Guests

Guest of Honour Ken MacLeod is a multi award-winning author of many science fiction novels, including the Fall Revolution quartet (collected in the twin omnibuses Fractions and Divisions), the Engines of Light trilogy (Cosmonaut Keep, Dark Light, and Engine City), and several stand-alone novels including Newton’s Wake, Learning the World, and the recent The Restoration Game. Born on the Scottish isle of Skye, he lives in Edinburgh.

The author of over thirty books and numerous scripts for videogames and radio, Guest of Honour James Swallow is an award-winning, New York Times bestselling writer, whose publications encompass original genre works and tie-in fiction. With over a decade of experience in the games industry, James’s credits include Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Killzone 2, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek: Invasion and the forthcoming Fable: The Journey.  A passionate advocate for games narrative, he has worked with the International Games Developers Association and their writer’s group on industry initiatives, including projects with the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, TAPS, FilmLondon, and the Writer’s Guild of Great Britain. 

Mark Chadbourn is an award-winning author published in the UK by Transworld (Bantam/Corgi), a screenwriter for BBC Drama with many hours of produced work and a former newspaper and  magazine journalist reporting from across the world. Since 2002, he has been a contract writer  for BBC medical drama Doctors, and has also developed original series ideas with BBC Drama  Development. The author of sixteen novels and one non-fiction book he is a two-time winner of  the prestigious British Fantasy Award. Mark was raised in the East Midlands and received a BA in  Economic History from Leeds University before beginning a career as a journalist.  His writing has  appeared in almost all UK national newspapers as well as several magazines including Empire,  Marie Claire, Select, and You. In the US, he published the critically-acclaimed graphic novel Book of Shadows at Image, and has written several other graphic series’.

Tom Hunter Director of the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction Literature. Journalism, marketing, sales and pr specialising in the arts & cultural sector.

Stephen Volk was the creator of the TV drama series Afterlife and the notorious BBC ‘Halloween hoax’ Ghostwatch. His latest feature film (co-written by director Nick Murphy) is The Awakening starring Rebecca Hall and Dominic West, and his other movie credits include Ken Russell’s Gothic and William Friedkin’s The Guardian. He has also written for Channel Four’s Shockers and won a BAFTA for The Deadness of Dad starring Rhys Ifans. His short stories (some of which are collected in Dark Corners, Gray Friar Press), have been shortlisted for for the British Fantasy, Bram Stoker, and Shirley Jackson awards, and have appeared in several ‘Best of’ anthologies. www.stephenvolk.net

The Oxford Companion to English Literature describes Ramsey Campbell as “Britain’s most respected living horror writer”. He has been given more awards than any other writer in the field, including the Grand Master Award of the World Horror Convention, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers Association and the Living Legend Award of the International Horror Guild. Among his novels are The Face That Must Die, Incarnate,Midnight Sun, The Count of Eleven, Silent Children, The Darkest Part of the Woods, The Overnight, Secret Story, The Grin of the Dark, Thieving Fear, Creatures of the Pool, The Seven Days of Cain and Ghosts Know. Forthcoming is The Kind Folk. His collections include Waking Nightmares, Alone with the Horrors, Ghosts and Grisly Things,Told by the Dead and Just Behind You, and his non-fiction is collected as Ramsey Campbell, Probably. His novels The Nameless and Pact of the Fathers have been filmed in Spain. His regular columns appear in Prism, All Hallows,Dead Reckonings and Video Watchdog. He is the President of the British Fantasy Society and of the Society of Fantastic Films. Ramsey Campbell lives on Merseyside with his wife Jenny. His pleasures include classical music, good food and wine, and whatever’s in that pipe. His web site is at www.ramseycampbell.com.

