David Green
David Green is a neurodivergent writer of the epic and the urban, the fantastical and the mysterious.
With his character-driven dark fantasy series Empire Of Ruin, or urban fantasy noir Hell In Haven, David takes readers on emotional, action-packed thrill rides.
Hailing from the north-west of England, David now lives in County Galway on the west coast of Ireland with his wife and train-obsessed son.
When not writing, David can be found wondering why he chooses to live in places where it constantly rains.
James Bennett
James Bennett is a British author of Fantasy and Horror. His acclaimed Ben Garston Novels from Orbit Books are available worldwide. You can find his stories at Fox Spirit Books, The Dark magazine and the BFS journal. His latest novellette 'The Dust of the Red Rose Knight' is available now from BOTH Press.
Lucy A. McLaren
Lucy is a fantasy author and professional counsellor, passionate about writing stories that include a realistic representation and exploration of mental health issues. She is a lifelong fan of fantasy stories, and enjoys reading, writing, watching and playing them. Her debut novel, Awakening: The Commune’s Curse Book 1, released from Santa Fe Writers Project on 1st May 2022.
Randee Dawn
Randee Dawn is a Brooklyn, NY-based entertainment journalist who scribbles about the glam world of entertainment by day, then spends her nights crafting wild worlds of fiction. Her debut novel, Tune in Tomorrow, about a fantastical TV reality show, published in 2022 (Solaris). She's the co-editor of the anthology Across the Universe: Tales of Alternative Beatles, and has published numerous short stories and novellas of speculative fiction. She writes about the wacky world of show business for Variety, The Los Angeles Times and Today.com and is the co-author of The Law & Order: SVU Unofficial Companion. More at RandeeDawn.com
Pete Sutton
Pete W Sutton is a writer and editor. His two short story collections – A Tiding of Magpies and The Museum for Forgetting – were shortlisted for Best Collection in the British Fantasy Awards in 2017 & 2022 respectively. His short stories have also appeared in Best Horror and Best British Science Fiction. His novel – Seven Deadly Swords – was published by Grimbold Books. He has edited several short story anthologies and is the editor for the British Fantasy Society Horizons fiction magazine.
Kevin Elliott
Kevin's first novel 'Lightmaker' is on Amazon, and its sequel is slowly emerging. Science fiction is his main interest, but he's dabbled with literature and has been seen on stage.
He works for Oxford University. He's half British, half Irish, but can't tell which half is which. He did an MBA by mistake and has studied astronomy so feel free to ask him about pulsars.
Long-term goals involve spending more time writing; short-term goals include making you to read to the end of his bio. And tea.
Kit Whitfield
Kit Whitfield is a novelist; her most recent book is ALL THE HOLLOW OF THE SKY, the second in the Gyrford series - tales of cold iron, fey mischief, special needs and wry amusement. Her book IN GREAT WATERS was shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award. Kit lives with her husband and son, and loves it when people at cons come up to chat with her.
Philip Fracassi
Philip Fracassi is the Stoker-nominated author of the novels A Child Alone with Strangers, Gothic, and Boys in the Valley, as well as the award-winning story collections Behold the Void and Beneath a Pale Sky.
His stories have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Best Horror of the Year, Nightmare Magazine, Black Static, Southwest Review, and Interzone.
Philip lives in Los Angeles and is represented by Copps Literary Services.
For more information visit him on social media, or his website: pfracassi.com.
Mark Stay
Mark Stay is a novelist and screenwriter. His Witches of Woodville series is published by Simon & Schuster, and his new film Unwelcome premiered at the Sitges Festival, and was released by Warner Bros. in 2023. He worked in bookselling and publishing for over 25 years and is co-presenter of the Bestseller Experiment podcast.
Andrew Hook
Andrew Hook has had over a hundred and seventy short stories published, with several novels, novellas and collections also in print. Stories have appeared in magazines ranging from Ambit to Interzone. Recent books are a collection of mostly SF stories, Frequencies of Existence; his Mordent crime novels; Candescent Blooms, a collection of Hollywood-celebrity-death stories (“5-stars, The Telegraph”). Forthcoming is Secondhand Daylight, a time-travel novel written collaboratively with Eugen Bacon. He can be found at www.andrew-hook.com.
Benjamin Langley
Benjamin Langley has been described as a writer of quiet horror with a creeping dread. He sets most of his work in the Fens, a place of hidden secrets and lurking terrors - he should know, he lives there. His most recent work is the trilogy Guy Fawkes: Demon Hunter, a blood-soaked, demon-infested, alternative history extravaganza, which is anything but quiet.
Tim Major
Tim Major’s recent books include Hope Island, Snakeskins, three Sherlock Holmes novels, plus short story collection And the House Lights Dim and a non-fiction book about the 1915 silent crime film, Les Vampires. His novel Jekyll & Hyde: Consulting Detectives will be published in Sept 2024. His short stories have been selected for Best of British Science Fiction, Best of British Fantasy and Best Horror of the Year. Find out more at www.cosycatastrophes.com
David Cartwright
David Cartwright was born in 1981, and raised in a Golden Age of Saturday morning cartoons. From that time and forever more he has been an fan of Science-Fiction and Fantasy.
David has been a Jack of many trades, but a master of none, working mostly in manufacturing whilst studying in Media and Counselling.
He lives in Hampshire, England with his family, cat and untameable moustache.
Tina Rath
I am eighty, my PhD was on "The Vampire in Popular Fiction", I have had over 60 short horror/fantasy 3 collections published, a body of verse available on the internet, I am a story teller, and performance poet and still have a good b nantural.
Dave Watkins
David Watkins lives in Devon in the UK with his wife, two sons, ridiculous dog and psychotic cat. He has currently released four novels and a short story. Each book is well rated and reviewed on Amazon and beyond.
His most recent release is The Exeter Incident, from D&T Publishing.
"Great monsters and dynamic characters make this brutal, bloody, brilliant novel an essential read. I'll never see Exeter in the same light again!" - Tim Lebbon, The Last Storm (praise for The Exeter Incident)
"...gut twisting scenes...” 4* Joe X Young, Gingernuts of Horror (The Devil's
Damien Hine
For as long as I can remember, I have been writing. When I was young, this involved what would now be called fan fiction - tales of Buzz Lightyear's adventures in space and, later on, my very own Harry Potter book.
I became more serious in 2011 when I started what is now widely known as The Hearthmark Chronicles - an epic fantasy trilogy written for young people. The series was published by Monolith Books in 2021 and since then the first instalment, Out of Atlas, has not dropped out of the top 1% of all books on Amazon. It has gone onto be published as an audiobook as well.
My relative level of success has now enabled me to reduce the number of days I work so that I can write more and take on more speaking engagements in schools. I am now working on the second instalment of a new series, The Cassidy Cases, which I fondly describe as Jumanji meets Jason Bourne.
Justin Lee Anderson
Justin Lee Anderson's first book, comedy fantasy Carpet Diem, won the 2018 Audie award for humour, and his second, epic fantasy The Lost War, won the 2021 SPFBO award. The Lost War was then acquired by Orbit for rerelease in 2023, along with the rest of the four-book Eidyn Saga. Book 2, The Bitter Crown, is out in late 2023.
Marian Womack
Marian Womack is a bilingual writer of Gothic, Weird and Science Fiction. Her writing features strange landscapes, ghostly encounters and uncanny transformations. She has published the Andalusia-set novel The Swimmers (2021) and, in the Walton & Waltraud uncanny mystery series, The Golden Key (2020) and On the Nature of Magic (2023). Her short fiction has been collected in Lost Objects (2018) and in the forthcoming Out Through The Window, Into The Dark. She lives in East Anglia, where she works as a librarian. She co-runs Calque Press.
