Unfortunately even Vampires can catch Covid. Please be advised that the entire run of this play has been cancelled as several cast members have become infected with Covid-19. Tickets will be refunded automatically in the next few days.
We wish everyone a swift recovery.
Running time: 60 minutes
Price: £6/£4 concession (plus 50p booking fee)
This event is live on Zoom.
Julia Armfield is a fiction writer with a Master’s in Victorian Art and Literature from Royal Holloway University. She lives and works in London with her girlfriend who is fine and their cat who is garbage.
Follow Julia Armfield on Twitter @JuliaArmfield or visit her website.
Paul Tremblay has won the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, and Massachusetts Book awards and is the author of Survivor Song, The Cabin at the End of the World, Disappearance at Devil’s Rock and A Head Full of Ghosts. His essays and short fiction have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Entertainment Weekly online, and numerous year’s-best anthologies. He has a master’s degree in mathematics and lives outside Boston with his family.
Follow Paul Tremblay on Twitter @paulGtremblay or visit his website.
Chaired by E.M. Faulds
Running time: 60 minutes
Venue: Pleasance Upper Hall
Price: £10/£8 concession - In Person - or £6/£4 concession - Live Stream - (plus 50p booking fee)
This event takes place in person and is broadcast via live stream.
Cameron Johnston is the British Fantasy Award and Dragon Awards nominated author of dark fantasy novels The Traitor God and God of Broken Things. He is a swordsman, a gamer, and an enthusiast of archaeology, history and mythology. He loves exploring ancient sites and camping out under the stars by a roaring fire.
Follow Cameron Johnston on Twitter @CamJohnston or visit his website.
Ian Green is a fantasy writer born in Aberdeen, Scotland, currently based out of Algiers. He is the author of The Rotstorm epic fantasy series beginning 2021 with The Gauntlet and the Fist Beneath. The Story will continue in 2022 with The Cauntlet and the Burning Blade. Ian has a PhD in clinical epigenetics, and his short fiction has been widely broadcast and performed including winning the BBC Radio 4 Opening Lines competition and winning the Futurebook Future Fiction prize.
Follow Ian Green on Twitter @IanTheGreen or visit his website.
Chaired by Ruth EJ Booth
Running time: 60 minutes
Price: £6/£4 concession (plus 50p booking fee)
This event is live on Zoom.
Ren Hutchings is an SFF writer, writing mentor and freelance editor. She has spent most of the past few years working in game dev while plotting twisty space books. Ren’s debut novel, Under Fortunate Stars, will be published by Solaris in May 2022.
Follow Ren Hutchings on Twitter @voidcricket or visit her website.
Premee Mohamed is an Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton, Alberta. She is an Assistant Editor at the short fiction audio venue Escape Pod and the author of various novels. Her next novel, The Void Ascendant, is the final book in the Beneath the Rising trilogy and is due out in spring 2022.
Follow Premee Mohamed on Twitter @premeesaurus or visit her website.
‘Megan Whalen Turner is one of my all-time favorite writers’ Holly Black
‘The Queen’s Thief books awe and inspire me’ Laini Taylor
‘Megan Whalen Turner writes vivid, immersive, heartbreaking fantasy’ Leigh Bardugo
‘Endlessly entertaining, deeply deceptive, and very, very clever’ Garth Nix
‘Romance, intrigue, mystery, surprises, and sheer beautiful writing’ Cassandra Clare
Running time: 60 minutes
Venue: Pleasance Theatre
Price: £10/£8 concession - In Person - or £6/£4 concession - Live Stream - (plus 50p booking fee)
This event takes place in person and is broadcast via live stream.
Megan Whalen Turner is the author of short stories and novels. She has won the LA Times Book Award for Young Adult LIterature, a Boston Globe/ Horn Book Honor and a Newbery Honor. She won the Mythopoeic Award and was twice shortlisted for the Andre Norton Award.
Visit Megan Whalen Turner’s website.
Chaired by Nicole Brandon.
About the event
Running time: 60 minutes
Venue: Pleasance Upper Hall
Price: £10/£8 concession - In Person - or £6/£4 concession - Live Stream - (plus 50p booking fee)
This event takes place in person and is broadcast via live stream.
Stephen Cox’s Our Child of the Stars began as a short story he wrote for Halloween in 2013. He is interested in strong, believable characters and their relationships and likes writing to have hope and humour and to recognise the dark and unfair side of life.
