The Black Library Weekender 2019 – Roundup

The 2019 Black Library Weekender – the sixth such event, held at the Belfry Hotel in Nottingham – has come and gone, and I’m gradually getting back to normality, a little lighter in the wallet but filled with energy and excitement off the back of a great couple of days. In this article I’m going to try and give an overview of how the event felt (to me) and why I enjoyed it so much, including a few highlights of the seminars I made it to and some comments on the upcoming titles announced at the end of the event. There’s lots to cover, so if you’re only interested in certain areas feel free to click the links below and head straight to a particular section.

• Tickets marketing and communication
• Saturday morning, till issues and limited editions
• Things to buy
• Seminars
• Things to do, people to meet

Tickets, marketing and communication

I’ll start at the beginning, partly because it just makes sense that way but also because some of the earliest elements were where I saw the most problems, and it’s good to get most of the negatives out of the way early. Anyone who went to the 2018 Weekender (which you can read about here) might remember that Black Library provided masses of information as soon as tickets went on sale, regarding the schedule, where to stay and where to eat, what books were going to be available, and so on. I was really impressed by that (and even able to include lots of that information in my Survival Guide article), so it was a little disappointing that this year it felt like the communication took a backwards setp.

I bought my ticket and hotel room on the 1st August, but the schedule and list of authors attending wasn’t made available until the 25th September (in this Community article), with the list of books available to buy appearing two weeks later (here). Those articles are fine, it was just a little frustrating to have to wait so long for them. I’ve been to all of the previous Weekenders so I pretty much knew what to expect, but for anyone who hadn’t been before it must have been frustrating to not know the details, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some people decided not to buy tickets simply because they didn’t know what they would be getting. I appreciate that schedules take time and effort to set up, but I’m sure at least some information could have been made available earlier on, to help fans plan their visits – the ‘where to stay/eat’ information, at least!

That notwithstanding, I was happy with the decision to sell tickets via Eventbrite (as per pretty much all Games Workshop events these days), as it’s much easier to just get tickets delivered by email/to the app without needing to worry about bringing a physical ticket. It made things nice and easy on the Saturday morning, as we all just showed the tickets on our phones (or, in a few old-fashioned cases, paper printouts) in exchange for lanyards and goody bags.

Saturday morning, till issues and limited editions

I spoke to some of the BL sales staff on the Friday night, and was pleased to hear that copies of the Limited Edition hardback for Gav Thorpe’s Siege of Terra novel The First Wall would be limited to one per person, through the simple mechanic of giving everyone a single raffle ticket which could be exchanged at the sales stand for a copy of the book. I’d have liked the same system to have been applied to all of the limited-number items, but at least it was in place for The First Wall, which was the key release. I had no doubt that demand would be high for it, so stopping people buying multiple copies to go on eBay was an important aim, and while there are certainly some copies listed on eBay at the time of writing, I’m sure the number is fewer as a result of this system.

Even given the excitement about The First Wall, when I came down to the Belfry foyer on Saturday morning I was surprised at how long the queue for registration was – a testament to how many people were there, and how keen we all were to get started, I guess. The line started moving pretty much on time, I think, but it went considerably slower than expected due to last-minute problems with the tills on the sales stand. Given that I was confident I’d get a copy of The First Wall, when it became clear that I wasn’t going to get anywhere near the front of the queue before the seminars started I figured I’d prefer to sit down than carry on standing around – so I gave up on the queue, and popped back later to get my books.

Clearly I was in the minority there, as the opening address from Neil Coombe (the big boss of Black Library) was…let’s say sparsely populated. That was a real shame, as once again Neil did a great job of setting the tone for the weekend with an open, honest address which included a heartfelt apology for the till problems (for which Neil was entirely not responsible). There was undoubtedly a bit of tension in the air because of the problems and the long, slow queue for the sales stand – plus an issue with the Sabbat Worlds Crusade map, which I’ll go into shortly – but after a little while, once the seminars were in full flow and the queue had died down, it felt like that mostly dissipated as people calmed down and recognised that it was just one of those unfortunate, impossible to predict problems which largely wasn’t actually a major issue.

