Milford Rules

It's all very civilised. First of all, to be accepted as a Milford participant you must have had at least one SF publication, which need only be one short story. (Though some attendees have multiple novel publication credits.)

Writers can submit up to 15,000 words in a maximum of two pieces. The secretary sorts the submissions and distributes a critting schedule - hopefully spreading the workload evenly. We've always managed to complete the critting by Thursday evening, holding Friday in reserve for a day out.

Mornings are allocated as personal reading (or working) time and crit sessions start after lunch at two p.m.

The crit sessions are run as follows: Everyone sits in a circle and whoever's piece is being critted has to sit in silence (usually madly scribbling notes) while all the others have their say. Each critter gets four minutes (timed) to say their piece uninterrupted and when everyone has had their say, the person whose work is being critted has the right of uninterrupted reply. Once the reply has been given a general (and usually constructive) conversation ensues. It's highly unlikely that anyone's work will be trashed mercilessly - after all there are ways and ways of saying 'this is not for me' - but crits are extremely thorough.

All this happens in the lovely meeting room that looks out on to Mount Snowdon. That's Snowdon in the middle background, peeping up between the hills in the left pic. Sometimes, when the cloud comes down, Snowdon takes the opportunity to go walkabout and it just disappears for hours on end.

Either that or... ohmygod... someone has stolen the bloody mountain!

Trigonos

The venue is delightful. It's a residential centre in the Snowdonia National Park with magnificent views of Snowdon, the surrounding mountains and Nantlle Lake right on the doorstep. This is the back of the house from the lawn, taken in the half-light. In 2007 my bedroom window was the bay on the top left of the picture.

Right: My view first thing in the morning when the mist was just beginning to burn off the lake. Very atmospheric!

They've got accommodation in the main house and also in a range of other buildings which have been converted into meeting rooms, art and craft studios and guest rooms. Most of the rooms are en-suite. In 2006 I was in one of the outside (Courtyard) rooms which was warm, comfortable and workmanlike, but not as pretty. In 2007 I had one of the large twin rooms in the house with a glorious view of the lake. In 2008 I was in a room at the back of the house. Ditto 2009 - an even smaller room in the back of the house which was actually very cosy. In 2010 I was back in the Courtyard room, in 2011 I had a lake view and for the last couple of years I've had the smallest room with a huge walk-in shower that you could hold a party in. It's pretty much pot luck as to which room you are allocated, but all the rooms are fine. The first eleven people to book have en-suite bathrooms, but the last four have to share bathroom facilities. Most of the rooms have writing desks or a table and there are various nooks and crannies in the main house and the gallery where you can find a quiet space to write or read.

The food at Trigonos is generally excellent - mostly grown on their own farm or locally sourced and all prepared freshly. Breakfasts are continental style with cereals, juices, home made bread, toast, cheeses, preserves etc. Lunches are usually a home made soup with ham or quiche (there's always a veggie option) and salads and/or new potatoes. Dinner is also a help yourself affair with no choice of main meal, but they are very good at catering for individual dietary requirements. Vegetarians are well catered for. In 2013 they coped very well with a wheat intolerance, a dairy allergy, a low-carb diet, two vegetarians and 13 meat-eaters. It's all freshly prepared, freshly sourced fare and there's plenty of it. Hot drinks are on tap 24/7. Teas (a huge variety) and coffee (fresh at breaks, instant if you want it between times) are always available in a corner of the dining room, just help yourself. And there's a guest fridge if you want to bring anything of your own. Elevenses is coffee/tea and biscuits. Four p.m.is cake -o'clock. There's no bar, but people generally bring their own preferred tipple and a goodly supply of sweeties and chocolate.