Juliet E McKenna
Juliet E McKenna is a British fantasy author living in the Cotswolds, UK. She has always loved history, myth and other worlds. Her debut epic fantasy novel was published in 1999, and The Thief’s Gamble began The Tales of Einarinn, followed by The Aldabreshin Compass series, The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution, and The Hadrumal Crisis trilogy. In 2018 The Green Man’s Heir began an ongoing contemporary fantasy series rooted in British folklore. Her wide-ranging shorter fiction includes dark fantasy, steampunk and SF. 2023 sees the publication of The Cleaving, a feminist retelling of Arthurian myth.
Shona Kinsella
Shona Kinsella is the author of epic fantasy, The Vessel of KalaDene series, dark Scottish fantasy Petra MacDonald and the Queen of the Fae and British Fantasy Award shortlisted industrial fantasy The Flame and the Flood as well as the non-fiction Outlander and the Real Jacobites: Scotland’s Fight for Freedom. She was editor of the British Fantasy Society’s fiction publication BFS Horizons for four years and is now Chair of the British Fantasy Society.
Sinead Gosai
The award-winning Amish Tripathi is the fastest selling author in the history of Indian publishing. War of Lanka is the fourth book in the Ram Chandra series (his books have sold more than 6.5 million copies to date) and will be published here in the UK in March. His historical novel, the Legend of Suheldev: The King Who Saved India is being turned a feature film by Viacom studios. Amish Tripathi is a graduate of the prestigious IIM (Indian Institute of Management) – Calcutta and worked at various senior roles in the financial services industry before moving to full-time writing. He self-published his first book (it was rejected by 20 publishers). Amish is also a diplomat based in London. He is the Director of the Nehru Centre and the Minister (Culture & Education) at the High Commission of India in the UK.
Ashley Stokes
Ashley Stokes is the author of Gigantic (Unsung Stories, 2021) and The Syllabus of Errors (Unthank Books, 2013), and editor of the Unthology series and The End: Fifteen Endings to Fifteen Paintings (Unthank Books, 2016). His recent short fiction includes The Hinwick Effigy in Cloister Fox; Cretaceous in Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction; Fields and Scatter in Weird Horror; Subtemple in Black Static; The Validations in Nightscript; and Black Slab in The Ghastling. He lives in the East of England where he’s a ghost and ghostwriter.
Emily Inkpen
Emily Inkpen is a sci-fi writer of novels, stories and audio drama, repped by the John Jarrod Literary Agency. Her full cast audio drama, The Dex Legacy, is a prequel to her debut novel and can be found on all podcast platforms. If you want to chat, you can find her on Twitter and Instagram @emilyinkpen, and doing live writing sprints on Twitch: twitch.tv/emilyinkpen.
Eygló Karlsdóttir
Eygló is an Icelandic author, living in Sweden, writing in English. She is the author of the novellas ALL THE DARK PLACES, IN HIS MIND, HER SHADOW and has published the short story collection SEAFOOD & COCKTAILS to name a few. She also has short stories in the anthologies like THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF HALLOWEEN STORIES and in THE ALCHEMY PRESS BOOK OF HORRORS 2.
Richie Billing
Richie Billing writes fantasy fiction and stories of a darker nature. His stories often explore real-world issues in fantasy lands.
His short fiction has been published by, amongst others, Kzine and Bewildering Stories, and has been adapted for BBC radio. His debut novel, Pariah's Lament, was published by Of Metal and Magic in March 2021.
Richie hosts the podcast The Fantasy Writers’ Toolshed, a venture inspired by readers of his book, A Fantasy Writers’ Handbook.
When not writing, Richie works as an editor and digital marketer and teaches creative writing both online and offline.
Most nights you can find him up late scribbling away or watching the NBA.
C.K. McDonnell
C.K. McDonnell is the paranormal pen name of author Caimh McDonnell. A former stand-up comic and TV writer, he lives in Manchester where his critically acclaimed Stranger Times series of books are based. His work blends fast-paced story with his trademark dark wit. He is published by Transworld, part of Penguin Random House
Laura Bennett
Agent who represents SFF (adult & YA) at the Liverpool Literary Agency.
Allen Ashley
Allen Ashley is an award-winning writer and editor and is familiar to BFS members as a regular contributor to BFS publications. At Fantasy Con, he is perhaps best known as the host of Poetry Round Robin. He is the founder of the advanced science fiction and fantasy group Clockhouse London Writers.
Jan Edwards
Jan Edwards is the UK author of the Bunch Courtney Investigations - the WW2 crime novel series, which gained her an ‘Arnold Bennett Book Prize’.
She also has 50+ short stories in horror, fantasy, mainstream and crime fiction anthologies, including: Mammoth Book of Folk Horror, Criminal Shorts, The Book of Extraordinary New Sherlock Holmes Stories: and multiple volumes of the MX Books of New Sherlock Holmes Stories. New collection out Of Sand and Tides urban/cosmic horror. To read more about Jan go to: https://janedwardsblog.wordpress.com/
Hesper Leveret
Born and raised in Southampton, Hesper Leveret studied Ancient History at Oxford and now lives in Liverpool with her family and chronic pain. She writes speculative fiction that emphasizes the beautiful, lyrical, and strange. Her stories appear in venues including Fireside, Interzone, and Luna Station Quarterly. Her interests include reading books, escaping rooms, and baking cakes. Since September 2020 she has been a slush reader for the BFS Award-winning Apex Magazine.
PS Livingstone
PS Livingstone writes epic contemporary fantasy and is the author of The Transcendent Saga series, as well as numerous short stories. She works as a ghostwriter and editor, suiting her reputation as a renowned grammar fiend. Pamela lives in Glasgow with her partner and three cats, and can often be found in her allotment, usually covered in mud.
Anna Smith Spark
Anna Smith Spark is the author of the grimdark epic fantasy series The Court of Broken Knives, The Tower of Living and Dying and The House of Sacrifice, and the standalone A Woman of the Sword. Her writing has been described as ‘a masterwork’ by Nightmarish Conjurings, ‘an experience like no other’ by Grimdark Magazine, and ‘howls like early Moorcock, converses like the best of Le Guin’ by the Daily Mail. She’s aspie, dyslexic and dyspraxic; a petty bureaucrat and a former fetish model. You may know her by the heels of her shoes.
Robin CM Duncan
Robin is a Scot born and living in Glasgow. He has written for decades, but seriously only for the last ten years. Robin’s debut novel The Mandroid Murders was published in August 2022. His stories appear in Space Wizard Science Fantasy’s Distant Gardens, Farther Reefs and Juno anthologies. He reviews and slush reads for the BFS, writes articles for the BSFA, volunteers with Glasgow 2024, and belongs to the Glasgow Science Fiction Writers’ Circle, and the Reading Excuses critique group. (robincmduncan.com)
Sunyi Dean
Sunyi Dean is a fantasy author and mom of 2. Some of her short fiction has appeared in places like Tor Dot Com, while her debut novel, THE BOOK EATERS, launched Aug 2022 through Tor and Harper Voyager.
Francesca T Barbini
Francesca T Barbini is the founder of Luna Press Publishing.
Alison Littlewood
Alison Littlewood’s first book, A Cold Season, was selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club. Her other titles include Mistletoe, The Hidden People, The Crow Garden, Path of Needles and The Unquiet House. She wrote The Cottingley Cuckoo as A. J. Elwood, along with the forthcoming The Other Lives of Miss Emily White. Her short stories have been picked for a number of year’s best anthologies and collected in Quieter Paths, Five Feathered Tales and The Flowering. she has won the Shirley Jackson Award for Short Fiction.
