On Events

Four years after leaving FP, the memory of store events is but a wisp on the horizon. Thousands of hours, downstairs in the books department with such wonderful authors, or upstairs while celebrities reigned. Good times, and many, many adventures.

Recently, it’s been a whole lot of fun to put my adventuring boots back on. I’ve run some smaller things on the shop floor, all of them lovely, but this was a much more ambitious project, conjured with the help of Search Press, who were incredibly supportive, and who brought us four of their creators for an all-day Manga Mania bonanza.

Danie’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Events on the shop floor have a unique energy, an immediacy that’s very different to that of the company’s traditional seated/panel events. At a seated event, you can have a glass of wine, watch your favourite authors and listen to them talk. You’ll usually get a book with your ticket, and you can chat a bit afterwards, get that book signed, and that’s all awesome. It’s a great opportunity to learn about that author’s thoughts and life and writing processes, and to discover knowledge and insight that you can take away with you. You get to see them in situ, as it were, in their ‘professional face’.

On the shop floor, when you have authors or creators right there and happy to chat, there’s a whole different vibe. It’s less formal, more personal, and about connection and friendship. You may not learn as much (and there probably won’t be wine), but the energy flows between the creators and each other (often, they’ve never met before, but they’ll have immediate common ground and they’ll riff off each other in a way that’ll draw people in), and between the creators and their guests.

People can stop, chat, hang out, ask for a sketch, talk about their projects, make new friends, and get their book signed as well. The atmosphere is high, and it spreads, attracting more people. There are times it has to be managed carefully, but they’re events that lead to other connections, to the sparking star-chart that is ‘networking’, and to more good things in the future.

Both types of events have their right times, places and guests, fairly obviously, but the latter is dear to my heart (after so many years!), and something I’m very pleased to be re-involved with.

So a huge ‘thank you’ to Joanna Zhou, Keith Sparrow, Chie Kutsuwada and Celine Cresswell for coming in, and to the team from Search Press for everything they did to help this happen.

And may there be many more Manga days in the future!

Reading: Just finished Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White, a post-apocalypse trans-identity Last-of-Us fallen-angel narrative and the least YA-like YA novel you’ll ever read. It’s quite bloody, very visceral, and might even belong in the Horror section. Well worth the read, though!

Watching: Tried the Director’s Cut of Rebel Moon. That was silly.

Playing: Still a bit lost for something to follow Baldur’s Gate. Tried to go back to Skyrim, but even after a ten-year hiatus, the maps still make absolutely no sense whatsoever, and the whole game drives me up the wall. Strange sense of deja-vu when trying to climb the mountain to the Shrine of Azura (yes, I know there’s a path but I can never find it), and getting more and more and more frustrated. Game would seriously benefit from a) clear directions and b) a sodding parkour skill.

Be more useful than fishing, guys!!

Danie’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.