Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing

Conflux 9 is done and dusted. It went off very well, a fitting culmination of nearly two years work for Nicole Murphy, me and the committee. A lot of fab people came and enjoyed themselves. Some we were expecting and some who showed up unexpectedly. Like Margo Lanagan!

Big thank you to Karen, Tara and Maddison for manning the rego desk. Actually, Karen told us to bugger off (or words to that effect) so Nicole and I let her go for it. Much less stressful for us.

Before Conflux started we picked up Marc Gascoigne. This is a piccie of Matthew waiting for him.

We took Marc out kangaroo spotting to help him get over his jetlag and then out the next day exploring the countryside around Canberra. We ended up at dinner with Kaaron Warren. Here is a nice shot of them both.

The hotel was great. Rydges Captial Hill excelled in helping the convention run smoothly. I managed to get to a few panel items, Marc Gascoigne’s guest of honour interview, Nalo Hopkinson’s guest of honour interview, Kaaron Warren’s guest talk and half of Karen Miller’s guest of honour talk. This is quite a lot! I also caught Taboo Subjects on Thursday night. Other things I participated in directly were my babies:the steampunk high tea, which went of well. The coffee and tea part could be improved but I think everyone was okay about it and the costumes were great.

Here is a picture of the setting with the steam punk angels that Nicole made.

Here is the high tea food tray, with our steam punk Ninja, Thoraiya Dyer!

and  a picture of Kaaron Warren in her steam punk gear. I don’t have many photos but I got in a couple.

And a begoggled Lily Mulholland.

The pitching sessions, with excellent help from Lily Mulholland  (Time Nazi) and Jane Virgo. These went down very well. The idea was stolen from the Romance Writers of Australia conference and they made great sense. Instead of authors circling the editors and publishers like sharks during a convention on the off chance they might get a chance to meet, and then maybe a chance to talk books, the organised pitching sessions gave people the chance. The feedback on both sides indicates that it went better than planned. Well done you lot.

The next thing was the Regency Banquet, with special guests Earthly Delights. Again Lily came to my assistance, writing out the name cards, helping me coil ribbon around the menus and just being a fab person. The banquet went off very well, with dancing and laughter and I had lots of great feedback on that. We have not mixed dancing with the banquet before but it went off well, better than I anticipated, as much as anyone can anticipate something they have no idea of. I came away sweating, after John made me do the Regency Waltz. I had this terrified, caught in the headlights look in my eye (from my perspective) afraid to put a foot wrong but loving how he explained things and showed me figures and hand holds.

My next baby was the Romance Gauntlet and what a fab time that was. The readings were awesome. Craig Cormick did a bang up job of MCing, cheeky as he is and Valerie Parv did a fantastic job of judging.

Here is a piccie of Rob Porteous, wearing a cod piece, which he did demonstrate to us.

There were also chocolate cupcakes with pink fondant hearts for refreshments.

Then it was downstairs to the Junkyard Cathedral masquerade disco where I was grabbed by Ken Moylan and started dancing until it closed down. The set up for the disco was happening at the same time as the set up and running of the Ditmars. So I was running between floors a bit. Big kudos to Kyla Ward and her fab design and DJs Sean Williams, Dave Cake and Marco Gascoigne.

Kyla wanted a white manniquin, which had to be wrestled to various places. Here is our program guru, panellist wrangler, Maxine McArthur and Co-chair Nicole Murphy getting it on with the body bits.

By the disco, the pressure was easing off as Sunday was a pretty easy slide to closing. I didn’t get a drink in the bar as it had closed on Saturday night but I did get to have some inebriated conversations with the hangers on. I didn’t get to a room party, but I was pretty happy to crash around quarter to two in the morning but had to be up again at seven to get ready for workshops. By this time my feet were numb to my knees and I’d only been eating breakfasts with one lunch over the four days. I hadn’t eaten dinner. Justin Ackroyd and Kaaron Warren sat with me at breakfast on Sunday and Justin mother-henned me about the food (nice man). He was going to have words with Matthew about not getting me to eat. Running the con is so much about adrenalin and running here and there that is very hard to sit down long enough to eat. Breakfast was where I was most relaxed. Except for Sunday where I was dogged tired and feeling queasy.

Sunday I had to get the mannequin out of my room so I asked Lily for help. We giggled alot pretending we were looking for somewhere to stash the body. Nobody is supposed to be sensible on a Sunday, fourth day of running a convention.

(sorry not a good shot. Lily was probably laughing.)

Craig Cormick our wonderful MC, did some amazing screen shots, which I nearly forgot to add. He did dress me up in some weird get up and embarrass the crap out of me and Nicole at the closing ceremony. It was a bit of fun. Nicole organised a collection for my birthday and the congoers gave me a voucher for an underbust corset! Wohoo! And they sang happy birthday. How lovely. I’m technical beyond the age for celebrating birthdays but you know I appreciated it.

So those screen shots. Craig is one funny guy and he went to a lot of work to engage the Conflux 9 mob.

This was just inspired. Hello guests. Look what the MC has done to you.

Then this is what he did to Nicole and me.

By the end of the day my feet were the big players in my life.

Sore feet snazzy shoes.

By then it was pack up time and I went to Realm’s Ostani Bar for afterparty drink ups where I got sozzled and as we went past the hotel we caught Marco, after he’d had dinner and there I proceeded to drunk talk him until he ran from the room. Actually he told me to go home!

There the Dweeb, the lovely Matthew Farrer put me to bed, but woke me up again to give me my birthday present.

A clockwork phoenix.

I can’t name every moment or capture the photos I didn’t take, but I hope those of you that came had a fab time. Thank you to Nicole too, for making this an enjoyable experience and for sharing the load.

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