Andy Remic is the author of many novels, currently – Spiral, Quake, Warhead, War Machine, Biohell, Hardcore, Kell’s Legend, Soul Stealers, Cloneworld, Vampire Warlords, Serial Killers Incorporated, SIM, Theme Planet and the impending Toxicity. He’s a hard-talking, hard-fighting fluffy bunny rabbit of a man, who enjoys mountain biking, film making, mountain climbing, kick boxing and red hot chilli peppers! He has an unhealthy love of chainsaws, and has sometimes been accused of insane literature. Andy also runs ANARCHY BOOKS publishers and ULTIMATE ADVENTURE MAGAZINE. Read more at:www.andyremic.com | www.anarchy-books.com | www.uamag.co.uk

Terry Martin is probably best known as the publishing editor of the quarterly anthology magazine Murky Depths and as head honcho of The House of Murky Depths and the YA imprint Murkee, publishing science fiction, horror and fantasy in prose and comics, but he’s also a writer and an artist. His writings can be found in various publications, and he takes commissions for paintings, at very reasonable rates too, so we’re told. His woefully neglected website is www.terrymartin.me.uk, and of course there’s his blog at lucifal.wordpress.com and you can catch up with Murky business atwww.murkydepths.com.

Paul Cornell is a writer of SF and fantasy in prose, comics and television, the only person to have been Hugo Award nominated for all three media. He’s written three episodes of Doctor Who, Demon Knights for DC Comics and Saucer Country for Vertigo. His first urban fantasy novel, Cops and Monsters, is out from Tor in October.

Marie O’Regan is a British Fantasy Award-nominated horror author and editor, based in Derbyshire. She has had fiction published in the UK, USA, Canada, Italy and Germany, and her first collection, Mirror Mere, was published by Rainfall Books in 2006. Her genre journalism has appeared in such magazines as Dark Side, Rue Morgue, Dreamwatch, Fortean Times and Death Ray, among others, and she is currently editing a number of anthologies. Her first, co-edited, anthology,Hellbound Hearts, was released in 2009, and March 2012 sees the release of Mammoth Book of Body Horror. A book of interviews with luminaries in the horror field, Voices in the Dark, was released early in 2011 by McFarland. Marie served in various roles on the British Fantasy Society Committee from 2001-08, including editing their publications and maintaining their website, and was Chairperson from 2004-08. She also co-Chaired FantasyCon 2008 and 2011, and is co-organising FantasyCon 2012, to be held in Brighton.

Kim Lakin-Smith is the author of Tourniquet; Tales from the Renegade City (Immanion Press: 2007), Cyber Circus (Newcon Press: 2011) and the YA novella Queen Rat (Murky Depths, 2012). Her dark fantasy and science fiction short stories have appeared in various magazines and anthologies including Black Static, Interzone, Celebration, Myth-Understandings, Further Conflicts, Pandemonium: Stories of the Apocalypse, Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories By Women, and others, with ‘Johnny and Emmie-Lou Get Married’ shortlisted for the BSFA short story award 2009. Kim has a background in performance and is a regular guest speaker at writing workshops and conventions.

Adam Lowe is a writer/publisher who has been nominated for four Lambda Awards and three British Fantasy Awards. In 2008, his magazine, Polluto, was awarded a Spectrum Award. He is currently shortlisted for the Eric Hoffer Award. He was 2010 young writer in residence at the I Love West Leeds Festival. He writes for Bent,including a column as alter ego Beyonce Holes, and does promotion for Peepal Tree Press. Adam is a graduate of Street Voices and an active member of Young Inscribe. In the past he has been a part of Critters.org and Orson Scott Card’s Writers’ Workshop. Adam regularly delivers workshops and runs an annual mentoring/masterclass programme for new writers who specialise in weird and cross-genre writing: the Dog Horn Masterclasses. Because of his work in the region, he is a Youth Ambassador for the Cultural Olympiad. He has appeared in Word Riot, Unlikely Stories, Cadaverine, Chimeraworld 5, Leeds Guide, WAMACK, Saucytooth’s, Kaleidotrope, PoetCasting, and Ex Plus Ultra. Adam’s academic writing has appeared at University of Glasgow’s eSharp and is forthcoming in Queering the Fantastic. Last year his debut novella, Troglodyte Rose, was released in limited hardback by Cadaverine Publications. An expanded novel-length paperback is due in 2012 from Lethe Press. Currently he is part of a young writers’ group at West Yorkshire Playhouse, where his BBC-commissioned short play ‘Deep Blue Skin’ was showcased in March. He has been commissioned to lead an Olympics-funded youth writing project for Barnsley museums and is currently working on his next novel.