My only suggestions would have been to separate out the queues for registration and the sales stand, and for clearer communication there and then on Saturday morning, perhaps with staff encouraging us all to head to the seminars and come back for purchases later on. I know how tricky it can be to manage the early stages of an event like this though, so fair enough.

Things to buy

One of the fun things about Weekenders is the chance to buy pre-release books, audio dramas and merchandise, and this year was no exception. For financial reasons I had a smaller budget than previous events (which was sad…but kind of liberating, too), but even though I didn’t buy as much as I’d have liked, it was still fun to peruse the sales stand and check out all of the cool new titles. I should also say here that I owe a massive thank you to a couple of my mates who truly went above and beyond, showing incredible generosity in buying me a copy of Mark of Faith and the Events Anthology (signed by loads of the authors). You know who you are – you’re the best, and I’m incredibly grateful!

I’ll pick out a few items in particular to talk about next, but here’s a quick run-down of what was available (excluding anything which was already released or up for pre-order, like Castle of Blood or the 10 new novellas):

• Darkness in the Blood by Guy Haley (£85 Mega-edition LE)
• The First Wall by Gav Thorpe (£50 LE hardback)
• Mark of Faith by Rachel Harrison (£40 SE hardback)
• The Black Library Events Anthology 2019/20 (£10 hardback anthology)
• The Sabbat Worlds Crusade sourcebook (£40 non-limited hardback)
• Cartorum Sabbaticus: The Great Chart of the Sabbat Worlds Entire (£30 SE map)
• Sabbat Worlds Crusade merchandise – pin badges (£20) and coasters (£10)
• Horus Heresy Mug (£8)
• Invocations (Warhammer Horror anthology in paperback)
• Dark Harvest by Josh Reynolds (paperback)
• Darkly Dreaming by Josh Reynolds (audio drama)
• Mephiston: City of Light by Darius Hinks (hardback)
• Court of the Blind King by David Guymer (hardback)
• Lord of the Dark Millennium by Dan Abnett (a HUGE 600+ page hardback short story anthology)
• Trollslayer 20th Anniversary by William King (hardback)

The £85 mega-edition of Darkness in the Blood is the equivalent of last year’s Spear of the Emperor, a beautiful box set including the novel itself along with a load of other items. To be honest I’m not entirely sold on the inclusion of a blank notebook (albeit a very nice notebook) and an egg timer (or very small hourglass), although the dice are pretty cool and the objective marker coins look lovely. It looks like BL are planning (at least) one of these mega-editions every year now; I’m ok with charging £85 as they’re aimed at collectors, but there’s no doubt that it’s a lot of money, and I wish the rest of us didn’t have to wait six months for the standard hardback/ebook etc. to come out. That being said, if I’d been able to afford it I’m sure I would have been tempted – if nothing else, the book itself looks gorgeous, and I’m confident it’s going to be a fantastic read (I absolutely LOVED Dante and The Devastation of Baal).

As I already mentioned, I thought that using raffle tickets for access to The First Wall seemed to work well, till issues notwithstanding. If I’m nitpicking, it would have been great if we had all known about this system in advance, rather than only finding out at the event. I heard a few people during the Saturday evening ask what to do with that particular raffle ticket (as opposed to the differently coloured one which was actually for the raffle), so either they hadn’t been paying attention or the staff with the raffle tickets hadn’t made it to them in the registration queue. Eventbrite lets event organisers send emails to attendees in advance, so that would have been an effective tool to use – as well as staff with loud voices during the queue in the morning. Still, it’s another lovely edition, matching the first two in the series, and I’m sure it will be incredibly popular once it goes up for general pre-order on the 16th November.

