Flying to London last Sunday with my girlfriend to attend the London Book Fair, hang out at the New Era (Galaxy Press) booth and meet publishers, I was very aware that by ratio of money spent to hours at destination it might very well be the most expensive trip I’ve ever undertaken. We arrived at the Book Fair at 4:30pm and departed London at 10:30am the next day. But it was worth it. Boy, was it ever!

Giving my girlfriend a whirlwind tour of one of my favorite European cities on Sunday evening was a pleasure in itself. But even before that, I’d already concluded the ultra-brief trip was worth every cent.

Because one of the people I was introduced to at the Book Fair is chief publisher at M, one of the most important and respectable speculative fiction publishers in the Netherlands. And in our pleasant and interesting conversation, I discovered many things I had no idea about concerning the Dutch speculative fiction market: an annual short story contest, another Dutch specfic publisher based in Ireland, several magazines and organisations I’d never heard of but could be very interesting.

Oh, and did I mention the publisher asked to read my work?