Short Story Conference in Vienna.

I've now written on Fictionbitch about my impression of the 13th International Conference on the Short Story which has just taken place in Vienna, and about some of the panels and readings I attended. Also there's an anthology of stories by writers participating in the conference, edited by conference director Maurice A Lee, and which includes a new story of mine, 'Where the Starlings Fly', available here.

It was was my first-ever time in Vienna, and although there wasn't a lot of time left over, I did do a little bit of sightseeing, and here are some pics of moments snatched away from the conference.

Wide roads and imperial buildings:

Baroque doorways:

Freud's house in Berggasse:

Rachel Whiteread's Holocaust memorial in the Judenplatz:

Cafe Central, where Freud, Trotsky and other famous figures once played chess:

And a group of us having lunch there. Ailsa Cox, Stef Pixner, Zoe Gilbert, me, Vanessa Gebbie, Tania Hershman, Alison Lock and Catherine McNamara:

Lunch in a historic beer garden, once the garden of a monastery. With Felicity Skelton (left), Ailsa Cox (centre) and Allan Weiss:

Farewell dinner at the Heurigen. First, Moy McCrory, Ailsa Cox, Jim Grady, Nuala Ni Chonchuir and Kath Mckay:

And Adnan Mahmutovic, Vanessa Gebbie and Tania Hershman:

And drinks afterwards:

Egon Schiele in the Leopold Museum on the final morning before my plane:

The Secession building containing Klimt's Beethoven Frieze (which you're not allowed to photograph):