I do think that BL could have predicted and preempted what happened with the Sabbat Crusade map – a genuinely beautiful, limited edition release which was (I thought) quite reasonably priced at £30, and which sold out very quickly. We learned later that there had only been 50 copies available, as the rest were (and perhaps still are) on a cargo ship heading for the UK, so that’s fair enough. I just wish these had been limited to one per person, too; not because I was desperate for a copy, but just because I gather people were buying three, four or five copies in one go…which chances are went straight onto eBay. I thought BL did exactly the right thing by allowing anyone who wanted one to place an order for delivery (therefore still giving access to it), but I’d have still preferred it to be restricted to one per person in the first place.

Both the map and the Sabbat Worlds Crusade sourcebook – a beautiful 200+ page hardback – are due to go on general sale sometime in December, I think. The sourcebook is a non-limited edition, again (relatively) reasonably priced at £40; I’d honestly expected it to be more expensive than that! In contrast, the £90 Advent Calendar was also available to purchase, an item which looks fantastic – 14 of the prints were on display in the art room, and they’re brilliant (especially the film poster-style pieces) – but doesn’t quite feel like it’s at the right price point. If I had a spare £90 then I’d absolutely get one, as for 25 art prints it’s technically great value…but for an Advent Calendar it’s just way out of reach.

You can find plenty of information on the rest of the pre-releases via this Warhammer Community article, so I won’t talk through each of them. Do let me know if you have any questions about any of them, however, and I’ll do my best to answer if I can! Suffice to say the sales stand was very popular throughout the weekend, and I’m sure a lot of attendees went home with suitcases considerably heavier (and wallets accordingly lighter) than they arrived with!

Seminars

It’s always a challenge to decide which seminars to attend, with three strands taking place in different rooms simultaneously! That’s not to mention signings (of which I didn’t attend any) and the art room. This year I tried to plan ahead and choose which ones to go for in advance, but in the end I couldn’t make up my mind so I just went with gut feeling on the day. I ended up focusing entirely (apart from the opening and closing sessions) on the two smaller rooms, going mostly with seminars dealing with Warhammer Horror and writing/behind the scenes sessions, plus a couple of different topics. I’m not going to go into huge amounts of detail about each one, but instead I’ll pick out a few key points below.

Horror
I’ll be honest – I’m not normally a horror reader, and I pretty much never watch horror movies…but I’ve been intrigued by Warhammer Horror from the outset. Based on my experience of reading these stories so far, I’m starting to think that maybe I have read more horror than I realised, in that lots of ‘normal’ Warhammer stories are essentially horror stories. What this new imprint is doing is pulling back from the front lines of the big 40k and Age of Sigmar battlefields and telling stories (sometimes darker/scarier, but not always) about the little guys, in more domestic settings. That was certainly a key takeaway from the three horror-related seminars I attended:

• Into the Darkness with David Annandale and CL Werner (compèred by Hannah Hughes)
• Invocations with David Annandale, Ray Cluley, Justin D. Hill, Nick Kyme, Jake Ozga and Richard Strachan (compèred by Hannah Hughes)
• No One Will Hear You Scream with Steve Conlin, Rachel Harrison, Matthew Hunt, Colleen Prendergast and Alec Worley (compèred by Matt Renshaw)

I had always missed Clint Werner when he’d been in attendance at other Weekenders, so I was keen to hear him talk this year – and I wasn’t disappointed. His seminar with David Annandale was fascinating, with two incredibly knowledgeable horror writers (and readers and watchers) talking influences, themes, and what makes a horror story. Couldn’t have been a better opening to the weekend. The Invocations seminar – named for the upcoming horror anthology – was equally fascinating, albeit this time with a much wider range of authors talking about their short stories and their thoughts on horror writing, literary and cinematic influences, where the line should be drawn with horror, and the different kinds of horror stories.

