Today, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, there’s a convention going on. Bristolcon. I’m sure the people there are having themselves a fine time, lots of witty banter, brilliant panels, engrossing author readings, and scintillating conversations happening nonstop in the bar.
But something is missing. Colin Harvey is not there.
Colin died this summer, suddenly, unexpectedly. One day he was happy and healthy and the next he was gone.
I didn’t know Colin all that well, we’d met once during the long weekend of the Montréal Worldcon, and we’d corresponded afterward. We liked and amused one another, and we looked forward to the next time we’d meet in person. Back around the first of the year, he told me he was editing a new anthology and he asked me to write something for it, and I’d agreed.
I’m told that he loved Bristolcon, that it was his “home” convention. And this year he’s not there.
But his anthology is there. AEON Press is launching Transtories at the convention today. It looks to be an exciting anthology, but I wouldn’t have expected anything less from Colin.
Tags: Conventions, In Memoriam
Thank you for this post.
I saw it first on LiveJournal. The LiveJournal feed complains of bad HTML:
[Error: Irreparable invalid markup (‘<p.’) in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]
It’s there all right, just below the first paragraph (“nonstop in the bar.”), but your parser is evidently more tolerant than LJ’s.
tlhIngan veQbeq marqem la’Hom — Heghbej ghIHmoHwI’pu’!
10.22.11 at 8:18 pm
Wow, how annoying. I was missing a single paragraph marker.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. All fixed!
10.22.11 at 8:39 pm
Hi Lawrence, Thank you for this. There will always be an empty chair at our panel table now our friend has gone.
But now BristolCon is over we can get out Colinthology out in time for next year, when Colin will be Ghost of Honour at BristolCon 12. I know it’s a long way to travel, but we all hope you can join us in raising a beer or two to our mate
🙂 Love, Jo
10.23.11 at 2:44 pm
Thank you, Jo.
At this point, I’m not sure where I’ll be in a year’s time, but I appreciate the invitation. I hadn’t thought of it before, but I quite like the idea of coming over and taking part in a celebration of Colin’s life.
I hope you enjoyed Bristolcon 11, and that Transtories was well received.
10.23.11 at 3:10 pm