DUSK wins the British Fantasy Award
DUSK won the British Fantasy Society’s August Derleth Award for Best Novel at the British Fantasy Convention yesterday in Nottingham, England. I’m shocked, thrilled, excited and honoured. I’m still on a high. I’m wondering whether I’m going to wake and find it’s not all true, but last night I dreamt I’d won a Harley Davidson, so if I do wake up to discover I didn’t really win the Award, at least I can go for a burn through the lanes.
I was a shaking wreck when I went up to collect the award from the very wonderful Ramsey Campbell. I was a bit of a shaking wreck afterwards, too, but a bottle of kindly donated red wine, a pint, and a glass of Jameson’s saw to that.
Big, big thanks to Bantam Spectra, and especially my brilliant editor Anne Groell.
So, the convention …….. fun as ever, and to talk about it all would take forever. But here are a few of the highlights for me:
Seeing my pal Mark Morris collect the Non-Fiction Award for Cinema Macabre. It’s about bloody time!
Meeting up with Des Lewis again for the first time in years (in fact the last time I saw Des was when I was in London with a couple of mates, and I bumped into him totally at random in a pub. How unlikely is that?) Des is great fun to chat to, and I’m glad we had the chance to natter over a few pints.
Dinner on Saturday with Ramsey, Jennie, Chaz, Angus, Mark, Sarah, Adam and Adam’s dad …. Fantastic curry, seven bottles of wine and deep chat.
The gorgeous Oriental lady who approached me early Sunday morning when I was outside having a cigarette and asked if she could do my hair.
Mike, Guy, Gary … thanks for the cigarettes. One day I’ll buy my own.
The two panels I had to do on Friday night, starting at 10pm, after having been in the bar for about 6 hours. Oh, hang on, this should be a lowlight, not a highlight. Anyone who could actually hear what I was trying to say, please send me a transcript and I’ll send you a free book.
Drinking in the bar until 4am on Sunday morning, being approached by the bar staff and told to go to bed. ‘Why?’ we asked, to which the response was, ‘We haven’t got any more beer left.’ Apparently the last time this happened was exactly a year ago, which makes me wonder yet again: when will the hotels ever learn?
Watching Steve Volk show a clip from his wonderful TV series Afterlife, looking down into my pint because I’d started to blub, and being relieved when I realised I wasn’t the only one. Really, if you haven’t watched Afterlife you really should make your life more complete, go out, buy a copy of the box set and watch it immediately.
The Awards ceremony. Master of Ceremonies Pete Crowther (or MC Crowther and the PS Posse, as we preferred to call him) was brilliant, as I knew he would be, and the guest presenters were all entertaining. I was honoured to present the award for Anthology with Chaz Brenchley, who was standing in for Chris Fowler at the time and therefore insisted that he was, in fact, blond and gorgeous.
Winning the award. Bit of a highlight, there.
It was a great convention, as ever. Big thanks to all the organisers, and I’m already looking forward to next year.
Tim
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September 24th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Tim! Congrats, man! Was thrilled to hear that you won!