A Fantastic Legacy

[steepholm]

It just occurred to me that I forgot to put anything here about the Diana Wynne Jones conference I went to in Newcastle last weekend. I think I was hoping that someone else would do a nice juicy write-up that I could link to, but that doesn't seem to have happened, so suffice it to say that I had a great time. Ursula Jones and Nick Tucker both gave very interesting talks on the first day, with Nick drawing on the mores of the time to question whether the treatment DWJ and her sisters received from their parents was quite as bad, or at least as unusual, as one might imagine from her own accounts; while my favourite part of Ursula's speech was a hilarious story of DWJ (then about 9) "disguising" the 5-year-old Ursula as a six-year-old, so that she could get into a party at the local USAF base.

That was all at Seven Stories, but the second day was at the university, and consisted of some really good academic papers. I've put my own keynote online at Academia.edu, complete with typos, for the benefit of posterity and anyone else with nothing better to read.

I normally feel a little lost at conferences, so it was lovely to be one where I knew almost everybody (and everybody knew me). The secret to being a big fish is clearly to find a small enough pond, but the company in this one was excellent.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Another reason why I'd love to get over there some day at this time of year would be to attend that. (And escape the merciless heat here would be soooo nice.)

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I am still planning to post about that, but have been a little distracted by other things - including telling nineweaving and rushthatspeaks about it over tea in Cambridge yesterday.

Thank you for posting your excellent paper.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Meeting you for the first time was one of the treats of the trip!

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

That's very kind! Meeting you was likewise, but the pleasure of meeting you was in part the pleasure of your thought provoking contribution, whereas all I did was turn up!

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Oh, lovely! shewhomust had given me such tantalizing glimpses of your paper, and now I can read it!

Nine

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

And very fine it is!

Nine

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[aryky.livejournal.com]

I don't think I'd ever seen the finalised schedule before - and I almost wish I hadn't looked now, it makes me feel such regret about not having been able to go this time. Anyway, I'm glad that you did have a good time, and, once again, I truly appreciate the small taste of the proceedings you've granted to those who couldn't make it by posting up your own paper.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I wish you had been there too! I do hope there'll be another such event some time reasonably soon - i.e. before 2019!

[aryky.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, having an actual job on a different continent will continue to make it difficult for me to come in the indefinite future, but I can always hope that the timing would be more convenient for me ;-)