The third of these seminars – No One Will Hear You Scream – was specifically focused on audio, with Alec and Rachel talking about their audio dramas The Way Out and The Watcher in the Rain, respectively. We listened to samples of both audios, then heard authors and actors talk about their stories, characters and inspirations, and the parts they played, and it was fantastic! It’s always fun to get voice actors involved in audio seminars, and Colleen, Matt and Steve didn’t disappoint. It ended up about fifty-fifty focused on horror and behind the scenes in recording sessions, or at least it did once the subject of Steve’s (very) loud shirt was discussed first! This panel was a real highlight for me, equal parts fascinating, insightful and laugh-out-loud hilarious.

Behind the scenes
I always enjoy learning about what goes behind the scenes – much like in the audio session I’ve already mentioned. There were no fewer than five seminars specifically geared towards discussions around writing advice, and I went for two of them:

• Behind the Curtain with editors Richard Garton, Kate Hamer and Hannah Hughes
• Building a Narrative with Dan Abnett, Mike Brooks and Chris Wraight (compèred by Richard Garton)

The first of these seminars offered an amazing opportunity to hear from three of the Black Library editorial team about what they’re looking for in Warhammer stories and what their roles entail. There were clearly lots of people in attendance who want to write for Black Library, and were eagerly making notes, but even for folks like me who are just interested in learning about what goes on inside BL it was absolutely fascinating. Amongst other things all three of the editors recommended some intriguing books on writing and editing (including a few suggestions to read books on scriptwriting in particular), which I think I’ll be checking out for what I can learn as a reader and reviewer. I didn’t make a note of all of the books, but those I do remember were On Editing by Helen Corner-Bryant and Kathryn Price, Story by Robert McKee, and Screenplay by Syd Fields.

The Building a Narrative seminar was very different, but no less fascinating, with three fantastic authors talking about their differing approaches to constructing stories. If you’ve heard Dan Abnett talk at events before then you’ll know both how much he can talk and how much he has to say, and he told some great stories about writing Gaunt’s Ghosts books, but both Mike and Chris talked eloquently about their own approaches too. From my perspective as a reader and reviewer it was just interesting to think about how each author’s way of working related to their writing styles, but I’m sure the prospective writers in the room were also lapping up all of the practical advice as well! I particularly enjoyed Mike talking about how his initial inspiration for Rites of Passage, after being commissioned to write about Navigator Houses, was a picture of a dress – specifically a catwalk model wearing the dress, with the caption “Thank you for coming to my husband’s funeral…now go away”! If you’ve read the book, I’m sure you’ll be able to see how that links in to Chetta and this particular story!

New 40k and Age of Sigmar stories
The final two seminars to mention all focused on new (or upcoming) novels and novellas:

• Novellas of the Dark Imperium with Edoardo Albert, Nate Crowley, Denny Flowers, Steve Lyons and Danie Ware (compèred by Richard Garton)
• Lords of Sky and Sea with David Guymer, Graeme Lyon and CL Werner (compèred by Jacob Youngs along with Richard Garton and Hannah Hughes)

I’m a huge fan of Black Library novellas, so the 40k novellas seminar was a bit of a no-brainer – especially with the chance to hear from a couple of authors who are brand new to writing for Black Library. I had already bought all ten of the new novellas, but if I hadn’t then I just know I’d have been running for the sales stand to pick up all of these books after hearing the authors talk about them. There’s a great mix here of characters, factions and locations – necrons, Sisters of Battle, Fulminators, Mordian Iron Guard; on Necromunda, under siege, on a shrine world, in the Ghoul Stars, working with the Inquisition – and five authors with wildly different approaches to storytelling…but all five stories sound fantastic. It’s so good to see new faces on these panels, too – I’d caught Danie at last year’s Weekender and Nate at BL Live, but hadn’t seen Steve at a BL event before, while it was Edoardo’s and Denny’s first BL event. Let’s hope for many more!

