guests

Hello everyone!

We here at Octocon Towers (and our colleagues beavering away in the OctoCave to find OctoGold™ in order make limited edition foil-embossed collectors' comics) are so very, very excited to be only two weeks away from Octocon 2009!

Just in case there are people out there still not sure what they'll be doing on the 10th and 11th of October (you know who you are!), we thought we'd tease you with a few little things to whet your appetites!

Firstly, in an homage to message boards all across the Internet, we shall have lots of reasoned and interesting discussions, that will ocassionally devolve into lolcats before getting back on topic. Among the panels we have in store, we will have a discussion on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) issues within the genres of speculative fiction, a debate on whether music can really be a storytelling medium, and a question of fans' ownership of the people that create their books, comics, movies and TV shows brought on by this blog post by Neil Gaiman.

Secondly, we'll have many mini-events happening throughout the weekend. There are of course The Golden Blaster Awards, at which we will show you several short films, you get to pick your favourite and just maybe win a prize yourself! But there are also such goings-on as our Saturday night events, at which you shall be entertained like some kind of royalty, and this little thing we like to call...

Returning Octocon guest, Derek Gunn's latest thriller, The Estuary, has been released by Permuted Press.

The Estuary is a fast-paced, horror adventure tale, about a desperate plan formulated in the darkest years of an evil empire, which now threatens to engulf the residents of a small community in Southern Ireland. "I'm delighted that The Estuary is now available from Permuted Press, who are making tremendous strides forward in publishing horror/post-apocalyptic genre fiction.", says Derek.

Derek Gunn is the author of the post-apocalyptic horror saga, Vampire Apocalypse, a series of novels released through US publisher, Black Death Books. The second of the series, Vampire Apocalypse: A World Torn Asunder was launched at Octocon 2008, while the first book, Vampire Apocalypse: Descent into Chaos has been optioned for film by producer/screenwriter Richard Finney. Finney and screenwriter, Franklin Guerrero Jr., recently penned a script based on the book. Derek has promised us much news on the film's progress to be shared at Octocon.

In the second of our interviews with Octocon guests, we talk to the beautiful and charming writer of The Quantum Prophecy. We ask him about his many days of conventioneering, how technology has affected the craft of writing, and we find out why he gives such long answers!

Octocon: Mr. Carroll, thank you for joining us today. You've been coming to Octocon for a few years now... Has the time spent at panels and talking to other authors at cons changed how you write over the years?

Michael Carroll: I'm pretty sure it has, but I don't think I could point to many specific incidents. At least, none that have directly influenced my writing. I've picked up more from reading the works of fellow guests. I try to read at least one book by each guest with whom I'll be sharing a panel (just in case they ask!) even when said guests don't write in the genres I'd normally read. In fact, that's possibly one of the most important lessons about writing: don't just read the genres in which you write - you'll learn a lot more by reading outside your preferred genre.

I can certainly point to some specific incidents that have show me how to behave at convention. Or, rather, how not to behave... For example: Public readings should be kept short - five or six pages at most! One sure way to turn off potential readers is to bore the pants off them at a reading. There was a certain incident - a very long time ago, and not at a convention - in which an author spectacularly failed to entertain a roomful of people by reading from one of her books for a solid hour. I can remember nothing about the book, but I'll never forget how bored I was.