Peter Coleborn
Peter Coleborn created the award-winning Alchemy Press in the late 1990s and has since (co)-published a range of anthologies and collections. He has edited various publications for the British Fantasy Society (including Winter Chills/Chills and Dark Horizons), and co-edited with Pauline E Dungate the Joel Lane tribute anthology Something Remains. He has co-edited with Jan Edwards the three volumes of The Alchemy Press Book of Horrors, and is currently putting together an anthology of Twilight Zone-inspired stories (with Mike Chinn). The Alchemy Press also publishes the annual Book of the Dead (compiled by Stephen Jones), which celebrates the past lives of writers, artists, actors, etc. www.alchemypress.co.uk
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Adrian Tchaikovsky is a science-fiction and fantasy writer best known for books like Children of Time, Shards of Earth and the Shadows of the Apt series.
M H Ayinde
M. H. Ayinde was born in London’s East End. She is a runner, a chai lover, and a screen time enthusiast. Her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in FIYAH Literary Magazine, F&SF, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and elsewhere, and she was the 2021 winner of the Future Worlds Prize for her novel A SHADOW IN CHAINS. She lives in London with three generations of her family and their Studio Ghibli obsession.
Stewart Hotston
A writer of six published novels as well as a whole bunch of shorts and novellas, Stewart also writes cultural criticism wherever anyone will let him, be it in The Bookseller, Three Crows, Vector, the BFS Journal or on SciFi Bulletin. Multi-culturalism in SFF - how to get it right. Religion in SFF - what do we get wrong?
Susie Williamson
Susie Williamson (she/her) is an award-winning author, artist and poet. Her fantasy novel series, Blood Gift Chronicles, won Firebird Book Awards in 2021 in the LGBTQ+ category and the YA category. Published by Stairwell Books, the series begins with Return of the Mantra and The Warder, and encompasses themes of wildlife and the environment, social justice and marginalisation, magic, animism and dragons. Susie is currently working on the third novel in her series. She has a soft spot for complex women MCs, subverting stereotypes, and inventive worlds. Susie writes a regular blog at www.susiewilliamson.blog.
Ramsey Campbell
Ramsey Campbell was born in Liverpool in 1946 and now lives in Wallasey. The Oxford Companion to English Literature describes him as “Britain’s most respected living horror writer”, and the Washington Post sums up his work as “one of the monumental accomplishments of modern popular fiction”. He has received the Grand Master Award of the World Horror Convention, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers Association, the Living Legend Award of the International Horror Guild and the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2015 he was made an Honorary Fellow of Liverpool John Moores University for outstanding services to literature.
David Thomas Moore
David Thomas Moore is Senior Commissioning Editor at Rebellion Publishing. He is a LRPer, a swordfighter, a cook, a father and keenly interested in grammar and the history of language (he has strong opinions about the word "literally").
Amanda Rutter
Previously agent with Azantian Literary Agency, worked as a freelance editor/copy editor/proofreader for over a decade
Ryan Cahill
Ryan Cahill is an epic Fantasy author from Dublin, Ireland, and now based in Middle Earth, New Zealand.
After publishing his first epic fantasy novel, Of Blood and Fire, at the beginning of 2021, Ryan has gone on to publish just short of a million words in his debut series while becoming a full time author along the way.
Ryan’s writing takes its heart from the epic fantasy of old – J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Jordan, Anne McCaffrey – and blends it with a modern narrative inspired by the likes of John Gwynne and Naomi Novik. Classic Fantasy told with heart and high stakes.
Dr Teika Marija Smits
Teika Marija Smits is a UK-based writer and freelance editor. She writes poetry, fiction and non-fiction, and her speculative short stories have been published in Best of British Science Fiction, Parsec, Shoreline of Infinity and Great British Horror 6. Her debut poetry pamphlet, Russian Doll, was published by Indigo Dreams Publishing in March 2021. A fan of all things fae, she is delighted by the fact that Teika means fairy tale in Latvian.
Kat Day
Kat Day is an editor and writer who is one of the assistant editors at the horror podcast, PseudoPod. She has worked extensively with both fiction and (science) non-fiction, and her fiction has been published at Cast of Wonders, Daily Science Fiction, Flash Fiction Online and others. She’s terminally online and is most readily found on Twitter, @chronicleflask
Ed Wilson
Ed Wilson is an agent and director of Johnson & Alcock, representing a vibrant list of fiction and non-fiction, from new voices to established, bestselling and award-winning authors.
In fiction, he looks for anything with originality and style, both literary and commercial: books with an imaginative setting, strong narrative voice, and compelling premise. He has an active SFF list, with mutliple award-winning and nominated authors, and is always on the lookout for new writers. He’s open to all forms of high concept writing, intelligent crime and thrillers, and books that transcend genre. Ed is not currently taking on any new YA or children's authors, and does not represent play or film scripts.
His non-fiction tastes cover a wide range: from serious politics and sweeping narrative history, to sport, natural history and popular culture. He loves intelligent and original graphic novels and infographics, and anything that tackles well-known subjects in an interesting and quirky way.
Ed also looks after the majority of the agency’s Estates, in conjunction with Andrew Hewson: these include Beryl Bainbridge, Dick Francis, William Trevor and Elizabeth Taylor. Any enquiries about these authors should be sent to him.
C.C. Adams
London native C.C. Adams is the horror/dark fiction author behind books such as But Worse Will Come, Forfeit Tissue and Downwind, Alice. A member of the Horror Writers Association, he still lives in the capital. This is where he lifts weights, cooks - and looks for the perfect quote to set off the next dark delicacy. Visit him at www.ccadams.com, or on Twitter - @MrAdamsWrites
Sam Hopkinson
I am an aspiring fantasy writer (and lover of all things fantasy) at a stage where I'd like to reach out and network with like-minded people and those in the industry to expand my knowledge and expertise.
Ian Hunter
Ian Hunter is a children's author, short story writer, editor and poet. He is a member of the Horror Writers Association, the Glasgow SF Writers Circle and is the poetry editor for the British Fantasy Society.
Kiya Evans
Kiya Evans has been working as Juliet Mushens' assistant since 2021. After graduating with a BA in History and English from Oxford University, she completed two internships at Mushens Entertainment, and joined as a full-time member of the team in February 2021.
Shauna Lawless
Shauna Lawless is an avid reader of Irish mythology and folklore. As an Irish woman, she loves that Irish mythology has inspired so many stories over the years, however, she wanted to explore the history and mythology of Ireland in a more authentic way. She lives in Northern Ireland with her family. She is the author of The Children of Gods and Fighting Men.
Michael R. Miller
Michael R. Miller is the author of the Songs of Chaos and Dragon's Blade series with over 300,000 copies sold through self-publishing. He worked briefly at Bloomsbury Publishing and co-founded the digital publisher Portal Books.
E.M. Faulds / Beth
E.M. Faulds lives not far from Glasgow, in the oldest house in town. She writes speculative fiction and has had short stories published in Strange Horizons, and Shoreline of Infinity magazines. Her book "Under the Moon: Collected Speculative Fiction" is available from Ghost Moth Press.
