If you have any feedback for the Octocon 2019 committee, please complete our feedback survey.
We really appreciate your assistance in helping us make Octocon 2020 better – thanks!
Programme Focus: Winging It!
After two previous successful art workshops (Octocon’s Next Top Monster
and Build-a-Monster), local artist Eimear Kelly returns to Octocon and
invites you to create something maybe a little less monstrous: decorate
and wear your very own fairy wings!
No age limits; materials supplied.
Programme Focus: Creating Indie Comics
We’re delighted to present a new workshop this year, hosted by local writer Paul Carroll.
Creating Indie Comics: From Idea to Print is a 80 minute workshop, running from 2:30pm (Sunday 13th October 2019).
Anyone attempting to get started in comics can face barriers to entry. In this workshop, Paul Carroll from Limit Break Comics will demystify the process of how a comic gets turned from an idea into a finished page. As well as introducing the different roles in the creation of a comic, Paul will show how to approach collaborators, plan finances for making comics, explain the printing and promotion processes for small press comics, and examine crowdfunding as a viable option for financing and distributing comics.
Suitable for older teens and adults; for anyone who wants to make comics and graphic novels but doesn’t know how to get started.
Paul Carroll is a writer and comic creator from Dublin. He is a founding member of Limit Break Comics and Cupán Fae, creating comics, novels and anthologies in sci-fi, fantasy and horror genres.
His recent comics include Plexus, a sci-fi collection successfully funded through Kickstarter, and Meouch, an action comedy about a killer cat.
Between writing projects, Paul is an illustrator and spreadsheet enthusiast.
Programme Focus: Lora O’Brien
Lora is an Irish Author, Teacher, and Guide with 20+ years personal and professional experience in our history, heritage, archaeology, mythology, and pre-christian Irish Spirituality. Publications include Irish Witchcraft from an Irish Witch, 2004; A Practical Guide to Irish Spirituality, 2013; Rathcroghan – a Journey, 2015; Tales of Old Ireland – Retold, 2018; and Pagan Priesthood, Llewellyn 2019.
She is a co-founder and Reverend legal celebrant with Pagan Life Rites Ireland, and with her partner Jon O’Sullivan she runs EelandOtterPress.net and the IrishPaganSchool.com.
This year at Octocon, Lora is presenting Irish Sidhe 101 – A Foundation with ‘the Fair Folk’ at 4pm (Sunday 13th October 2019).
Are they real? What are they? What different types are there? Are they small? Are they nice, or friendly?
While there aren’t exactly categorical, definitive answers to these and other common questions about the Fair Folk, in this talk Lora O’Brien looks at the Irish relationship to our Sidhe, and the views our ancestors might take based on our own folklore and traditions.
Octocon’s Programme Guide is Live
The programme guide should be suitable for use on most browsers and devices. It’s an instance of KonOpas, an open-source project providing conventions with easy-to-use mobile-friendly guides.
If you appear in the programme and wish to have your bio or picture updated, contact programming@octocon.com.
This guide will work in your browser even when you don’t have an internet connection. You can also install it as a home screen app.
Octocon goes up!
This year, Octocon is on the second floor of the Crowne Plaza Blanchardstown hotel – one floor up from last year.
Take the lifts at the back of the lobby to get there – do not take the central staircase as that only goes up to the first floor!
Opening Hours
| Registration and Info Desk | 9 am – 5 pm |
| Dealers’ Den (trading hours) | 9:30 am – 5 pm |
| Opening Ceremony | 10 – 10:15 am |
| Programme | 10:15 am – 1 pm, 2 – 6 pm |
| Closing Ceremony | 6 – 6:30 pm |
Octocon Needs You!
Octocon needs volunteers on the day of the convention, to set up our rooms, look after our registration desk, flash the STOP signs at panels, and a host of other jobs.
Whether you can spare one hour or several, we’d really appreciate your help.
Sign up to be a volunteer (Google survey)
Programme Survey Deadline Approaches
The deadline for submitting your programme suggestions and participant surveys for Octocon 2019 is Wednesday September 11th.
If you have any suggestions for us or would like to considered as a programme participant, fill in the surveys asap!
Send us your programme ideas (Google Survey)
Apply to be a programme participant (Google Survey – also includes a chance to suggest programme items)
2019 Guests: Diane Duane and Peter Morwood
We will be joined at Octocon 2019 by some of our previous Guests of Honour: Diane Duane and Peter Morwood.
If you’re going this week to Dublin 2019, an Irish Worldcon, don’t miss Diane Duane’s many appearances as Guest of Honour!
Diane Duane has been a science fiction and fantasy writer for nearly forty years. Her best known works include her long-running (since 1983) “Young Wizards” series — its (sort of) eleventh and twelfth novels Young Wizards: Lifeboats and Interim Errantry 2: On Ordeal, having come out in 2017.
She’s also known for the nine bestselling Star Trek novels for which, among many other works, she was awarded the Grand Master / lifetime achievement award of the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers.
She is presently working on completing the epic fantasy series begun almost forty years ago with The Door Into Fire, and hopes to publish book 4, The Door Into Starlight, in the near future.
Novelist and screenwriter Peter Morwood was born in Northern Ireland, but has lived in various parts of County Wicklow for more than half his life. He’s been married to fellow-guest Diane Duane for even longer.
Besides his own fantasy series The Book of Years, its prequel series The Clan Wars, the folktale-inspired Tales of Old Russia, several short stories and even a brief venture into comics, he has co-written half a dozen novels with Diane (including one on their honeymoon), as well as episodes for Gargoyles, Spider-Man Unlimited and Batman: The Animated Series, and the award-winning live-action miniseries Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King.
He’s keen on medieval military history and the sharp pointy stuff that involves; he likes foreign travel and the interesting places, foods and drinks that involves; and he does half the cooking and most of the photography for their hobby-foodblogs EuropeanCuisines.com and RealIrishDesserts.com.