MARK MORRIS

Ah, FantasyCon. I love it so much. I haven't missed a single FantasyCon weekend for over twenty years now, and though the event has evolved over the years, and though various venues and attendees have come and gone, it still remains an annual highlight of my social calendar.

For me, FantasyCon is a celebration. It's a celebration of creativity, of friendship and of life. I've met some of my best friends at FantasyCon, and I've had some of my best times there. I'll never forget meeting Ramsey Campbell for the first time (you can read about that in my introduction to the PS edition of his fantastic novel, The Overnight), or Graham Joyce's 'South o' t'Border' routine at the Midland in Birmingham, or the embarrasingly drunken antics of a certain famous horror writer's wife. Happy, happy memories - far too many to chronicle here - of FantasyCons past.

So, with the dust barely settled, how did this year's event shape up?

Well, in short, it was as fabulous as ever. FantasyCon for me started at around 1:30pm on Friday when I met my old chums, Tim Lebbon and Sarah Pinborough, and a relatively new chum, Lee Harris, for lunch. We descended on local hostelry, The Olde Trip, for a pint and a sandwich and ended up sitting outside as it was such a glorious day. My resolution to take the whole alcohol thing slowly at first, so that I wouldn't peak too early, quickly went out of the window, and by the time we staggered back to the hotel, having somehow acquired various other FantasyConites along the way (including the fabulous Rio Youers, Canadian horror writer and instant mate) we were all several sheets to the wind.

After renewing various acquaintances in the bar (and finally meeting fellow Twitterites, Vincent Holland-Keen and crime writer Steve Mosby in the flesh), a nineteen-strong group of us descended on local Indian restaurant 4550 Miles From Delhi for an excellent pre-arranged banquet, which - all right, I admit it, Conrad - was a bit pricey. As a result, "Thirty quid for a curry?" subsequently became the newly shaven-headed Conrad Williams's catchphrase for the weekend.

After the curry we weaved our way back to the hotel, where the bar was filling up nicely. I had a couple more drinks and thrashed Conrad at pool, but by 11:30pm I was wasted and so decided to call it a night.

Felt great on Saturday, and bounded downstairs to meet Tim Lebbon, Steve Volk, Guy Adams, my old college mate Kev Mullins and Steve's TV producer chum Bill (I never did find out his surname) for breakfast. Eschewing the dubious delights of the hotel restaurant, we headed out to the Wetherspoons down the road, where we all ordered massive fried breakfasts and spent a couple of hours sucking up cholesterol while putting the world to rights.

After Steve Jones's excellent and fascinating interview with guest of honour - and one of my all-time writing heroes, Brian Clemens - the afternoon turned into a whirlwind of launches and book signings. I spent an hour or so sat between old chums and fellow FantasyCon stalwarts, Nick Royle and Jo Fletcher, signing copies of the re-issued The Mammoth Book of Werewolves, which has now cunningly been re-titled The Mammoth Book of Wolf Men to tie in with the forthcoming Hollywood movie, and then a little later, after a 9-book strong launch from the wonderful PS Publishing, I spent another hour sitting between two of the loveliest people I know, Sarah Pinborough and Rob Shearman, signing copies of The British Fantasy Society Yearbook 2009, which contains a story of mine called The Name Game and the now-controversial In Conversation: A Writer's Perspective, edited by James Cooper.

So why, I hear you ask, has In Conversation become controversial? Well, basically because in a book which interviews sixteen horror writers about their working methods and their various approaches to the genre, not one of the contributors is a woman. Admittedly there are far more male horror writers than female horror writers, but this is still a glaring oversight, which (somewhat admirably) the BFS and editor James Cooper himself have acknowledged and apologised for. Perhaps if there is ever a paperback edition of the book, it could be expanded to include additional interviews with the likes of Sarah Pinborough, Sarah Langan, Alexandra Sokoloff, Poppy Z. Brite and Kaaron Warren. I certainly hope so.

The food at the British Fantasy Awards Banquet is notoriously dubious, but this year it trawled the depths. At least, however, the wine and the company was great - and our table proved to contain the largest amount of award winners, with Tim Lebbon scooping the award for Best Novella for his wonderful The Reach of Children (and delivering a very poignant and moving acceptance speech which brought a tear to everyone's eye) and Sarah Pinborough winning Best Short Story for Do You See? from the anthology Myth-Understandings. Rob Shearman's acceptance of the award for Best TV Programme on behalf of Doctor Who made it a hat-trick of wins for our table. We is de man! Or something.

After the awards, in lieu of the interminable and not-much-missed FantasyCon raffle, were a couple of new and welcome innovations. The fantasy equivalent of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue featuring Sarah Pinborough, Julian Simpson, Lee Harris, Jasper Fforde and Guy Adams was suitably hilarious and filthy ('Pumpkin' indeed, Miss P!), and this was followed by a brilliant performance from comedian and magician (and fantasy writer), John Lenahan, a lovely guy who was attending his first - and hopefully not his last - FantasyCon.

And how do you follow two such wondrous entertainments? Why, with a midnight panel about the Apocalypse, of course. I appeared on the said panel with Tim Lebbon, Nick Royle, Conrad Williams, Steve Volk and Simon R. Green. We rocked.

Or rather...we rambled drunkenly for an hour or so and then we shuffled off to the bar. Late-night panels are never a good idea, but I think we did okay. Certainly, one audience member remarked that our panel was the most "entertainingly surreal thing" he'd ever seen. I think he meant it as a compliment.

After a great sleep the night before, Saturday night for me was party night. I stayed in the bar, jabbering to the likes of Gary McMahon, Lee Harris, Rio Youers Torchwood books editor, Steve Tribe, and various other people until well after 4am. Then I headed up to bed and - still not feeling all that sleepy - flopped down with a cup of tea to watch a bit of late-night telly. Ah, what crazy lives we writers lead.

Sunday was a quiet day, a time for reflection, chat and goodbyes. Tim Lebbon, Kev Mullins and I started the day with another gigantic Wetherspoons breakfast, and then Tim and I said cheerio to Kev and headed over to Starbucks to have a meeting about a project we're working on together. After that we mooched back to the hotel and sat around chatting with various people as the bar slowly emptied. I myself headed off around 5:30pm, having discovered that Vinny Chong, who the night before had won the British Fantasy Award for Best Artist, would be on the same train back to York as me (though Vinny would be going on to Newcastle). Having only met Vinny properly that day, he proved to be great company, and we chatted away for the whole journey, about (among other things) books, movies and Hong Kong (which is where Vinny's family come from, and where I spent four years of my childhood). Thanks to Vinny, the journey flew by and I arrived back in York at around 9:30pm, shattered but inspired, sad that FantasyCon was all over for another year but happy at having spent time with so many witty, joyous, interesting and creative friends.

Ah, FantasyCon. If you've never been to one, then do yourself a favour and book for next year. Trust me, you won't ever regret it. In fact, you'll probably have the time of your life.