S Slottje
S SLOTTJE (1973) grew up in the Netherlands – the bit that’s not Amsterdam - and spent much of her childhood exploring the nearby fields, forests, and her own fantasy lands. Since the turn of the Millennium, she calls Gloucestershire (UK) home. She wrote her debut fantasy novel, SCALES OF JUSTICE, during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Simon Kurt Unsworth
Simon Kurt Unsworth has written two novels and five collections of short stories, and a mini collection with his son, Benjamin. He was nominated for a World Fantasy Award a few years ago, and several years before that he was born in Manchester. He lives in Kendal with his wife and too many animals, where he swims in lakes and rivers and dreams of sharks.
Adam Millard
Adam Millard is the author of thirty novels, twelve novellas, and more than two hundred short stories, which can be found in various collections, magazines, and anthologies. Probably best known for his post-apocalyptic and comedy-horror fiction, Adam also writes fantasy/horror for children, as well as bizarro fiction for several publishers. His work has recently been translated for the German, Spanish, and Russian markets.
Dan Coxon
Dan Coxon is an award-winning editor and writer based in London. His non-fiction anthology Writing the Uncanny (co-edited with Richard V. Hirst) won the British Fantasy Award for Best Non-Fiction 2022, while his short story collection Only the Broken Remain (Black Shuck Books) was shortlisted for two British Fantasy Awards in 2021 (Best Collection, Best Newcomer). In 2018 his anthology of British folk-horror, This Dreaming Isle (Unsung Stories), was shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award and a Shirley Jackson Award. His latest anthology - Isolation - was published by Titan Books in September 2022.
Omar Kooheji
Omar is a lifelong fantasy fan, software engineer, and neurodivergent person. He grew up in the Middle East, and now lives in Scotland in a fortified farmhouse in the countryside with his wife who is the real talent, and his border collie and cat, all three of whom are smarter than he is...
Rose Drew
Rose Drew, an education & economic migrant from America, is an editor, supply teacher, publisher, poet and physical anthropologist. She is secretly disabled. When not prepping manuscripts or hosting poetry events, Rose analyses skeletal remains: sometimes forensic but usually archaeological. Rose is happiest in front of an audience.
Steve Toase
Steve Toase was born in North Yorkshire, England, and now lives in the Frankenwald, Germany. His fiction has appeared in Nightmare Magazine, Shadows & Tall Trees 8, Analog, Three Lobed Burning Eye, and Shimmer amongst others. His stories have been selected for Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year series, and Paula Guran’s Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror.
He also likes bonsai forests, old motorbikes. and vintage cocktails. His debut short story collection ‘To Drown in Dark Water’ is published by Undertow Publications
Mark Morris
Mark Morris has written and edited around forty novels, novellas, short story collections and anthologies. His most recent work includes the Obsidian Heart trilogy for Titan Books, the original Predator novel Stalking Shadows (co-written with James A. Moore), a new audio adaptation of the classic 1971 horror movie Blood on Satan’s Claw, a 30th anniversary short story collection Warts And All, and, as editor, four anthologies for Flame Tree Press. Mark has won two British Fantasy Awards, two New York Festival Radio Awards, an Audio and Radio Industry Award and has been nominated for several Stokers and Shirley Jackson Awards.
Ben Kurt Unsworth
18-year-old author, published a few times online, and in a co-collection by Black Shuck Books. Lover of anything Doctor Who.
Sandra Unerman
Sandra Unerman is the author of two historical fantasy novels, Spellhaven and Ghosts and Exiles and of short stories. She has written articles for the BFS and the BFSA. She is a retired Government lawyer and has recently acquired an MA in Folklore Studies. She is a member of Clockhouse London Writers and of the Middleoak Writing Group.
Jess Hyslop
Jess Hyslop is a writer of fantasy, fabulism, and science fiction. Her short stories have been published in venues such as Black Static, Interzone, and Cossmass Infinities. Her debut novella, Miasma, is out now from Luna Press.
Frances White
Frances White is the author of Voyage of the Damned, a fantasy murder mystery at sea coming January 2024 from Penguin Michael Joseph. A Nottingham resident, Frances is a creative writing graduate from Royal Holloway University of London. She has a soft spot for writing unlikely, flawed, messy heroes and loves mixing humour and heartbreak. Frances is also passionate about bringing more LGBTQIA+ representation and fat positivity into fantasy. When not writing, she can be found sewing nerdy costumes for comic conventions or researching obscure historical facts.
Alexander Glass
My short fiction has appeared in F&SF, Asimov's, Interzone, Black Static and elsewhere (and anthologised). More are coming up in F&SF and Interzone. Interzone is currently serializing 'Zelazny From A to Z' my work on Roger Zelazny, the New Wave, and their influence on modern SF, and will also be serializing a multiversal modern fantasy novel (for which a soundtrack will also be available). In daylight hours I am a former human rights lawyer, now a lecturer.
Kate Dylan
Kate is a video editor by day, science fiction and fantasy author by night. Her debut sci-fi novel, Mindwalker (sept 2022), debuted on the UK hardback fiction bestseller list, and an in-world companion, Mindbreaker, is set to follow in September 2023. Her passion for writing YA novels is fuelled by a love of banter, snark, and all things Marvel, and is supported by her long-suffering boyfriend and their thoroughly indifferent cat.
Dave Brzeski
Dave Brzeski is a book reviewer for various venues, including SF Crows Nest and Parsec magazine. He is also co-owner, with his partner Jilly Paddock of Cathaven Press, publisher of various books, but mainly Occult Detective Magazine, which he co-edits with John Linwood Grant.
A. Y. Chao
A. Y. Chao is the author of Shanghai Immortal (Hodderscape, 2023) about the gloriously snarky Lady Jing, an outcast noble in the court of the king of Shanghai’s nether realm, who sets out to uncover a conspiracy to steal a priceless dragon pearl, and finds her own identity—and a little love—in the process.
Born in Canada, A. Y. Chao lives in the UK with her husband and daughter. She is a recovering lawyer with a xiaolongbao habit and a predilection for knitting.
Samantha Shannon
Samantha Shannon is the New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of the Bone Season series. Her work has been translated into twenty-six languages. Her fourth novel, The Priory of the Orange Tree (2019), was her first outside of the Bone Season series and was a New York Times bestseller, as was its standalone prequel, A Day of Fallen Night (2023).
Richard Clive
Richard Clive is the author of Strange Frequencies, a short story collection published by Sinister Smile Press.
Richard's work has also been published by numerous publishers of horror and science fiction in various anthologies.
A former film and scriptwriting student, Richard lives in North Wales and, when not busy writing horror, works as a journalist.
Ruth Aylett
Live and work in Edinburgh as Prof of AI&Robotics: popular science book on robots just published in paperback; plus widely published poet with 2 pamphlets pub 2021; plus novelist with SF/Fantasy novel Equinox pub Stairwell this year.
Timothy J. Jarvis
Timothy J. Jarvis is a writer with an interest in the antic, the weird, and the strange. His cult 'last man' novel, 'The Wanderer', was first released in summer 2014 and republished in 2022, and his supernatural short tales have appeared in various venues. He currently lives in Bedford, a small town in the hallowed/cursed M1 corridor.
David Wragg
David Wragg is the author of the Articles of Faith series and the Tales of the Plains trilogy. He lives in Hertfordshire, UK, with his family and an increasing number of animals.
Alice James
Alice is a former financial journalist, TV presenter and travel writer who now writes SFF tales. Her series of paranormal whodunnits, The Lavington Windsor Mysteries, is being published by Rebellion and she has had short stories published in Indie Bites and Andromeda Spaceways. She likes cats and ramen noodles. Her number one cocktail is a Manhattan and her favourite polygon is a triangle, though she has a soft spot for concave rhomboids.
