Download and enjoy to find out more about what’s happening this year at Conflux.

Thank you!

9am to 9.30am – Welcome, introduction and Conflux generally.

9.30 to 10.30am Liz Argall

10.30 to 11.30am Gillian Polack

11.30 to 12.30pm Richard Harland

12.30 to 1.30pm Jim Minz (10.30pm Saturday US time)

1.30 to 2.30pm Maxine McArthur

2.30 to 3.30pm Bruce R Gillespie

3.30 to 4.30pm Cat Sparks

4.30 to 5pm – Closure Gillian Polack and Stuart Herring

Of course, there will be other interesting forum.  We do hope that you will join us!

 

 

2) This Saturday night we’re holding a fundraising dinner for Conflux. For $12 you’ll get three courses – nibbles and soup for starters, then casseroles, followed by apple pie and icecream for desert. It’s at 6pm at St John’s Church hall in Reid (that’s in Canberra). To book call 62918009 (we need bookings for catering purposes). All the money is going towards the convention. Hope to see a whole lot of you there. 

3) The workshops are now open for bookings. Go to www.conflux.org.au/2008/workshops.shmtl and check out what you want to do, then email workshops@conflux.org.au to make a booking. Two of the workshops will cost extra on top of your membership, the rest are free for members. Spaces are limited, so make sure you get in early.

4) Look out for panel announcements soon. We’re close to developing a list of panels that we’ll then try to match to panellists. If you know you’ll be attending Conflux and want to be on a panel but haven’t sent in a membership form yet, email programme@conflux.org.au and let us know.

Justine Larbalestier leads us into the biggest issue of the month – parallel imports of books. She also comments on the writing life.
See also Talking Squid for comments.

The Great Goosle Controversy

Reviews of Margo Lanagan’s The Goosle and their accuracy and/or niceness were an important topic this month. For instance, here’s Paul Abbamondi, over at MyLifeComics. Here’s one of several thoughts by Margo on the subject.

Ben Payne gets into the debate on Margo Lanagan’s The Goosle

Gen Con Oz

Marianne de Pierres reports on Gen Con Oz.

Stephen has been to Gencon Oz “the best four days in gaming”. He spoke on several panels during the convention.

Aurealis Awards

Ben Payne shares his thoughts on the changes to the Aurealis Awards as does Ben Peek (who is definitely not the same person as Ben Payne) Then in response to some lively discussion, Ben Peek talks about the value of the AAs and their role in supporting small press More on the Aurealis Awards, based on a review of them by an English critic, first Ben Peek then Ben Payne.

Jonathan Strahan blogged about the rule changes for the Aurealis Awards.

Alisa Krasnostein also weighed in on the Aurealis Awards rule changes here, here and here:

The writing life

Sharyn Lilley blogged about anonymity and mood swings during writing.

Ben Payne talked about the controversy surrounding the lack of women in Jonathan Strahan’s Eclipse Two .

Ben Payne talked about the need for affirmative action in publishing.

Tehani Wessely finds a cartoon that makes a good point about reviewing.

Simon Haynes challenges the idea of starting the story with a bang.
Glenda Larke on the effect on authors of Amazon’s new plans. Amazon sanctions against authors…

Cat Sparks posted a photographic self-portrait of a semi-clad writer seated at a typewriter.

Jenny Fallon on new novels that are set in a new world, or that use the same world as in previous novels.

VoyagerOnline interviews Jack Dann.

Traci Harding completes a series on how to finish a manuscript.

Jennifer Fallon is inspired.

Justine Larbalestier writes on rejection She also covers “Bad Writing Days”

Daikaiju

Robert Hood gives us his thoughts about the essentials of Daikaiju. And for those into large Japanese monsters this is definitely the place to be because Mr. Hood is prolific on the subject.

Horror

Robert Hood did an interview on his Undead Backbrain website with James Doig about two horror anthologies that Doig has recently published. The two anthologies contain horror short stories by Australian authors from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century.

Children’s teeth – yikes! Enough to put your teeth on edge! No wonder The Tooth Fairy in Pratchett’s books was so creepy. Bet most people didn’t know Kaaron keeps … a box of little teeth at her house.

Interview with Tehani Wessely
More in Mark Deniz’ interview series this month.

Conflux Convention in Canberra 3-6 October 2008
Nicole has been busy with the Conflux program and the Virtual Minicon. Her blog has many interesting details about the program and an outline for the Conflux Virtual Minicon.

Sean Williams also anticipates the Conflux Virtual Minicon.

Gillian Polack provided updatery on Conflux and on food:

on the Conflux banquet;
on the Conflux minicon;
on short story writing and also and judging.

As a heads up, the overall look of the convention will be something like this:

Friday: nine workshops, three at a time, taking place at 9am, 12pm and 3pm, followed by opening ceremony around 7.30pm and a cocktail party. Dealers room will be open during this day, and art show possibly as well. All of this at the hotel

Saturday: three streams of panels, a stream of author readings and kaffee klatches, creative corner in the art show with some artists working there, mass book signing in the late afternoon, Prohibition era New York dinner in the evening.

