There And Back Again
I have been to Middle Earth.
The plane ticket said “Poland” but my reality took a few jig-steps sideways, and I am quite sure I found myself in some near-Shadow of Middle Earth. A Fellowship of boon companions, new acquaintances and old friends alike. Wondrous food and drink! Visiting the broad plains of Rohan, the deep dark woods both dire and grand, the endless fields of poppies and clover and flowers I cannot begin to name, and lands where clearly the ents still loom and hoooommm. The mounds for ancient heroes who should not be forgotten, and the longhouses from whence ghosts emerge to make offerings to sacred waters. The citadels of the doomed and the glorious alike, the display of arms, the castle’s front gates opened especially for the entry of Lady Danforth and her Retinue.
Pyrkon 2022
I was invited to be a guest in the RPG track at Pyrkon, Poland’s big science fiction and fantasy fannish convention, to take place in the summer of 2020. For obvious reasons, that didn’t happen.
The invitation came around again this year. And people came back with gusto! Over 56,000 people attended at the huge convention complex in Poznań. The photo above is just one side of the building on the first day of the show —