Jonathan Oliver
Jonathan Oliver is an award-winning editor and author. A former Editor-in-Chief for Solaris and Abaddon Books, he is now a freelance editor. Jonathan is also the author of the collection The Language of Beasts.
Lauren McMenemy
Lauren writes gothic, supernatural, and folk horror in short and long forms. She is also the editor of Horror Tree’s Trembling With Fear, and works as a writing coach to help indie SFFH writers to develop their craft. Born in Australia but based in London for too long, Lauren works as a copywriter, editor, and proofreader in the mundane world. She’s also a mental health advocate; her Substack, How to Be Self(ish), tracked her year of sabbatical and self-care. You’ll find her haunting south London, where she lives with her Doctor Who-obsessed husband and their aged black house rabbit.
Roger Keen
Roger Keen is the author of several works of fiction and non-fiction, including The Empty Chair, Literary Stalker and Triskaidekaphobia. He has also written numerous short stories, articles and reviews, often with surreal or countercultural leanings, and he has worked in film and TV, contributing to many award-winning dramas and documentaries for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. He also heads Darkness Visible Publishing, an independent publisher specializing in noir fiction and non-fiction, which started in 2017.
Steve Morgan
Steve Morgan is an aspiring fantasy author, currently working on an epic fantasy trilogy titled "DEMONS". His day job is as a freelance online marketing consultant, primarily working in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). He's also written and self-published a business self-help book titled Anti-Sell, which gives sales and networking tips to people who hate sales and networking. Big fan of rock music and D&D. Based in Cardiff, South Wales, UK. He also hates writing bios in the third-person (and now realises it might not have been a requirement to do so - oh well)!
Guy Haley
Guy Haley is a science fiction, fantasy and horror writer and editor from Yorkshire. He's published over 50 novels and novellas and scores of short stories, has written audio, game and animation scripts, and was previously a journalist and magazine editor on SFX, Death Ray, and White Dwarf.
Raven Dane
Raven Dane is a UK based author of dark fantasy, steampunk, horror and alternative history novels and novellas. She has had many short stories published, including one in a celebration of forty years of the British Fantasy Society and in many international horror anthologies. One was in Billie Sue Mosiman’s Frightmare –Women Write Horror which was shortlisted for a prestigious Bram Stoker award in 2016. She has appeared in two international lists of best female horror writers. A lifelong Dr Who fan, Raven was on the script team and novelisation for a spin off film, The Daemons of Devil’s End
Shellie Horst
Never far from a castle or a cuppa, Shellie Horst is the author of short fiction in Science Fiction. Her short story, My Little Mecha was nominated for a BSFA award in 2019. As M.L Horst, she writes fantasy.
Shellie writes for SFFWorld, FutureFire.net and for the BSFA Review publication. She organises HumberSFF providing a social event for anyone interested in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror in the Humber area. She’s also been known to create a book cover or two.
www.shelliehorst.com
Jen Williams
Jen Williams is an award-winning author from London. Her Copper Cat and Winnowing Flame trilogies have been nominated for British Fantasy awards several times, with The Ninth Rain and The Bitter Twins each winning the Robert Holdstock Award for Best Fantasy Novel. Her debut crime novel Dog Rose Dirt was published in 2021, and her first horror novella, Seven Dead Sisters, was published in 2022 by Absinthe Books. Jen has two new novels out in 2023: Talonsister, a return to fantasy published by Titan, and Games for Dead Girls, a true crime inspired horror novel, published by HarperVoyager. She’s also partly responsible for the creation of the Super Relaxed Fantasy Club and is partial to mead, if you’re buying.
Eliza Mood
My speculative climate fiction novel, 'O Man of Clay' was published by Stairwell Books in 2020. I am a former lecturer at the University of Cumbria and have researched and written on oral story telling in education.
Rosa B Watkinson
Author of The Cracked Amulet, The Fractured Portal, various shorts including Death at Sea under my maiden name, Knappert. Narrator of many audiobooks such as Ghosts of Tomorrow, City if Kings, etc. Voice artist for RPG's such as Skywind. Will read anyone's book at the drop of a whiskey :)
Eleanor Teasdale
Eleanor Teasdale is the Publisher of Angry Robot and Datura Books. As well as buying and editing for the list she sets the direction and strategy for the house across imprints. Her authors include Cameron Johnston, S.T. Gibson, Stephen Aryan and Caroline Hardacker to name a few. She previously worked in a literary agency before joining Angry Robot. She's worked at a circus in a previous life and is happy to chat to authors looking to find out more about traditional publishing!
Lindz McLeod
I'm a queer, working-class, Scottish writer and editor; my short stories have been published by Apex, Catapult, Pseudopod, and many more. My longer work includes the novelette LOVE, HAPPINESS, AND ALL THE THINGS YOU MAY NOT BE DESTINED FOR (Assemble Media, 2022), my short story collection TURDUCKEN (Spaceboy, 2023), and my debut novel BEAST (Brigids Gate Press, coming August 2023). I am a full member of the SFWA, the newly elected Club President of the Edinburgh Writers' Club, and recently chaired at Cymera '23 in Edinburgh. I'm currently studying for a PhD in Creative Writing at Manchester.
Twitter: @lindzmcleod
Website: www.lindzmcleod.co.uk.
G Clatworthy
G Clatworthy started writing during lockdown (her first book was 'The Girl Who Lost her Listening Ears' so you can tell how lockdown went!). She now writes urban fantasy where she mixes the magical and the mundane with irreverent humour. She lives in Wiltshire with her family and 2 cats. She loves board games, tea and chocolate.
Joanne Harris
Joanne Harris (OBE, FRSL) is the author of 20 novels in different genres, including fantasy, mythpunk, horror and literary fiction, plus novellas, short stories, libretti and scripts. She rose to fame through her 1999 novel, Chocolat, which became an Oscar-nominated film, and has since then won numerous UK and international awards. She is a passionate advocate of authors' rights, and is currently the Chair of the Society of Authors and a Board member of the ALCS.
Andrew Crowther
Andrew Crowther is an unprofessional writer from Bradford. He is the author of future-satire novella "Down to Earth" published by Stairwell Books, praised by Mike Leigh as a "brilliant dead-pan dystopian vision [which] is as compelling as it is disturbing and unsettling." "Down to Earth" is his first novel.
João F. Silva
João F. Silva was born in a small town in Portugal but now lives in London, with his three feline co-workers/bosses. He writes Epic Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror and his short fiction has been published in Grimdark Magazine and Haven Speculative.
George Penney
George Penney is a best-selling rom com author who moved into writing comedic fantasy and science fiction with her partner Tony Johnson during the pandemic. She runs two successful podcasts, "My Favourite Monster" and "Bohemiana", which are both going into their second season of recording in July. Her career started with a 3 book deal with PRH in 2014 that resulted in a national best-seller, and numerous television and radio appearances. She has since written 15 novels which frequently hit bestseller lists. She is a part of the LGTBQI+ community and loves writing diverse, 3d characters and worlds that people want to get to know. She writes with her partner, Tony Johnson. www.overlondon.net
Gavin G. Smith
Gavin Smith is the author/co-author of around fourteen books, a couple of novellas and several short stories (there are more than several but these are the ones he’s prepared to admit to). His books include (but are not limited to) Veteran and War in Heaven, the Age of Scorpio Trilogy, the Bastard Legion Series, Spec Ops Z and the novelisation of the Sony Pictures Bloodshot movie. When not writing he is er… writing for the gaming industry whilst making sporadic attempts to break into scriptwriting. In his free time, he likes to er… write, game, go for walks and travel.