Sunday: again, three streams of panels, a stream of author readings and kaffee klatches, creative corner in the art show, in the evening there will be a speak easy for some low key entertainment.

Monday: in the morning panels and author readings and kaffee klatches, in the afternoon workshops and closing ceremony and dead dog party.

While nothing’s set in stone, I’d be surprised if it varies from that too wildly. So let us know your thoughts. programme@conflux.org.au

Blogs
Nicole Murphy
Gillian Polack: 1, 2, 3, 4, Banquet
Russell Kirkpatrick: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Errantry, Rachel, Cat Sparx, K. S. Nikakis, Keri Arthur, Rob Hood, David Cake, Emma, Amanda Pillar, Phil Berrie, Karen Miller, Chris Barnes, Ross Temple

Photos
Cat Sparx -Photos of most of the con
Trudi Canavan – Photos from the Banquet

Nicole R Murphy

President, Conflux Incorporated

I’m going to put a list of all the places and people that blog about Conflux later, but for now you can see my report at http://tillianion.livejournal.com/ and see pics courtesy of Cat Sparks at http://flickr.com/photos/42956650@N00/sets/72157602226509932/

Graham’s a very easy to chat to person – has a great understanding and love of cons, so he’s more than ready to get involved and party on. So those of you coming to Conflux are sure to have a great time with Graham.

In terms of the convetion all is done, apart from the odd little tweak here and there. I actually had the time to take a nap this afternoon – thank goodness, I was absolutely exhausted.

Tomorrow, more guests arrive – Kaaron Warren, Simon Brown and Jonathan Strahan. We have the first official event – a dinner at the yacht club. The final guests – Garth Nix, Kevin J Anderson and Rebecca Moesta – arrive Friday morning. By then, we’ll be well and truly off and running.

It’s very exciting – I’m sure everyone’s going to have a great time. If you haven’t seen the timetable yet, go to www.conflux.org.au/2007/programme.shtml There’s been a couple of small adjustments since then, but overall you can see how cool it’s going to be.

Go Conflux!

• Beach balls and strobes – cheap but effective special effects.
• Moving on from mobiles – where to next for technology?
• Levels 1 to 10 – the role of gaming in developing the genre
• Scrolling through the story – past, present and future of webpublishing
• Urban versus paranormal – which romance is which?
• Telling the future – how divination really works.

Kevin J Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, Graham Joyce, Jonathan Strahan, Simon Brown, Garth Nix, Kaaron Warren, Donna Maree Hanson, Sean Williams, Trudi Canavan, Karen Miller, Richard Harland, Russell Kirkpatrick, Jack Dann, Maxine McArthur, Melaina Faranda, KS Nikakis, Cat Sparks, Rob Hood, Keri Arthur, Jason Nahrung, Anita Bell, Jane Routley, KJ Taylor, Michelle Marquardt

Note that you can only bring a maximum of three books for any one author, although you can bring books for more than one author.

In the past couple of weeks, the souvenir book has been finalised, tshirts have been printed and bookings have started coming in for the workshops.

Next weekend, the timetable for the convention will be available and members who said they were interested in being involved with panels will be told what they’re doing. In other words, its getting close and we’re getting pretty organised.

If you know you’re going to be at the convention, but you haven’t got your membership yet, let me know at chair@conflux.org.au so I can consider you for panels as well.  And if you want to come to regency gothic banquet, make sure you book your tickets – bookings close Sunday September 23.

 

Note that the workshops are only open for members at the moment. 

 

It was loads of fun – there was insight and inspiration, as you normally find at a con, and socialisation and fun as well. We found out some secrets, got some scoops and had a terrific time.

Go have a look (www.conflux.org.au/forum) and don’t forget, the real con itself will be even funner! 

* Our guests are all booked and ready to fly/drive into town – Graham Joyce, Kevin J Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, Jonathan Strahan, Garth Nix, Simon Brown, Kaaron Warren and Donna Maree Hanson are all looking forward to meeting you all

* Regency Gothic Banquet – the menu has been presented to the hotel and we’re just waiting on the final say-so, but the chef is really excited about it. It’s the same team that put together the much-lauded medieval feast last year, so it’s going to be great.

* Film festival – Rob Hood has been pulling together some fantastic films, and information about one of the features we’ll be showing is now available on the website.

* Podcasting – Joffre Street Productions are coming up from Tasmania to podcast the panels at the convention, and they’ll be available on the website following the convention.

* Dealers room – we’ve had some bookings, it’s going to be a finite space so if you want to be part of the fun, best get in as soon as possible.

* Workshops – it looks like we’re going to have 13 workshops, most of them free for members, covering a whole range of things.

* Panel program – we’re working hard to ensure that we cover as many things as people suggest as we can, keeping to the theme of Heroes from Near and Afar.

And we’re working on other aspects – art display, other social events, souvenir book, tshirts and lots of fun.

So, do you have your membership yet?