Paul Kane is an award-winning writer and editor based in Derbyshire. His short story collections are Alone (In the Dark), Touching the Flame, FunnyBones, Peripheral Visions, Shadow Writer and The Adventures of Dalton Quayle, with his latest out from the award-winning PS Publishing: The Butterfly Man and Other Stories. His novellas include Signs of Life, The Lazarus Condition, RED and Pain Cages. He is the author of the novels Of Darkness and Light, The Gemini Factor and the bestselling Arrowhead trilogy (Arrowhead, Broken Arrow and Arrowland), a post-apocalyptic reworking of the Robin Hood mythology. He is co-editor of the anthology Hellbound Hearts – stories based around the Clive Barker mythology that spawned Hellraiser – and The Mammoth Book of Body Horror out March 2012, featuring the likes of Stephen King and James Herbert. His non-fiction books are The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy and Voices in the Dark. His work has been optioned for film and television, and his zombie story ‘Dead Time’ was turned into an episode of the Lionsgate/NBC TV series Fear Itself, adapted by Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) and directed by Darren Lynn Bousman (SAW II-IV). He also scripted the The Opportunity, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, and The Weeping Woman – filmed by award-winning director Mark Steensland and starring Tony-nominated actor Stephen Geoffreys (Fright Night). Paul is currently turning a bestselling horror novel into a feature script for a production company in the States. You can find out more at his website www.shadow-writer.co.uk which has featured Guest Writers such as Neil Gaiman, Charlaine Harris, John Connolly and Guillermo del Toro.

Tom Fletcher was born in 1984. He is married, and currently lives in Manchester, UK. He is the author of two novels – The Leaping (Quercus, 2010) and The Thing on the Shore (Quercus, 2011) – and numerous short stories. He blogs at www.endistic.wordpress.com, his Twitter username is @T_A_Fletcher, and he can be found on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tomfletcherwriter. 

Carrot Nappers began Keith Large’s journey into playwriting. Originally published in First Edition as a short story, the play headlined the final night of 2009 Naked Stage season at The ADC Theatre in Cambridge in front of a sell out audience. Followed by a trilogy of short plays at the 2010 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which included Jeff Stewart (Reg Hollis from ITV’s The Bill) appearing in Keith’s headline play ‘Prima Donna Island’ and achieving further critical acclaim. Prima Donna Island- ‘With Stewart on good form and showing no signs of his infamous police persona, it’s an arresting performance’- Edinburgh Evening News 20th August 2010. Keith has still found time to write short stories, his humorous fantasy ‘The Tisbech Terror’ won first prize in Freelance Market News’s 2010 short story competition. Along with a piece of reverse creativity, adapting his stage play ‘Whine Fever’ into a short story to win the 2011 PCS/Words national competition. His advance into drama continues to go from strength to strength. The educational play ‘Racing Green’ is being performed by several schools across the UK and his anthem radio play ‘Talkers and Doers’ features BAFTA award winning actor David ‘Dai’ Bradley (Billy Casper in Kes) in the lead role. www.carrotnapper.com 

Peter Crowther is the recipient of numerous awards for his writing, his editing and, as publisher, for the hugely successful PS imprint. As well as being widely translated, his short stories have been adapted for TV on both sides of the Atlantic and collected in The Longest Single Note, Lonesome Roads, Songs of Leaving, The Spaces Between the Lines, The Land at the End of the Working Day and the upcoming Jewels In The Dust and Cold Comforts. He is the co-author (with James Lovegrove) of Escardy Gap and The Hand That Feeds, and author of By Wizard Oak and the Forever Twilight SF/horror cycle (Darkness Falling due late this year from Angry Robot). He lives and works with his wife and business partner, Nicky on the Yorkshire coast.