The Lords of Sky and Sea seminar was a little more focused, with three authors talking about their latest Age of Sigmar novels which all deal with either the Idoneth Deepkin or the Kharadron Overlords – Graeme’s new novella Code of the Skies, and upcoming novels from Clint (Profit’s Ruin) and David (Court of the Blind King – which was available to buy at the event). With both factions essentially extensions of the old dwarfs and elves from the Old World, it was a great opportunity to hear the authors talk about what sets these characters apart, and get a sense for what we can expect from these stories. If I’d been able to afford it, I would have gone straight to the sales stand afterwards to buy Court of the Blind King which sounds fantastic, while I can’t wait for Profit’s Ruin to come out. Luckily Code of the Skies is out now, and sounds like a great introduction to the Kharadron Overlords if you’ve not read anything about them before.

Overview
Eagle-eyed readers might notice that while there were eight seminar slots available, I only attended seven. I often find that it’s worth taking a break during the Saturday to relax a bit, check out the shop and/or the art room, hang out with friends, and generally just slow down – there’s a scheduled break for lunch, but that tends to be filled by actually finding food. Weekenders (and other conventions) are hard work, and – in my opinion, at least – you don’t have to see every single thing. I certainly enjoyed slowing down for an hour and unwinding a bit, and I think that hour break really set me up nicely to make the most of the rest of the day’s seminars.

In terms of the seminars I did attend, I’ve got to compliment the BL editors – as usual – for their excellent compèring. It was obvious how much preparation went into these seminars, as well as the rapport that the editors have with the authors, and I very much appreciated the great job they all did in keeping the sessions moving. There’s nothing quite so depressing as a seminar in which the compère hasn’t prepared anything and just hands the author over immediately to questions from the audience. These seminars were structured well, with plenty of opportunities for audience questions – which tended to be really good, with very few silly and/or self-indulgent questions – but also a great sense of focus and momentum. All told, I was really impressed. I can’t speak for the seminars I didn’t attend, but based on what I saw I’m sure they were just as well organised, and I certainly heard lots of positive feedback from friends who went to different sessions. I only wish I could clone myself so I could have gone to more!

Closing seminar and coming soon
The Weekenders are always closed off with a final session in which Neil delivers a quick closing address and a panel of BL staff – in this case Neil, editors Hannah and Kate, and senior art commissioner Rachel Harrison – talk through LOADS of great new stories due for release soon. You can find most of the information from this session on the Warhammer Community site:

These upcoming titles are apparently due out in the first half (or thereabouts) of 2020. I’ve added some brief bits of additional information below which came up during the seminar and aren’t included in that article; I’ve probably missed/forgotten some bits of info, but there’s a decent amount here:

