Octocon is the Irish National Science Fiction convention, in some ways the Irish equivalent of Eastercon, albeit run by the same committee each year in the same city, Dublin. I’d never been before, but I had been (many, many years ago) to Irish gaming conventions like Dublin’s Gaelcon and Cork’s Warpcon, which I enjoyed hugely,…

I wasn’t originally planning on attending this year’s Discworld Convention (the first since 2018, after 2020 was first postponed and then cancelled). But then Mike, who runs the trade hall contacted me asking if I would be interested in having a stand in the trade hall and appearing on a panel. It took a little…