MD Lachlan is the author of the critically acclaimed fantasy novel Wolfsangel. He is also a successful mainstream fiction and non fiction writer under his real name of Mark Barrowcliffe. His next fantasy novel Fenrir is released in July. Mark also teaches creative writing, freelances as a journalist and occasionally ghost writes for celebrities.

K. A. Laity is the award-winning author of Pelzmantel and Other Medieval Tales of Magic (Immanion Press 2010), Unikirja (Aino Press 2009) and a wide variety of stories, plays, humor, and academic essays.  With cartoonist Elena Steier she created the comic Jane Quiet. She writes a weekly column for BitchBuzz.com. As ‘Kit Marlowe’ she writes historical romance and as ‘C. Margery Kempe’ she writes erotic romance. See her website www.kalaity.com for details.

Hailing from Scotland, Graham McNeill worked as a Games Developer in Games Workshop’s Design Studio for six and a half years before taking the plunge to become a full-time freelance author. In addition to twenty novels for the Black Library, Graham has also written a host of fantasy and SF short stories and comics, as well as novels for Blizzard Entertainment’s Starcraft licence and Fantasy Flight’s Arkham Horror range. This keeps him busy and (mostly) out of trouble. His novel A Thousand Sons was a New York Times best seller, and his Time of Legends novel, Empire, won the David Gemmell Legend Award in 2010. Graham lives and works in Nottingham, and you can keep up to date with what he’s doing by visiting his website at www.graham-mcneill.com

Mark Morris became a full-time writer in 1988 on the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, and a year later saw the release of his first novel, Toady. He has since published a further sixteen novels, among which are Stitch, The Immaculate, The Secret of Anatomy, Fiddleback, The Deluge and four books in the popular Doctor Who range. His short stories, novellas, articles and reviews have appeared in a wide variety of anthologies and magazines, and he is editor of the highly-acclaimed Cinema Macabre, a book of fifty horror movie essays by genre luminaries, for which he won the 2007 British Fantasy Award. His most recently published or forthcoming work includes a novella entitled It Sustains for Earthling Publications, a Torchwood novel entitled Bay of the Dead, several Doctor Who audios for Big Finish Productions, a follow-up volume to Cinema Macabre entitled Cinema Futura and a new short story collection, Long Shadows, Nightmare Light.

Conrad Williams is the author of seven novels, four novellas and around 100 short stories, some of which have been collected in ‘Use Once then Destroy’ and, forthcoming from PS Publishing, ‘Open Heart Surgery’. He has won the International Horror Guild Award, the Littlewood Arc Prize and is a three-time recipient of the British Fantasy Award, most recently for ONE. This year will see his debut as an editor when his anthology of ‘Weird West’ stories, ‘Gutshot’, is released, also from PS. His latest novel is LOSS OF SEPARATION. More information can be found at his website: www.conradwilliams.net

Adam L. G. Nevill was born in Birmingham, England, in 1969 and grew up in England and New Zealand. A graduate of the University of St Andrews Masters programme, he is the author of The Ritual and Banquet for the Damned, an original novel of supernatural horror inspired by M. R. James and the great tradition of the British weird tale. In his working life he has endured a variety of occupations, including from 2000 to 2004 both nightwatchman and day porter in the exclusive apartment buildings of west London.

Mark Charan Newton was born in 1981, and holds a degree in Environmental Science. After working in bookselling, he moved into editorial positions at imprints covering film and media tie-in fiction, and later, science fiction and fantasy. He currently lives and works in Nottingham. For more information and updates, visit his website www.markcnewton.co.uk

Adrian Tchaikovsky was born in Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire before heading off to Reading to study psychology and zoology. For reasons unclear even to himself he subsequently ended up in law and has worked as a legal executive in both Reading and Leeds, where he now lives. Married, he is a keen live role-player and occasional amateur actor, has trained in stage-fighting, and keeps no exotic or dangerous pets of any kind, possibly excepting his son. The Sea Watch is the sixth novel in the Shadows of the Apt series following Empire in Black and Gold, Dragonfly Falling, Blood of the Mantis, Salute the Dark and The Scarab Path.