There's time during the day to go walkabout down to the lake, or even to take a car into Caernarvon for supplies of alcohol and munchies. In the evenings everyone congregates in the library after dinner. Topics of conversation tend to be writerly though not always serious and copious beverages of choice are consumed. Good friendships are formed and talk goes on well into the night. One evening is reserved for discussing markets - usually with specific reference to this year's stories, but also markets in general. We also hold the Milford AGM (a legal requirement) when officers are elected - or re-elected. Sue Thomason is chairperson (or Emperor of the Known Universe), Liz Williams is secretary, Steve Kilbane is treasurer. I am committee member without portfolio, picking up all those little odd jobs like running the mailing lists. In 2010 Kari Sperring and Karen Williams joined us to take on extra responsibilities involved with the Peter Garratt Award (details to be announced) and increasing Milford's web presence and awareness within the SF community.

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Standing L-R Kari Sperring - Terie Garrison- Bob Neilson (back) - Nick Moulton - Al Robertson - James Gotaas - Dave Gullen - Liz Sourbut - Guy Martland (back) -
Jacey Bedford. Seated: Terry Jackman - Pauline Dungate - Liz Williams - John Moran (front)

Milford 2010

Bannister side - top to bottom: Liz Counihan, Liz Williams, Dave Clements, Amy Tibbetts, John Moran, Jacey Bedford

Wall side - top to bottom: Al Robertson, Nick Moulton, Karen Williams, Kari Sperring, Sue Thomason

Old Hands: Liz Williams, Jacey Bedford, Sue Thomason, Kari Sperring, Nick Moulton, Liz Counihan . Dave Clements, Karen Williams (USA), John Moran and Al Robertson were all second timers.Newcomers were Amy Tibbetts (USA) and Debs Walker (not pictured).

Milford 2009

Back: Susan Booth, Nick Moulton, Liz Williams, Jacey Bedford, Heather Lindsley, Una McCormack, John Moran

Front: Chris Butler, Stefan Högberg , Charlie Allery.

Chris, Jacey and Liz were the old timers. It was Nick and Heather's second Milford and Susan, Una, John, Stefan and Charlie were first timers. Our international cintingent was one from Sweden and one American living in the UK. It was a small year-group because four of the people who booked had to cancel for totally unrelated reasons.

Milford 2008

Left to right: Jaine Fenn, Wenonah Lyon, Sue Thomason, Mike Lewis, Jacey Bedford (front), Al Robertson (back), Mark Harding., Liz Williams, Anna Feruglio Dal Dan, Chris Butler, Nick Moulton.

Wenonah, Al, Mark, Anna and Nick were first timers. The rest of us were all old hands. In addition to the Brits we had one American and One Italian - though both are UK residents.

Milford 2007
Here are the Milford participants.

Left to Right: Liz Williams, Heather Lindsley (back), Alys Sterling, Tina Anghelatos (very back), Jacey Bedford (front), Jim Anderson, Jaine Fenn (front) Dave Clements, Dave Gullen (back), Sandra Unerman (front), Vaughan Stanger (back), Terry Edge (front), Karen Williams and Kari Sperring holding Wasabi peas and the Ferret of Doom..

This year only Liz, Jacey, Sandra and Jaine were old hands. It was Kari's second Milford and all the others were new which made for a good mix... especially as four of the newcomers were American - though three of them live in the UK.

Milford2003

Our second year in York.

Back row: Jane Fletcher, R.R, Jaine Fenn, Ian Nichols, Colin Davies
Mid row (sorta): Liz Williams, Stuart Falconer, Chris Butler, Colin Brush
Front: Jacey Bedford, Gaie Sebold, Mike Lewis, Cherith Baldry, Sarah Singleton
Kneeling front: Sue Thomason, Deirdre Counihan

Milford 2002

Our first year in York at the Bootham House Hotel after the hotel in Devon closed down.

Standing: Neil Williamson, Colin Davies, Alex Lamb, Nancy Jane Moore, Chris Butler, Chris Paul - Seated: Stuart Falconer, Liz Williams, Cherith Baldry, Sandra Unerman, Liz Counihan, Jacey Bedford

Milford 2000

Standing, l-r: David Redd, Liz Counihan, David Rain, Dayle Dermatis, Mike Lewis, Chris Amies, Karen Traviss, Liz Williams. Seated, l-r: Jacey Bedford, Sandra Unerman, Deirdre Counihan, Sylvie Denis