• This year’s BL Advent series will feature 12 short stories and 12 short audio dramas, plus the usual two e-premiere novels on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. No further info on settings/subjects/characters etc. yet
• More Print on Demand titles will be coming, with the following due up to Summer 2020:
  • Books 16-20 and 21-25 of the Horus Heresy in hardback
  • Classic Inferno! magazines issues 26 to 35 (presumably in a batch of 10, but not confirmed)
  • AND ‘more planned beyond this’
• BL audiobook update – after six backlist titles have received the audiobook treatment since June 2019, the following are planned for 2020:
  • Hammer and Anvil by James Swallow (actually due November 2019)
  • Cadia Stands by Justin D. Hill
  • Trollslayer by William King
  • Ghostmaker by Dan Abnett
  • Void Stalker by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
  • Mephiston: Blood of Sanguinius by Darius Hinks
  • Ahriman: Exile by John French
  • Skavenslayer by William King
  • Honourbound by Rachel Harrison
• Gav Thorpe’s new Last Chancers novel Armageddon Saint is set AFTER Annihilation Squad, DOES feature Kage (though Kate wouldn’t be drawn on how that works), and apparently features an ork sidekick!
• Guy Haley’s Astorath: Angel of Mercy is getting a Limited Edition hardback, and is set after The Devastation of Baal, delving into the effects of the Psychic Awakening
• Josh Reynolds’ Manflayer will be his third and final Fabius Bile novel (this one got a HUGE cheer when it was announced)
• David Annandale’s as-yet-unnamed Space Wolves audio drama box set will be the usual four-part story (like Realmslayer and Our Martyred Lady), featuring a quest story with recognisable Space Wolf characters. The BL folks wouldn’t be drawn on any more detail, which suggests this will be tied into something coming from the main GW studio
• Dan Abnett’s novel Saturnine will not the only Siege of Terra book coming in 2020 – although the way this question was answered, that could refer to Graham’s novella Sons of the Selenar…but hopefully means book 5 (if not 6) will land in 2020 too
• Several questions were asked about books which have been rumoured/discussed/planned for a while, but not yet published – or similar topics. The general consensus was that if the author is still writing for BL and wants to write something, BL will publish it (but if they’re not/they don’t…probably not). For example:
  • Yes, BL want to publish Chris Wraight’s third Space Wolves novel
  • Stay tuned to Warhammer Community for more information on Urdesh by Matt Farrer
  • BL are willing to wait for Penitent by Dan Abnett – i.e. yes it’s coming, but probably not soon
  • Yes, there will be more Ciaphas Cain in future
  • Rob Sanders is not currently writing anything for Black Library, but that doesn’t mean he won’t in future
  • There are more non-Primarchs Horus Heresy stories (like Valdor) coming, but they won’t be regular – there won’t be two or three per year, for example
  • There are more Uriel Ventris stories coming, but not in 2020
  • Nick Kyme’s Salamanders stories will continue ‘soonish’, but we won’t see more for a while
  • The Sanguinius Primarchs book won’t be coming in 2020

It sounds obvious, but make sure you keep an eye on the Community site for additional information – Neil couldn’t (or wouldn’t) answer a fair few questions, only suggesting that we keep an eye out for more info coming soonish.

Things to do, people to meet

I can’t write a Weekender roundup without talking about all the rest of the bits and pieces which the event included, or the social aspects of the event.

Sunday morning meet and greet
Not quite a seminar, Sunday morning saw the main room set up with tables and chairs for a sort of round-table meet and greet, a chance for fans to mingle with authors and editors (and artist Neil Roberts) to have a chat over a morning coffee. I’m a big fan of this sort of session, and it was a real highlight for me – a relaxed, informal setting (at least once the authors stopped huddling for safety at the front of the room and were herded out to the tables) which encouraged people to engage and talk. It can be hard to just start up conversations at events like this, so sitting at a table with other fans and authors is a nice way of starting things off, or in my case getting the chance to catch up with a bunch of people I hadn’t yet been able to say hi to. I definitely hope this happens again next year.

Reading room and art room
Alongside the seminars and the signing there were quite a few other activities available, including (for the first time, I think) a quiet reading room, which I thought was a great idea. I’ve already mentioned that events like this can be hard work, so a place to sit quietly for a while and just read is a nice touch. Likewise the art room, which I really enjoyed checking out, and which had an array of beautiful art prints on display and available to purchase. Over the two days it also played host to artist Neil Roberts, BL art commissioners Rachel and Ash, and designers Rachel and Yannick; these are incredibly talented people, and it was a fantastic opportunity to check out their work and have a chat about art and design!

Some of the art prints from the Advent Calendar on display in the art room

Evening entertainment
This year there was a mixture of authorised, arranged entertainment in the evening alongside a couple of ad-hoc, unofficial elements which ended up being great fun. The usual raffle took place first on Saturday evening, with bucket loads of prizes ranging from a Heresy mug through special edition books, art prints and even a one-off drawing of Rogal Dorn which Neil Roberts had been working on that day.

Following the raffle was the now-traditional audience participation audio drama, this year a horror story from David Annandale featuring a trio of daemonic heralds (i.e. voice actors), a pair of equally scary messengers (editors) and a somewhat unwilling book (a brave volunteer from the audience). Excellent (well…hilarious) costumes, a lot of missing and stumbling over lines, a surprising amount of fake blood, some amusing audio effects courtesy of producer Matt Renshaw, plenty of audience participation (loudly screaming the names of Chaos gods, mostly), all brought David’s entertaining script to life. It was a lot of fun, and avoided descending into total farce while still being enjoyably daft.

