastic idea and I can’t wait to read that one. I also caught up with Adam Browne, who also launched a book.

My steampunk themed cake was on display all weekend. It was getting photos taken.

Here is one or two here.

This is Katie Taylor checking whether her pocket watch matches the time on the cake.

Katy Taylor with the steampunk cake

I caught up with Keri Arthur and Cora Wright for lunch. We also dead dogged together. Keri is a very generous person. She shares her experience and gives advice and encouragement.

Here is a close up of my cake.

The cake

I managed to get into a panel session on indie publishing. Keri Arthur talked about her hybrid model. She is traditionally published but is also going to self-publish through her agent. The other panel I half got to was the one on point of view, but I got pulled out to attend to closing ceremony business.

At the closing ceremony there was more Jack Dann excellent shtick and Jack auctioned of my steampunk cake. I was hoping to raise some money for Conflux 9 and not bring the cake home to eat. Anyway, the lovely and excellent, Craig Cormick bought the cake for $100 on the condition that all the members of the con ate it. (Craig can’t eat cake himself) so it was cut up etc. Bloody amazing man. I hope we can lure Craig to more conventions because he is good value and way to clever and talented.

So that was my convention. I caught up with friends, Kimberley Gaal, Nicole Murphy (ok she lives up the road). Actually I spilled my tea all over her. Oops!

Here is a great shot of Kimberley in a hat borrowed from Lewis Morley.

Now for those photos from Cat Sparx try here.

Kimberley Gaal