Follow Stephen Cox on Twitter @StephenWhq or visit his website.
M.E. Rodman writes LGBT+ fantasy with a dark edge and occasional stories of horror and the uncanny. Their short fiction has appeared in Anthologies; Airship Shape and Bristol Fashion, The Dark Half of the Year, Goddesses of the Sea and A Picture’s Worth and online at Expanded Horizonsand Zetetic, a Record of Unusual Inquiry. They have an MA in Creative Writing from Edinburgh Napier and are a current guest editor for Fantasia Divinity Publishing. They live near Glasgow, with their partner, child, a dog the size of a cat, and a cat the size of the dog.
Follow M.E. Rodman on Twitter @TheCantingBones.
Please note that Lucy Kissick was originally scheduled to appear on this panel. Unfortunately she is no longer able to join us at #Cymera2022. We still highly recommend her book though!
In Lucy Kissick’s debut novel Plutoshine, terraforming - the megascale-engineering of a planet's surface to one more Earth-like - is now commonplace across the Solar System, and Pluto's is set to be the most ambitious transformation yet. What nobody factored in was a saboteur - but who, and why? The answer may lie with nine-year-old Nou, but a horrifying incident on the base traumatised her into muteness. And Nou guards a secret, and what she has to say could stop the terraforming forever—and transform our place in the Universe.
Lucy Kissick is a nuclear chemist specialising in the management of the back-end of the fuel cycle, working at a national laboratory near the English Lake District. Until recently she was a planetary geochemist earning her PhD at the University of Oxford, where she researched how ancient Martian lakes once affected the planet's climate. Originally from the Victorian seaside town of Southport, she is a fourth-generation gardener’s daughter who grew up in a geographer's paradise of sand dunes and pine forests. Outside of research she hikes, wild-swims, vlogs for her Youtube channel The PhDiaries, and writes fiction.
Follow Lucy Kissick on Twitter @LeKissick or visit her website.
Chaired by Charlotte Bond
Running time: 60 minutes
Price: £6/£4 concession (plus 50p booking fee)
This event is live on Zoom.
Kate Heartfield is the author of The Embroidered Book, a historical fantasy novel out in spring 2022. Her debut novel won Canada’s Aurora Award, and her novellas, stories and games have been shortlisted for the Nebula, Locus, Crawford, Sunburst and Aurora awards. A former journalist, Kate lives near Ottawa, Canada.
Follow Kate Heartfield on Twitter @kateheartfield or visit her website.
T. Kingfisherwrites fantasy, horror, and occasional oddities, including The Twisted Ones and Swordheart. Under a pen name, she also writes children's books. She lives in North Carolina.
Follow T. Kingfisher on Twitter @UrsulaV or visit her website.
Chaired by Katalina Watt
Running time: 60 minutes
Venue: Pleasance Theatre
Price: £10/£8 concession - In Person - or £6/£4 concession - Live Stream - (plus 50p booking fee)
This event takes place in person and is broadcast via live stream.
Rhiannon A Grist is a Welsh writer of Weird, Speculative and Dark fiction. Her novella, The Queen of the High Fields, came out 8th February 2022 with Luna Press Publishing.
Follow Rhiannon Grist on Twitter @RhiannonAGrist or visit her website.
A. M. Shine is an author of Literary Horror from the west of Ireland. It was there that at a young age he discovered a passion for classic horror stories, and where he received his Masters in history, before ultimately sharpening his quill to pursue a life devoted to all things literary and macabre. His writing is inspired by the trinity of horror, history, and superstition, and he has tormented, toyed with, and tortured more characters than he will ever confess to.
Follow A. M. Shine on Twitter @AMShineWriter or visit his website.
Anna Cheung is a poet based in Glasgow, Scotland. Her poetry has been published in Dark Eclipse and Dusk and Shiver and by Haunt Publishing and Zarf Poetry. She has a forthcoming publication in Dreich Magazine. Her poem ‘Survival of Solitude’ was included in From Them, To You, an illustrated book by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (published by Speculative Books) gifted to breast cancer patients in the UK to help improve women’s body confidence and mental health. Aside from poetry, she has written reviews for Bearded Magazine and Musicovered.
Follow Anna Cheung on Twitter @annasmcheung or visit her website.