Milford 1999

L-R: Liz Williams, David Rain (writes as Tom Arden) , Sandra Unerman, Mike Lewis, Ben Jeapes, Gus Smith, Karen Traviss, Jacey Bedford, Sue Thomason, Deirdre Counihan, Liz Counihan, Stuart Falconer

1998
My first Milford

Held in Devon, in a private hotel on a windy clifftop with a landlady who strongly reminded us of a Mrs Danvers novel archetype (the housekeeper with a secret). What a year group! Amongst other first timers at Milford were the soon to be published Liz Williams, Ben Jeapes and Alastair Reynolds (just prior to his first novel sale to Gollancz), plus multi-published American, Patricia Wrede and multi-published children's author Cherith Baldry.

In the pic: Jacey Bedford, Kat Patrick, Ben Jeapes, Chris Amies, Patricia Wrede, Liz Williams & Cherith Baldry. Across the front: Al Reynolds, Steve Kilbane and Pauline Dungate.

2013 Gwydir Castle

An absolutely beautiful medieval manor house in the Conwy Valley with peacocks and a knot garden. The interior has been restored to its Tudor splendour. Well worth a visit.

2012 Caernarvon Castle (again)

Always worth a visit even if you haven't seen it before, this magnificent castle was never actually finished.

2011 Beaumaris

We had the benefit of having Kari Sperring, a specialist in medieval Welsh history, so we not only got to visit the lovely Beaumaris Castle, but got Kari's account of the Welsh kings and the English invasions.

Left to right: Pauline Dungate, Kari Sperring, Jacey Bedford (me), John Moran and Terry Jackman

2010 Sygun Copper Mine

Due to one of the group cars having a failure to launch we all ended up in different places in 2010. I took a trip around the Sygun Copper Mine with three others. It was fascinating, though with a somewhat scary climb in the middle of it to the upper galleries. The metal steps were (I suppose) perfectly safe, but steep and there were a lot of them. Eeep.

We always try to get our critting finished by the end of Thursday so that the Friday of the Milford week can be a social day when we can kick back and be tourists for a while. Of course the SF-ness lingers and we tend to see everything as having relevance to stories, past or future. 2010 was wet wet wet (for most of the week) so though we'd hoped to go to Beaumaris Castle, we defaulted to indcoors-ish destinations Some of us did Electric Mountain (not me 'cos I'd already seen it twice) and five of us went to the Sygun Copper mine near Beddgelert and then onwards to do some walking in the area (Sue and Rory) or some shopping and afternoon tea in Beddgelert (me and Karen). Previously we've done Electric Mountain (2007 and 2008), Caernarvon Castle (2009), Conway Castle (2006)

2009 Caernarvon Castle

We did the guided tour of Caernarvon Castle which was hugely interesting though somewhat anti-English. Not surprising, of course, however I did remind the tour guide that the Plantaganet monarchs were essentially the French occupiers of England. That increased my popularity no end. Yeah, right!. But he did concede I had a point.

2007 Electric Mountain and Beddgelert

In 2007 it rained and it rained and then it rained some more. Our whole group trip was scuppered somewhat by Liz's Jeep getting an attack of the wet-distributor-cap, so instead of one big group we ended up in two. I was with Jaine, Dave, Vaughan and Tina. We tried to find things to do in Wales under cover and found there weren't many. We took a steam train ride round a lake that was so wet we couldn't really see where the rain stopped and the lake started. Then we did the fascinating underground trip to the hydro at Llanberis (Electric Mountain) emerging clear in the knowledge that we know what it feels like to live inside a hollowed-out asteroid.

After that we went to Beddgelert, gutted to discover the ice cream shop was not doing chocolate pizza due to a lack of the right kind of melting chocolate. Dave almost contemplated throwing himself in the river after a week of enforced veggie eating. Instead - after a week of body-shockingly healthy diets we ordered wonderfully greasy bacon butties, all except Jaine, a veggie who had probably revelled in butterbeans al dente. She almost single handedly destroyed a huge, non-sentient ice-cream sundae while the four meat-eaters tucked into the best bacon butties this side of the moon. A true pork-gasm! Wonderful!