M V Melcer
M V Melcer is the author of upcoming science fiction novel Refractions (October 2023). Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, GigaNotoSurus, Daily Science Fiction, Nature, and others. Born in Poland, M V has lived in the USA, the Netherlands and Belgium before settling in the United Kingdom. When not writing, she is pursuing a degree in astronomy. You can find her on www.mvmelcer.com.
Alethea Lyons
I am a queer writer of long and short form fiction. I have several short stories published or awaiting publication and a dark fantasy novel, The Hiding, being published March 2024. I live in Manchester with my husband & Sprite, a cacophony of stringed instruments, & more tea than I can drink in a lifetime.
Rachel Grosvenor
Rachel Grosvenor is a writer from Birmingham, UK, with a PhD, MA and BA in Creative Writing. With a passion for telling fantastical tales, Rachel has written poetry and short stories for reviews and anthologies worldwide. When she's not writing, she spends her time editing, coaching, and wondering what's for elevenses.
Catherine Cavendish
Following a varied career in sales, advertising and career guidance, Catherine Cavendish is the author of a growing number of witchy, ghostly and Gothic horror novels, novellas and short stories.
Her novels include: The After-Death of Caroline Rand, Dark Observation, In Darkness, Shadows Breathe, The Garden of Bewitchment, The Haunting of Henderson Close, The Devil’s Serenade, The Pendle Curse and Saving Grace Devine.
She lives in Southport with her long-suffering husband, and a black cat called Serafina who has never forgotten that her species used to be worshipped and who sees no reason why that practice should not continue.
Sultana Raza
Of Indian origin, Sultana Raza’s poems/fiction/CNF have appeared in 100+ journals, with SFF work in Entropy, Columbia Journal, Star*line, Bewildering Stories, Focus & Vector (BSFA), Unlikely Stories Mark V, Galaxy#2 #4, #5, Antipodean SF, and File770.
Her fiction received an Honorable Mention in Glimmer Train Review, and was published in Coldnoon Journal, Knot Literature, and Setu etc. She’s read her fiction/poems in Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, England, Ireland, the USA, WorldCon 2018, CoNZealand 2019, and Chicon8.
Her creative non-fiction will/has appeared in Literary Ladies Guide, Literary Yard, Litro, impspired, Dream Pop Journal (in 2023) etc. An independent scholar, Sultana has presented papers on Romanticism (Keats) and Fantasy (Tolkien) in international conferences.
T. H. Dray
T.H. Dray is a writer of speculative fiction whose short work has appeared in The Best of British Science Fiction and was nominated for a British Fantasy Award. She is from Glasgow and still lives there in a house where humans are outnumbered by dogs.
Matt Twinley
After his stint as an English teacher, Matt decided to focus on his passion for fantasy by writing a young adult fantasy series. As a fan of mash-ups, he decided to include mythical creatures from a range of mythologies from across the world, mixing lesser-known creatures with more popular ones in a thrilling fantasy adventure.
Inspired by his wife’s Type 1 diabetes, the magic system in The Blood Crystal, is based on diabetics testing their blood sugar level. Additionally, he made the protagonist a Type 1 diabetic to give young adults with T1D a role model to look up to.
Adri Joy
Adri is a senior co-editor at the Hugo award winning, Ignyte nominated fanzine Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together, where she and the team talk about fantasy, science fiction, video games, comics, cult movies, and other realms of nerddom. She sometimes reviews at Strange Horizons, and has a day job supporting democratic institutions worldwide.
Chris Behrsin
When Chris Behrsin isn’t out exploring the world, he’s behind a keyboard writing tales of dragons and magical lands. He was born into the genre through a steady diet of Terry Pratchett. His fiction fuses a love for fantasy and whimsical plots with philosophy and voyages into the worlds of dreams.
He is the author of the Dragoncat humorous fantasy series, the first book of which is A Cat's Guide to Bonding with Dragons.
Tristan Gray
Tristan Gray is a new Scottish independent author of dark fantasy short stories inspired by Gaelic mythology, folklore, and Scottish languages. He's been publishing his stories since 2020 and is currently working on the final entries of the Tales of Seann Àite.
Alice JamesAlice is a relatively SFF author. The first three books in her romantic paranormal fantasy whodunit series, The Lavington Windsor Mysteries, have been published by Solaris, and she has had short stories in Indie Bites and Andromeda Spaceways. She was recently the guest speaker for Birmingham Science Fiction Society. Alice is a huge fan of genre fiction and believes human rights belong at work, at home and in the classroom.
Elliot Craggs
Devin Martin
Devin Martin is a colony of uncooperative cells with an insatiable appetite for cheesecake. He almost fell to the Dark Side as a harbinger of the robot apocalypse, but now he produces audio for PodCastle, occasionally narrates fiction, and sometimes even writes. He lives in Cardiff with his brilliant scientist of a spouse. He almost never tweets @devinxmartin and he has a wide range of disturbing cackles.
Tracy Fahey
Tracy Fahey is an Irish writer. Twice shortlisted for Best Collection at the British Fantasy Awards in 2017 and 2022, her short fiction is published in over thirty American,
British, Australian and Irish anthologies. She holds a PhD on the Gothic in visual arts.
Fahey’s writing is supported by residencies in Ireland and Greece, and a Saari Fellowship awarded by the Kone Foundation, Finland.
Rachel Knightley
Dr Rachel Knightley is a fiction and non-fiction author, lecturer and writing and confidence coach. Her background in directing and performing for theatre formed her fascination with performance and identity; the power of the stories we tell ourselves to shape our reality. Her second collection of short stories, Twisted Branches, will be published by Black Shuck Books in October 2023 (the first, Beyond Glass, was published in 2021). She has written and presented documentary features for Starburst magazine and YouTube (including The E.I. of Sci-fi), Indicator Films, Second Sight Films and Severin Films. Her non-fiction includes Your Creative Writing Toolkit and the GCSE Drama Study and Revision Guide (Illuminate/Hodder Education). She is a qualified coach (Barefoot Coaching/Chester University) and, in addition to her PhD, holds a LAMDA Diploma in Speech and Drama Education and a PGCert in Teaching Creative Writing from Cambridge University. www.rachelknightley.com
Saara El-Arifi
Saara El-Arifi is the Sunday Times bestselling author of THE FINAL STRIFE and THE BATTLE DRUM. She knew she was a storyteller from the moment she told her first lie. Tall tales soon evolved into epic ones and the Ending Fire trilogy came to be. FAEBOUND is the first part of her second trilogy releasing in January 2024, also published by HarperVoyager UK and Del Rey US.
Susanne Carpenter
Rosanne Rabinowitz
My first collection of short fiction, Resonance & Revolt, was a finalist for the BFS award and my novella Helen's Story was shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson Award. My stories have appeared in anthologies published by Egaeus and Swan River Press, plus notable ones such as Jews vs Aliens. I live in South London where I engage in several occupations including care work and freelance editing.
Caleb Peregrine
Sunyi Dean
Sunyi Dean is a biracial autistic author who was born in Texas, grew up in Hong Kong, and now resides in North England. She writes speculative fiction with a weird slant, and has both too many books and too many children.
In her spare time, she can be found hiking, weight lifting, wild-swimming, and dying in jiu-jitsu. She also founded and co-hosts the Publishing Rodeo Podcast with fellow Tor author, Scott Drakeford.