Tony Ballantyne, who lives in the Manchester area, regularly contributed to magazines such as Interzone and Private Eye before embarking on his first novel, Recursion. With Blood and Iron, his fifth novel, he continues with his exciting new series which began with Twisted Metal.

Guy Adams is author of the bestselling Rules of Modern Policing: 1973 Edition, a spoof police manual ‘written by’ DCI Gene Hunt of Life on Mars. Published by Transworld, it has sold over 120,000 copies and led to two sequels: The Future of Modern Policing: 1981 Edition and The Wit and Wisdom of Gene Hunt. Guy has also written two Torchwood novels, The House that Jack Built and The Men Who Sold the World for BBC Books; and The Case Notes of Sherlock Holmes, a fictional facsimile of a scrapbook kept by Doctor John Watson. The first of two brand new Sherlock Holmes novels, The Breath of God, will be published by Titan Books late in 2011 with The Army of Doctor Moreau to follow in 2012. He is also the author of the fantasy novels The World House and Restoration, published by Angry Robot. Currently he is working with Hammer Books on Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter, the first of three novelizations based on movies from The Studio that Dripped Blood.

Jenni Hill is a Commissioning Editor for the Orbit team in London, and a lifelong fan of science fiction and fantasy novels. She gained a degree in English Language and Literature from Oxford University and was an editor for SF publishers Solaris Books before moving to Orbit at the end of 2011. She likes cats, comic books and really bad zombie movies. Jenni handles Orbit authors such as Charles Stross, Elizabeth Moon, Michael Cobley and Lilith Saintcrow. She can be found on twitter at @Jenni_Hill.

John Jarrold has worked in book publishing since January 1988 following fifteen years working in public libraries – so books have ruled his professional life for thirty-five years.  As an editor and editorial director he ran SF and Fantasy imprints with Orbit, Random House and Simon & Schuster between 1988 and 2002, he published bestselling novelists including Iain Banks, Terry Brooks, Robert Jordan, David Gemmell, Arthur C Clarke and Michael Moorcock, amongst many others. Since leaving London publishing in August 2002, he has worked as an editor with new and published writers, as well as with publishers as a freelance.  And since 2004, he has also run the John Jarrold Literary Agency, which specialises entirely in SF, Fantasy and Horror. He has around forty clients, including Chris Beckett, Chaz Brenchley, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen Deas, Stephen Hunt, Mark Morris, Adam Nevill, Mark Charan Newton, Philip Palmer, Hannu Rajaniemi, Rod Rees and Robert V S Redick – and has turned down over 8,000 submissions to the agency.  The agency has around 45 books coming from major publishers in the UK and US in 2011, and many others in translation across the world.  The agency has clinched multi-book deals for 15 debut novelists.

Graham Joyce quit his executive job in 1988 and decamped to the Greek island of Lesbos, to live in a beach shack and concentrate on writing. He sold his first novel while still in Greece and since then has published 15 novels and numerous short stories. He is a winner of last year’s O. Henry Award; The World Fantasy Award for best novel; and is five-time winner of the British Fantasy Award for best novel. His work has been translated into over twenty languages. His latest novel The Silent Land is in development in Hollywood and his website is grahamjoyce.net.

Steve Tribe is the author of three Doctor Who books – The Time Traveller’s Almanac, Companions and Allies and The TARDIS Handbook – as well as the audio book Doctor Who: The Essential Companion. He also compiled The University Challenge Quiz Book. He has edited two or three hundred books, and contributes, occasionally, to Doctor Who Adventures and the official Torchwood magazine.

Jon Weir was the SF and Fantasy editor at Amazon.co.uk for three years before joining HarperCollins’ Voyager imprint as marketing and publicity executive before moving to Orion. He has been publicity manager for the Gollancz imprint for the past seven years working with authors such as Charlaine Harris, Joe Abercrombie, Richard Morgan and Stephen Donaldson.