We’re off to Eastercon in Birmingam.
| Happy April to all our members and email subscribers! Welcome to this month’s newsletter from Levitation, the 2024 Eastercon. |
Ramadan Mubarak, Happy Mahavir Jyanti, Chag Sameach, Happy Easter and a Happy Vaisakhi! Like many of you, we are packing our bags for Conversation 2023, perusing the programme and getting excited about seeing so many of our closest friends. We are particularly delighted that our head of programme, author Kari Sperring will be one of the guests of honour this week. Kari’s most recent book is The Book of Gaheris, available from Newcon Press. The other Conversation Guests of Honour are the fascinating Zen Cho, Niall Harrison, Jennell Jaquays, Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Ursula Vernon. If you haven’t bought a membership for Conversation, there is still time. Levitation can be found in the Dealers’ Hall as usual, where you can ask us about our plans for next year, any concerns you have, and give us your good ideas.If you have children aged 4+ with you, please drop by to collect a goodie bag for them.We will also be presenting an update on the convention at the Eastercon Business Meeting on Sunday where we will be introducing the first of our virtual guests. |
| Dealers News We’ve made one big change to the joining experience. If you want a Dealer’s table you can now purchase a Dealer membership through the website: this includes your first table and we will invoice you only for any additional tables. You do still need to fill in the form (below) to tell us who you are and what you want to sell– a concession price is available as usual. On our website: For the past month we’ve been updating our website, and the following forms are now available: Dealers Art Show Bursary Applications Volunteering Advertising Launch requests There are also links to our policies: please note that these may change (particularly the Covid policy) as circumstances require. We’ve also started a FAQ page. As questions come in, we will respond both to the individual directly, and add the answer here. There is no such thing as a stupid question, and often your questions can remind us of things we’ve forgotten, so please do make use of it. Accessibility news: With the support of Dublin Worldcon 2019, we are able to offer free scooter (mobi) use at the convention (and the local area). If this was not yet available when you bought your membership please contact <access@eastercon2024.co.uk> Levitation Programming Programming brainstorming has begun. If you have ideas or want to volunteer a talk or workshop, you can find the form here. We are planning two virtual tracks as well as streamed content, so please do make suggestions for virtual events. Thursday night event at Southwater library.We are partnering with the Southwater Library to stage an event for locals. If you are a (relatively) local author and would like to be part of this, please contact Farah Mendlesohn Website |
| News from our Guests of Honour Jackie Burns is a member, and Fellow, of the International Association for Astronomical Artists (IAAA). Just before Christmas she took up the post of UK and European Lead of S.T.E.A.M on behalf of the IAAA. She is also currently working on a huge public project with research teams from the universities of Edinburgh, Manchester, and Southampton – an exhibit on Raman Spectroscopy, focusing on cancer research and Mars Rovers, that will feature in this years’ Summer Exhibition of the Royal Society in London. She will be providing all the art and digital visuals for the research team and will also be painting live throughout the summer exhibition itself. Genevieve Cogman’s biggest upcoming news is the release of her new book SCARLET (the first in the Scarlet Revolution trilogy), scheduled for release on the 11th May – details here. Michelle Sagara has finished and submitted SHARDS OF GLASS (new Sagara novel for Mira), due out in November. She has also finished the Patreon novel HUNTER’S REDOUBT, publication date is to be confirmed.Tade Thompson has a new story, ‘The Sweet in the Empty’ in the March/April Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy. |