Ellis Saxey
E. Saxey is an ungendered Londoner who works in universities and volunteers in libraries. Their short weird fiction has appeared in Apex Magazine, Giganotosaurus, Best of British Science Fiction and others. Their first collection was Lost in the Archives (Lethe Press, 2022), and their debut novel is Unquiet, a historical gothic fantasy set in Victorian London (Titan Press, 2023).
Susan York
Six of Susan York’s short stories have been published in various anthologies and a journal. Two of her poems have appeared in BFS Horizons. Papa Said (13), and, Guilt (14). In 2021, Midnight Street Press published Susan’s novelette, On the Cusp of Sleep and launched her story collection, Starless and Bible Black, at FantasyCon in September 2022. Susan’s story, We All Scream for Ice Cream, appears in Flash Frontier’s December edition; Wonder. Sein und Werden published, A Wheat Field in England, in their Spring/Summer journal, Animal Vegetable, Mineral. This year, Susan has been shortlisted for the British Fantasy Society award of, Best Newcomer.
Charlotte Bond
Charlotte is an author, freelance editor, and podcaster. Under her own name she has written within the genres of horror and dark fantasy, but she’s also worked as a ghostwriter. She edits books for individuals and publishers, and has also contributed numerous non-fiction articles to various websites. She is a co-host of the award-winning podcast, Breaking the Glass Slipper. Her micro collection The Watcher in the Woods won the British Fantasy Society’s award for Best Collection in 2021. Her novella The Fireborne Blade is due out with Tor.Com in 2024. She is represented by Alex Cochran.
Mike Brooks
Mike Brooks is an Audible-bestselling, British Fantasy Awards-losing sci-fi and fantasy author who has written the Keiko trilogy of grimy space-opera novels, the low-magic epic fantasy of The God-King Chronicles, and many novels for Games Workshop. He's queer, partially deaf, plays guitar and sings in a punk band, and DJs wherever anyone will tolerate him.
Gary Couzens
Gary Couzens has published fiction in F & SF, Black Static and other magazines and anthologies and reviews for Cine Outsider and Black Static. From 2000 to 2003, Gary was the Chair of the British Fantasy Society.
Anna Stephens
Anna Stephens is the author of the epic fantasy Godblind and Songs of the Drowned trilogies through HarperVoyager, and also writes for Black Library in their Age of Sigmar and Warhammer Horror imprints, as well as for Marvel Comics through their tie-in publisher, Aconyte Books.
As a black belt in Shotokan Karate and a sometime historical fencer, Anna’s no stranger to the feeling of being hit in the face, which is more help than you would expect when writing fight scenes.
https://anna-stephens.com
Gabriela Houston
GABRIELA HOUSTON was born and raised in Poland, brought up on a diet of mythologies and fairy tales. She spent her summers exploring the woods, foraging and animal tracking with her family. Gabriela moved to London to study English Literature and obtained a Masters degree in Literatures of Modernity. She has worked as an assistant editor and as a freelance writer. Gabriela writes Slavic-folklore-inspired novels for adults (The Second Bell, The Bone Roots) and children (The Wind Child duology). She lives in London with her husband and two children.
Elijah Kinch Spector
Elijah Kinch Spector is a writer, dandy, and rootless cosmopolitan from the Bay Area who now lives in Brooklyn. His first novel, Kalyna the Soothsayer, was shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award, and received acclaim from NPR, Nerds of a Feather, Tor.com, Foreword, and Paste Magazine, among others. A sequel, Kalyna the Cutthroat, is expected in 2024.
Stephen Aryan
Stephen's debut novel, Battlemage, published in 2015, was a finalist for the David Gemmell Morningstar Award for best debut fantasy novel. Battlemage won the inaugural Hellfest Inferno Award in France. The Age of Darkness and Age of Dread trilogies wrapped up in 2019. In 2020 Stephen was picked up for a new duology. The first novel, The Coward, received a Starred Review from Publishers Weekly. In 2022, Angry Robot signed The Judas Blossom, the first instalment in a Persian inspired fantasy trilogy. The Judas Blossom has been described as an “imaginative and sprawling reimagining of the Mongol Empire’s invasion of Persia.
Jenni Coutts
Jenni Coutts is an illustrator, speculative fiction writer and junior doctor based in Glasgow, Scotland. She won the British fantasy award for best artist in 2022. She has artwork featured in both uk and international publications, and has been a member of GFSWC since 2013. In her free time, she enjoys boxing, weight lifting, and chilling with her cat Smudge. Find her on Instagram @jennicouttsart or Twitter @jenni_coutts.
Mathew Gostelow
Mathew Gostelow (he/him) is a writer in Birmingham, UK with more than 50 short story and poetry publications to his name, both online and in print. His first short story collection “See My Breath Dance Ghostly” is available now, published by Alien Buddha. He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2022, and longlisted for the Welkin Prize in 2023. You can find him on Twitter: @MatGost
https://weirding-words.blogspot.com/p/welcome.html
Sasha Sienna
Sasha Sienna is an award-winning writer and performer, specialising in scripted audio drama, tabletop games writing and genre fiction. Their work combines immersive worldbuilding, compelling characterisation and emotion smuggled inside humour. As a games writer and designer, they are one half of MacGuffin & Co., an indie TTRPG duo creating smart games for cool weirdos. In the podcasting world, they are best known as the voice of Georgie Barker on The Magnus Archives and for their writing on Doctor Who: Redacted.
Maura McHugh
Maura McHugh lives in Galway, Ireland and writes across a variety of media, including prose, theatre, film/TV, video games, and comic books. Her short story collection, The Boughs Withered (When I Told Them My Dreams), was nominated for the British Fantasy Award for Best Collection. She also writes a weekly Substack newsletter and appears on podcasts and radio, where she interviews, reviews, and discusses pop culture.
Kit Power
Kit Power is a BFA finalist writer of fiction (A Song For The End) and non-fiction (My Life In Horror Volume II), specialising in Horror. He's written extensively for Gingernuts of Horror, and his podcasting work covers a wide range of media. Along with podcasting partner George Daniel Lea, he'll be appearing as part of a special feature in Arrow's forthcoming 4K restoration of the Hellraiser movies - a perfect gift to his 13 year old self.
Iain Grant
Iain Grant an independently published author of more than 40 novels including the acclaimed Clovenhoof 'Satan in Suburbia' fantasy series and numerous urban fantasy and science fiction novels.
Heide Goody
Heide Goody has co-written over 40 novels with Iain Grant during the 12+ years they have been writing together. They have written across various genres, but are known primarily for comedy.
Will (W.P.) Wiles
W.P. Wiles was born in India in 1978. He is the author of The Last Blade Priest (Angry Robot), an epic fantasy novel which won the Red Tentacle for best novel at the 2023 Kitchies. He was previously the author of three literary novels, published by Fourth Estate. In 2024 Angry Robot will publish The Dead Man's Empire, a sequel to The Last Blade Priest; also in 2024 Salt is publishing a collection of his weird tales. In his day job he writes about architecture.
David Stokes
David Stokes runs the small press Guardbridge Books based in Scotland. The press publishes a variety of fantasy & science fiction, and also history/non-fiction. Many of the works have some multicultural/non-western aspect. He is originally from Austin, Texas and has studied Astronomy, Philosophy, and History, obtaining a PhD in History from University of St Andrews.
Phil Sloman
Phil Sloman is a writer of dark psychological fiction. His first story was published in 2014 and he has been writing ever since. In 2017 Phil was shortlisted for British Fantasy Award Best Newcomer for his novella Becoming David, and was part of Imposter Syndrome from Dark Minds Press shortlisted for British Fantasy Award Best Anthology in 2018, and edited the 2020 British Fantasy Award shortlisted anthology The Woods. Phil regularly appears on several reviewers' Best of Year lists. Phil’s latest collection, No Happily Ever After, was released in May 2023. Author website: https://www.philsloman.com/
CL Gamble
CL Gamble is a queer creative working with dystopian writing, roleplay & performance. Their practice blurs boundaries between media and encourages audiences to playfully engage with their own imaginations.