Come along to hear some of the freshest writing out there! Poetry, short fiction, snitches of novels - anything goes!
All our readers will only get five minutes, so great diversity is guaranteed!
This event is free to attend and no ticket needed. Just arrive early to get a good seat!
Venue: Creators Hall
Want to perform? Let us know in advance or sign up on the day!
What would you give for a better life A new job, new routine, new house, new health kick, new you? What if all it takes is a few drops of blood? Not very much is it. Not very much at all. Jonathan Harker wants a better life and with a new Benefactor, it's all within his grasp. Just be careful what you wish for.
Running time: 45 minutes
This event is pre-recorded on YouTube.
Free event, no booking needed.
John Scalzi is a New York Times bestselling science fiction author. His novel Redshirts, an intergalactic sci-fi adventure, won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel. His other works include the popular Old Man’s War series (three novels of which have also been nominated for Hugo Awards), The Android’s Dream, Agent to the Stars, and Lock In. In addition to the Hugo, John is also the recipient of awards including the Locus, the Seiun, the Kurd Lasswitz, and the Geffen.
Chaired by Sarah Broadley
Running time: 60 minutes
Venue: Upper Hall
Price: £10/£8 concession - In Person - or £6/£4 concession - Live Stream - (plus 50p booking fee)
This event takes place in person and is broadcast via live stream.
S.K. Marlay is an Irish fantasy author. She’s been a fruit picker, a maths teacher, a factory worker, a touring singer and a boat hand, not to mention a bunch of other jobs not worth mentioning. Before writing her first novel she was a songwriter. She thinks the discipline of having to distil a song’s story down to sixty words or less really stands to you when writing a book, though she does miss being able to just repeat the chorus when stuck. She still doesn’t quite believe writers are real people; this is likely to trigger something of an existential crisis when her own first book is published.
Follow S.K. Marlay on Twitter @stellakmarlay or visit her website.
Judith Crow was born in Orkney, grew up in Lincolnshire and now lives in the far north of Scotland. Her work draws inspiration from folklore, experience and the natural world. The Backwater, Judith’s debut book, was a finalist in the Wishing Shelf Book Awards 2019. Judith followed this with Dance With Me in 2020 and her new novel, Honour’s Rest, has been receiving excellent reviews and is a Finalist in the Eyelands Book Award. When she isn’t writing, Judith is a teacher at a primary school in Caithness. She sometimes finds that writing gets usurped by crafting, music, and being a generally doting spaniel owner.
Visit Judith Crow’s website.
Kate Campbell is a writer with a particular passion for horror and fantasy. Her debut fantasy novel 'The Whisper of Calaresp' has been picked up by Wallace Publishing and is due to be published this year. She's had several short stories published in anthologies and has more due out this year.
Follow Kate Campbell on Twitter @katelmcampbell or visit her website.
Please note that Dan Hanks is no longer able to join us for this event.
In the world of C.F. Barrington’s The Pantheon series, The Games are the biggest underground event in the world, followed by millions online. New recruits must leave behind their twenty-first century lives and vie for dominance in a gruelling battle to the death, armed only with ancient weapons - and their wits.Tyler Maitland and Lana Cameron have their own reasons for signing up. Now they must risk their lives and join the ranks of the seven ancient warrior teams that inhabit this illicit world. Their journey will be more extraordinary and horrifying than anything they could have dreamed, testing them to breaking point.
Being a childhood hero isn’t at all like in the movies for Cisco Collins in Dan Hank’s new book Swashbucklers. When Cisco returns to his home town thirty years after saving it from being swallowed by a hell mouth opened by an ancient pirate ghost, he realises nobody remembers the heroic bits - not even the friends who once fought alongside him. When people begin to die in bizarre ways, Cisco must convince his friends to once again help him save the day - aided by a talking fox, an enchanted forest and some 80s video game consoles turned into weapons.
In The Shadow Glass by Josh Winning, Jack Corman has lived his life in the shadow of his father’s failure. Back in the eighties, Bob Cormac poured his heart and soul into the creation of his puppet fantasy The Shadow Glass. But the film flopped, and Bob became a laughing stock, losing himself to booze and self-pity. Returning to his decaying home in the wake of Bob's death, Jack suddenly finds himself in a desperate real-world quest to save London from the more nefarious of his father's creations.
