Husky Galore

The first thing I did on Friday, after breakfast, was attend the panel on Your First Convention, or how to stay happy and healthy throughout the con and how to behave around fursuiters, ably accompanied in pantomime by a blue dragon. We all nodded seriously at the importance of six hours' sleep, two meals and one shower as a daily minimum, then sallied forth to enjoy our con. I sat outside for a while, took the advice received on the first-timers' panel and introduced myself to some strangers, then headed in to attend MOAR PANELS.

There were panels for all tastes, some closely related to furry and some more general; some focusing on art, some on fursuits, some on subjects relevant to the Middle Ages theme, like sparring and chain mail making. I was mostly interested in the writing track, and with top furry author Kyell Gold as one of the Guests of Honour, this was well-represented.

Ultrafox was up first, speaking on the 'Craft of the Story' with lots of pop culture references. Soon after his talk finished, it was my turn with 'Writing for Anthologies'. I had an audience of about a dozen, at least half of whom were buddies who'd promised to come, which meant a friendly and receptive crowd.

Next on the agenda was 'Meet the Guests of Honour', a Q&A with kyellgold and Gabapple. Gab, a.k.a. Melissa Douglas, draws adorable kittehs and is an all-round excellent person. During the course of the session she revealed that she works in web dev but really wants to write children's books, hates spiders, and loves orange. I found her afterwards and declared that we had been Separated At Birth.

Kyell Gold gave a tantalising reading from an upcoming publication, after which I escaped into the sunshine to sit drinking, watching the passing suiters, and chatting to chapcalledjules (a longtime lurker on these pages, apparently - hi there!). We moved on to the Banner Brawl, in which two teams of artists compete to create the most pleasing giant canvas with subjects pulled from a hat and drawn in two-minute slots: Furry Steve McQueen on a motorcycle! The undead hordes! A badger in drag! Now make everyone in the picture drunk!

Just before 8 I tiptoed out to discharge the last of my obligations for the con by reading an extract from my Hot Dish story. This was a joint effort with kandrel, and it seemed to me that the contrast of our very different stories (my domestic rom-com versus his sci-fi), not to mention our very different accents, worked well. I hope there will be further joint projects!

When that was over, Ultrafox and I went for a very welcome swim and chillout in the hotel pool. Ultra had been invited to a room party, and I tagged along so that I too could be one of the cool kids. The party suite turned out to contain many of my favourite furs plus some delightful new people, and I met another long-serving LJ friend, jessie_pup, who was even lovelier than anticipated.

The day was such a feast of things to do that I didn't have time for lunch, grazing on crackers instead, and managed to miss dinner too. Luckily I'd had enough breakfast for that to count as my two meals.