While the seminars and evening entertainment had been taking place, surveys were out for us to fill in for an unofficial set of awards, for things like the most heartbreaking death in a book (awarded to Dan Abnett in the end – shocker!) and longest answer to a seminar question (Dan again, I think – although could have been Gav Thorpe). The awards themselves were announced during the closing address on Sunday, but it was fun filling them in on Saturday night, and kudos to the group of fans who had put the whole thing together – great work, chaps!

The other unofficial element was a Black Library Bake Off, which myself and a group of friends had organised after (partly) jokingly suggesting it at BL Live earlier in the year. Four of us baked a mountain of cupcakes, cookies, blondies, mini meringues, sprinkle-covered cakes and more, and we opened everything up in the bar on Saturday evening for anyone who wanted to tuck in and enjoy the sugary goodness. I certainly enjoyed sampling pretty much everything, and it added a nice little extra buzz (although maybe that was just the sugar high) to the evening.

I had been expecting some BL-themed gaming tables to be set up for Saturday evening, but they didn’t appear until Sunday morning, and felt just a little bit like an afterthought. They looked pretty cool, with (I gather) custom scenarios to allow people to play as Gotrek Gurnisson, Inquisitor Eisenhorn or Severina Raine and battle it out against hordes of enemies, and I did see a few people playing. It’s good to see Games Workshop getting a bit more involved in a BL event, and it’s definitely a start – hopefully in future years we can see more like this, and perhaps some of the GW board games (Warhammer Quest, Gorechosen or Combat Arena, Betrayal at Calth etc.) available for fans to check out and play!

Meeting people
I’ve said it many times before, but the Weekenders – for me personally – are defined by the social aspect, and the chance to meet up with and talk to so many other fans, BL staff, authors, actors, artists and so on. Each year I feel like I know more and more people, some of whom I see regularly and some I only manage to speak to once or twice a year, and I get so much enjoyment out of catching up at these events. I owe a massive thanks to everyone I spoke to for making this such a warm and welcoming event – my usual gaming and reading group from London (thanks again guys for the 1 million words t-shirt, and the signed anthology!), all the usual crowd I see at every event, the familiar faces from Twitter who I now know in person, and everyone else I chatted with.

After the presentation of a cool t-shirt to commemorate my publishing a million words on Track of Words

I can’t write this article without calling out the amazing work of everyone from BL and GW who were involved in the event, hung out with all of us fans in the bar on Friday and Saturday night, and generally just got involved and helped make this such a fun weekend. Particular highlights were getting an enormous bear hug from voice actor Steve Conlin (Hamilcar himself – so entirely appropriate), editor Kate’s horror at (accidentally…?) breaking poor Dan’s reindeer antler, meeting Denny Flowers and Edoardo Albert for the first time, talking Tempestus Scions minis with Rachel Harrison and Warhammer Horror covers with Rachel Williams, and hearing how Gloomspite’s mushrooms have come back to haunt Andy Clark (shudder). It was also great to catch up with the always-dapper Chris Dows, and get to meet and chat to new-ish BL author Michael J. Hollows for the first time!

If you were there at the Weekender, I hope you had as much fun as I did – if we chatted, thanks for being awesome, if we didn’t then come and say hi next time! For anyone who is/was on the fence about attending one of these events, I really – genuinely – can’t recommend them enough.

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So that’s my roundup of the 2019 Black Library Weekender (sorry it was so long – so much to talk about!). If you were there too, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, and if you didn’t go then I hope that I’ve encouraged you to think about joining in with the fun at a future event. I can’t wait for the 2020 Weekender now, and I hope to see some of you there.

As always, if you’ve got any comments or questions please do let me know in the comments section below, or find me on Twitter and start a conversation.