Trip Galey
Trip is a writer, a doctor of the academic persuasion, and a researcher of all things pursuant to bargains, exchanges, and compacts of a faery nature. It is inadvisable to attempt to make a deal with him. He has been, in the past, a reluctant cowboy, an Ivy League collegian, and an itinerant marketing professional. Mostly harmless.
Cheryl Morgan
Cheryl Morgan is a writer, editor, and publisher. She has won four Hugo Awards and is the owner of Wizard’s Tower Press. Her non-fiction has appeared in various venues including Locus, the SFWA Bulletin, the Science Fiction Encyclopaedia, Vector and Strange Horizons. Her fiction has appeared in various small press magazines and anthologies. Cheryl was a Guest of Honour at the 2012 Eurocon in Zagreb and the 2019 Finncon in Jyväskylä. She was a keynote speaker at Worlding SF at the University of Graz in 2018, and at When It Changed, organised by the University of Glasgow in December 2022.
C.L. McCartney
Chris is a writer, poet and pedant. He lives amid an ever-growing hoard of pretty books that are threatening the structural integrity of his London flat. His fantasy and horror fiction can be found in the queer collections "Innovation" and "Ink", and in “The Crawling Moon” anthology (forthcoming, Neon Hemlock). When not writing, he is a professional nerd for the government (working in "policy", whatever that means) and he moonlights on the editorial team of a legal journal. The rest of the time he spends being very gay.
David Guymer
I am a fantasy author working primarily in tie-in fiction. In addition to my fiction, I have written for computer games, ttrpgs, and boardgames, and have worked with publishers including Games Workshop, Marvel, and Asmodee. I originally imagined myself as a science fiction author before finding myself pretty well established as a fantasy one. My background is in science, originally, with a PhD in microbiology and several years spent working in labs before taking up writing full-time.
Tiffani Angus
Tiffani Angus, a BSFA- and BFS-award finalist for her debut novel Threading the Labyrinth, is also an ex-academic and short-story writer, and her latest book, Spec Fic for Newbies: A Beginner's Guide to Writing Subgenres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror (co-written with academic and author Val Nolan) was released in March by Luna Press. She lives in Bury St Edmunds where she is the co-director of the Underhill Academy for SFF Writers.
Ruth EJ Booth
Ruth EJ Booth is a multiple award-winning writer and academic of fantasy based in Glasgow, Scotland. Her poetry and fiction can be found in Black Static, Pseudopod and The Dark magazine, as well as anthologies from NewCon Press and Fox Spirit Books. Winner of the BSFA Award for Best Short Fiction and shortlisted twice for the British Fantasy Award in the same category, in 2019, her quarterly column for Shoreline of Infinity, ‘Noise and Sparks’, received the British Fantasy Award for Best Non-Fiction. Ruth also co-edited the Fantasy and Gaming special issue of the British Fantasy Society Journal (due late 2023).
Russell Smith
Historian, writer of stories across a few genres, freelance gaming fiction/scenario pen. Hobbies include board and card games and leaping down the occasional rabbit hole.
Daniel McCormack
Daniel was shaped from a young age by the gentle woodlands, lonely moors and windswept coast of the Cornish landscape. He has an abiding love of all things Middle Earth, Earthsea and the Wheel of Time. He lives in Cornwall with his wife and children, and tries to split his time between his writing desk and exploring nature with his family.
Aparna Verma
Aparna Verma was born in India and grew up in the United States as a first generation immigrant. She graduated from Stanford University with Honors in the Arts and a B.A. in English. The Phoenix King is her first novel.
When she is not writing, Aparna likes to ride horses, dance to Bollywood music, and find old cafes to read myths about forgotten worlds. You can connect with Aparna on Twitter and Instagram at @spirited_gal.
Pauline Kirk
Pauline Kirk is the author of two near-future novels, 'The Keepers' (Virago/Little Brown, reissued by Stairwell Books), and 'Border 7' (Stairwell Books). 'Border 7' is available as an audiobook (Amazon Audible), recorded by the author. She also writes the DI Ambrose Mysteries with her daughter as PJ Quinn. Eleven collections of her poetry have been published, and her short stotries and poems have appeared in many magazines and journals. She lives in a village near York.
Thomas D. Lee
Thomas D. Lee writes novels about folklore and climate breakdown, often at the same time. He believes all sorts of things about how art and literature can be used as tools to fight for a better future, but mostly he just wants to make his readers laugh.
He holds a BA in History and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Manchester, where he is currently studying for a PhD.
When he’s not writing books his hobbi es include reading, letting his cup of tea go cold, and playing Dungeons and Dragons.
Weiqi Wang
Dr. Weiqi Wang is a world-traveling scientist who tends to embrace the unknown. He’s a PhD from Oxford, a scientist from Stanford, and the author of the magic fantasy series Code of Rainbow. Leveraging his scientist background, he made magic and science integrated and intertwined in his work in an intriguing way. As the story goes on, you'll enjoy the unique charm of science and magic merging into each other - something that has rarely been attempted before. This series is primarily for kids and teenagers, but it’s also enjoyable for all ages, with or without scientific knowledge.
Nadia Saward
Nadia Saward is a Commissioning Editor at Orbit. She has an MA in Creative Writing and their debut novel Henna & Hexes publishes October 2024 from Bantan and Del-Rey.
Tad Williams
Tad Williams is a California-based fantasy superstar. His genre-creating (and genre-busting) books have sold tens of millions worldwide. His considerable output of epic fantasy and epic science-fiction series, fantastical stories of all kinds, urban fantasy novels, comics, scripts, etc., have strongly influenced a generation of writers. Tad always has several secret projects on the go. Tad and his family live in the Santa Cruz mountains in a suitably strange and beautiful house.
Tad Williams is an international best-selling author of fantasy and science fiction. Since 1985, he has written more than 20 novels and 3 story collections, and his work has been translated into more than twenty languages. Tad´s stories have earned critical acclaim and are immensely popular with both fantasy and science fiction readers worldwide.
He is perhaps best know for his Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series, starting with The Dragonbone Chair.
Donna Scott
Donna Scott is an editor, writer, and stand-up comedian. She is currently working on the 8th book in her anthology series Best of British Science Fiction for Newcon Press.
J E Hannaford
J E Hannaford is the author of the folklore fantasy duology, Black Hind’s Wake, and epic fantasy, Aulirean Gates series.
When not at her keyboard creating fictional worlds, she is a Biology teacher with a Marine Biology background.
A love of nature, biology and the ocean permeates the pages of J E Hannaford’s stories and pours off the characters found in them.
She lives in Suffolk, UK, with her husband, son and a tankful of nano-shrimps.
Bethany Ferguson
Bethany graduated from the University of Oxford with a BA in Theology and Religion and a MSt in Theology (Ecclesiastical History), before joining Kate Nash Literary Agency in 2022. She loves story-telling in all its forms and is a life-long lover of all things SFF. She is actively building her client list and is always excited to hear about fresh spins on fantastical stories.
Nick Wells
Nick Wells is publisher and creative director of Flame Tree Publishing. He is also a writer, editor and contributor to over 50 books and an audio producer of podcasts and audiobooks. If he has any spare time it's spent on making music and annoying the neighbours.