Things Dwight's Up To

I've been rather quiet hereabouts due to a number of things, including the matter of staying out of Justin's way while he posts the (very necessary) stuff re: our election campaign in progress. For the moment, though, I thought I'd break blog.silence to let you know about a couple of events I hope to be taking in over the next couple of weeks. Both involve Canadian culture to varying degrees, and while I'm not planning on selling anything at either one(this year), I hope to see what others will be selling.

First off is Con*Cept 2008. It's a science-fiction/fantasy convention held annually in Montréal, and it covers most of the pop culture disciplines currently in play: literature, film/video, comic books, and so on. That's next weekend.

Starting at the same time as Con*Cept but held here in Ottawa for roughly a week and a half is the Ottawa International Writers Festival. It's held twice a year, and this is the fall 2008 edition. Names including John Ralston Saul, Lewis McKenzie, Tarek Fatah, Michael Adams, Maureen Jennings, Peter Robinson, James Laxer, Paul Quarrington, Sandra Gulland, and a slew of others. I've done volunteer duty for WritersFest off and on over the years, and I've never regretted it. If you're actually paying cash money to attend any part of the Festival...you will not feel inclined to ask for a refund afterwards, I think.

I strongly recommend you take a look at both of these events if you can over the next half-month.