It’s $50 a head, and final bookings must be in by next Thursday. So email chair @conflux.org.au (without the gap, of course)

Featuring:

• Garth Nix
• Simon Brown
• Jonathan Strahan
• Kaaron Warren
• Donna Maree Hanson
• Fiona McIntosh
• Richard Harland
• Karen Miller
• Maxine McArthur
• Chris Barnes
• Gillian Polack
• Fiona McLellan
• Anita Bell
• Keith Stevenson
• Melaina Faranda
• Nicole R Murphy

Each hour, a new person will appear in the forums at www.conflux.org.au. You can get online, have a chat, find out more about some of the people who will be appearing at Conflux 4. The vitual mini-con will be free for anyone interested in coming along. There will also be a forum set aside as a con lounge, for people to drop in and chat to whoever happens to be there. There could also be lucky door prizes (yes, here at Conflux, we aren’t above bribery).

For more information and the timetable, check the website, www.conflux.org.au, in the week before the mini-con. Hope to see you all there.

We had 16 people there, including con guest Donna Maree Hanson. The special guest on the night, however, was horror writer Rob Hood, who gave us two presentations.

The first was information on the true history of Canberra. Did you know that Canberra was a prehistoric outhouse, and the home of the world’s largest dung beetle? As to where the dung is now, well, Parliament House is built on a hill… It was very entertaining and the artwork that accompanied it was terrific.

In his second chat, Rob talked about what horror was. It was an interesting and interactive discussion of the genre and whether it actually exists. Everyone present really enjoyed it.

There were lucky door prizes and lots of chatting and laughter and drinking. All in all, a terrific night.

The next planned Conflux 4 event is a Christmas In July function. Keep your eye peeled for more information. 

 

 

Rydges and Conflux have come to an understanding, and you’ll soon have the official price of hotel rooms. Rydges is currently undergoing an upgrade (including new beds) so the hotel will be extremely comfortable, and still terrific value. Expect a price of around $159 a night, including two breakfasts.

Rydges are doing up a website so you can book online, as well as by calling. Note that this time of the year is extremely busy in Canberra – it’s the time of Floriade, the huge flower festival. Rydges happens to be the closest hotel to Floriade, so it’s a popular place to stay. In other words, there’ll be a limit to how long they’ll hold the rooms at the special price for us. So to make sure you don’t miss out, get in quick!

We’re really excited to be having the entire con at Rydges, and they’re really looking forward to having Conflux again, so we know they’ll be really great in helping us put on a terrific con.

We’re really excited to have Rebecca and Kevin coming along. Conflux is definitely the place to be at the end of September.

We’re ready to throw ourselves into the organising of the con. In particular, work on the Regency Banquet is moving apace, with recipes being tested left, right and centre. If you’re interested in testing recipes, go to www.foodpast.com and have a chat to Conflux’s very own historian and culinary genius Gillian Polack. If, like me, your thoughts have already turned to your costume, look out for some links to some great sites, coming soon to the Conflux website.

 The first progress report will be out later in the month, and it’s going to be a great read, with information, interviews and more. Make sure you don’t miss it. It will go up on the website in February.

And look out soon for announcements on the film festival and art show. Yep, Conflux will be the place to be in 2007.

 Have a great year!

Nicole

The short story competition opens on January 1 and closes January 31. 2000 words of spec fic on the theme of Heroes from Near or Afar. More info at the website www.conflux.org.au

Prices go up on January 1. You’ve got until then to get a membership at just $110.

We now have an extra guest: Sharyn November, YA editor from America. She joins the already announced guests Graham Joyce, Garth Nix, Simon Brown, Kaaron Warren and Donna Maree Hanson.

Work has commenced on the program – some of the workshops are being advertised on the website, and expect to hear more about panels soon.

People have started testing recipes for the Regency Gothic banquet. What we’ve discovered already is that it won’t be a light meal. You probably won’t need to eat the next day

That’s it in general, but we’re excited about it, it’s all coming together nicely.

Nicole

Welcome to Conflux, The Blog! This will be the most immediate way to keep up to date with the organisation of Conflux 4. The organising committee will post news, thoughts, questions and so on. We really want everyone to participate. We’re putting Conflux on so you’ll all have fun so tell us what you want.

A little about me. I’m the chair, Nicole R Murphy. I’m a writer, an editor and a fan. I’m a sucker for an epic fantasy and love a really tigh, well created short. My favourite authors include JRR Tolkien, Terry Pratchett, Sara Douglass, Jennifer Fallon, Sean Williams, Maxine Mcarthur and Kaaron Warren. I was a member of Andromeda Spaceways and edited Issue 25. I’m a member of the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild (CSFG) and edited the 2006 anthology The Outcast. I’ve been lucky enough to be published a few times – stories in Machinations, Elsewhere and Orb Speculative Fiction, among others.

 My vision for Conflux 4 is a fun, friendly con, where people learn a lot, get inspired, and also have the time to spend with friends and meet new people. Like my first con experience, which was the first Conflux in 2004. There will be two panel streams, and a stream of workshops, along with kaffee klatches and Author readings. There will be social events too – the masquerade, a regency gothic banquet and other things going on.

So keep coming back to the blog to keep up to date with what’s happening!

Nicole R Murphy

Chair, Conflux 4

www.conflux.org.au