As previously announced, I was at Can*Con 2025. See below for the panels I was on and the fellow authors I hung out with.
A Pale Grey Vendor Table
- Actually, it was much more than just those pale and grey, featuring books from many of the highlighted authors above.
- As with Word on the Street, I went into this with safe expectations. Sure, we’d sell a few books, but it’d mostly be about the experience. But, again like Word on the Street, I didn’t aim high enough. We sold well over fifty books, and on day two I completely sold out of copies of Pale Grey Dot. What a problem to have!
- Kudos to Y.M. Pang for organizing this with the Can*Con folks.
Pale Grey Panels
- I was asked to sit on two panels at Can*Con, and both were fantastic.
- The Bond of Brothers: Writing Sibling Relationships, with moderator James Downe, fellow panelist Jen Desmarais, myself, and fellow panelist Amelinda Bérubé.
- We discussed found family, blood relatives vs adoption, the dynamics of children vs adults, the hierarchy based on eldest–as the youngest of three, I had some things to say there..
- Pale Grey Dot features the siblings as adults, so it was interesting to get the YA perspective on things from Amelinda.
- We did not, repeat NOT, discuss romance among siblings, no matter how hard SOME PEOPLE tried to make it happen.
- No Lannister situation here, thank you very much.
- Local Writing Communities & How to Join Them: with Helga R. Paxton, Kim McCarthy, myself, and moderator Charlotte Ashley.
- I could have sworn I had a photo of this panel, but for the life of me I cannot not find it. Thus, enjoy another view of the sibling panelists. Trust me, though, the writing community people also exist.
- The Toronto Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers are not the only game in town. Ottawa and Halifax have their own groups spreading the fantasy and sci-fi gospel, so I enjoyed comparing and contrasting our experiences with theirs. Honestly? Not too different.
- Thinking of ways the TSFF group has helped me (and I’ve hopefully helped them) wasn’t tough.
- How did I get a copy of Pale Grey Dot for display if I sold out on Day 2, you ask? Through the power of stealing it from the Bakka-Phoenix table, of course!
Other Highlights
- Beyond our own squad, we had panels to attend, vendors to explore, games to play, and AirBnB’s to stay at.
