I'm delighted to confirm that I'll be participating in Octocon 2021 at the start of October. Octocon is the National Irish Science Fiction Convention, a celebration of books, comics, TV, films and games, covering the genres of science fiction, fantasy, horror and beyond. It's usually held in the flesh, in Dublin in Ireland, meaning its limited to those who can attend in person. But last year, because of COVID, it moved online, and it's going to be an online event this year too.

The downside of that -- conventions are a lot more fun when you can attend them in the flesh, and there's no getting around the fact that they just aren't the same joyous beast when they're virtual.

One upside -- and I think it's a pretty BIG upside -- is that this means you can attend no matter where in the world you live.

Another upside -- and again, I think it's a pretty BIG upside -- is that unlike an in-person convention, which is normally quite expensive (especially if you have to factor in travel, accommodation, eating and drinking, the cost of a costume if you decide to dress up) is that this year the online convention is FREE!!!!

I'm going to be doing a solo event, in which I'll do a short reading from one of my books, and then answer questions from the moderator and audience. From what I've been told, the event will take place in a private Zoom meeting, which will be streamed out to Twitch, with audience questions passed on from the convention's Twitch channel. (I know absolutely nothing about Twitch, so I hope that makes more sense to you guys than it does to me!)

The exact date and time has yet to be confirmed (it will be on Saturday 2nd or Sunday 3rd of October), but if you're interested in taking part, you can register on the Octocon site -- registration is FREE, as I said, but you HAVE to register to take part, so I'd recommend doing it sooner rather than later, so that you can be kept in the loop in the run-up to the event.

This is the link for the Octocon site: https://2021.octocon.com/

And this is the link for the registration page: https://registration.octocon.com/

This will probably be my only live online public event of 2021. See YOU there?!? :-)