Seeing a convention from Behind the Table is a new experience for me. I’ve never really been one for the crush of people or the awkward 20 second interaction with a celebrity so to be honest, seeing a convention is a bit of a new one for me too! But spending a couple of days hanging out with Kylie and talking about everything from international travel, to obscure book snippets to how the publishing industry works with its highlights and difficulties was incredibly interesting. Kylie is a person full of stories, anecdotes and yes, lots of snark and cat photos! The engagement with her fans seems to be a tiring one for a person who I feel would be much more comfortable sitting in a quiet café with a book, but it is obvious to see how much every one of us means to her and how much her works mean to us!

The “sales spiels” about her books are often humorous and I certainly enjoyed the evolution of “This is a sci-fi series about sexy dragons in space!” (Which, in my opinion, barely covers off the nuanced intricacies of that alien species who effectively [redacted] then [redacted] while managing to [redacted].) to “It’s a first contact story where the aliens are so far advanced that they use our media to get in our brains before they ever initiate contact. They’ve already discovered that our primary requirements are food, shelter and sex… and they can provide all of these in abundance!”…! At this point, I shamefully admitted that while I’d devoured the Dark Heavens series at least a dozen times, I had yet to read the Empire series. It was amusing to watch Kylie try to Not Spoil It for me while we tried to come up with potential titles for the third book!

Kylie asked me to use this little piece to outline to people just how boring she is. Boring is not exactly how I would describe the weekend spent with her and meeting all her Perth fans. From meeting her delightful friends in the industry, to desperately trying to find a tissue for the young lass who was overcome with emotion at meeting her favourite author, every minute spent in Kylie’s company was unique and certainly not boring. It was an incredible experience and one I hope many more of Kylie’s fans take her up on!