Chaired by Shona Kinsella
Running time: 60 minutes
Venue: Pleasance Theatre
Price: £10/£8 concession - In Person - or £6/£4 concession - Live Stream - (plus 50p booking fee)
This event takes place in person and is broadcast via live stream.
Dan Hanks is an author based in the rolling green hills of the Peak District with my two kids and fluffy sidekicks Indy and Maverick. He is also one of the co-founders of the OcTBR Challenge, and write books, screenplays and comics when he's not at work or wasting time on Twitter.
Follow Dan Hanks on Twitter @dan_hanks or visit his website.
Josh Winning is a nostalgia nut, book/film lover and author of The Shadow Glass, which is perfect for fans of Henson Company puppet classics Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, and The NeverEnding Story. He is senior film writer at Radio Times, contributing editor at Total Film magazine, writer at SFX and Den of Geek, and the co-host of movie podcast Torn Stubs. He has been on set with Kermit the Frog (and Miss Piggy), devoured breakfast with zombies on The Walking Dead, and sat on the Iron Throne on the Dublin set of Game of Thrones.
Follow Josh Winning on Twitter @JoshWinning or visit his website.
C F Barrington spent twenty years intending to write a novel, but found life kept getting in the way. Instead, his career has been in major gift fundraising, leading teams in organisations as varied as the RSPB, Oxford University and the National Trust. In 2015, when his role as Head of Communications at Edinburgh Zoo meant a third year of fielding endless media enquires about the possible birth of a baby panda, he finall retreated to a quiet desk and got down to writing. Raised in Hertfordshire and educated at Oxford, he now divides his time between Fife and the Lake District.
Follow Chris Barrington on Twitter @barrington_cf or visit his website.
Join our two writers as we get a taste of what might be in store in their latest books, a large dash of intrigue with a side order of mystery perhaps? Will dessert be just or….
The Justice of Kings sees Richard Swan guide us through The Empire of the Wolf as Sir Konrad Vonvalt and Helena Sedanka uncover a more than they might have expected as they investigate a murder in the provinces… and maybe more than they handle as events unfold that will shake them and the Empire to the core.
Luke Arnold brings us Book 3 of The Fetch Philips Novels - One Foot in the Fade which sees our eponymous hero embark on a quest to bring back the magic lost to his city. From necromancers and genies to the wilds of Sunder’s forests and dive bars and more what he finds will change him… and perhaps everything.
Chaired by Megan Leigh
Running time: 60 minutes
Price: £6/£4 concession (plus 50p booking fee)
This event is live on Zoom.
Richard Swan was born in North Yorkshire and spent most of his early life on Royal Air Force bases in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. He studied law at the University of Manchester, and spent the following ten years as a litigator. Between 2015 and 2018, Richard self-published a sequence of epic space opera novels, as well as a prequel and two spinoff mil-sci-fi novellas. Richard's debut fantasy "Empire of the Wolf" trilogy recently sold to Orbit Books, with the first instalment having coming out in February 2022. Richard currently lives and writes in Sydney, Australia.
Follow Richard Swan on Twitter @Richard_S_Swan or visit his website.
Luke Arnold was born in Australia and has spent the last decade acting his way around the world, playing iconic roles such as Long John Silver in the Emmy-winning Black Sails and his award-winning turn as Michael Hutchence in the INXS mini-series Never Tear Us Apart. When he isn’t performing, Luke is a screenwriter, director, novelist and ambassador for Save the Children Australia. The Last Smile in Sunder City is his debut novel.
Follow Luke Arnold on Twitter @LongLukeArnold or visit his website.
Chaired by Eleanor Pender
Running time: 60 minutes
Venue: Pleasance Upper Hall
Price: £10/£8 concession - In Person - or £6/£4 concession - Live Stream - (plus 50p booking fee)
This event takes place in person and is broadcast via live stream.
Alastair: “I'm a children's author and puzzle creator. I'm the author of the sci-fi adventuresOrion Lost and Adam-2, and picture books The Prince and the Witch and the Thief and the Bears and Inch and Grub, amongst others. I've also written quite a lot of books of Sudoku, Kakuro and other puzzles, including the Kids' Book of Sudoku andKids' Book of Kakuro series. I live in Edinburgh with my wife (who is lovely), two children (who are lovely but very loud), and a cat who is yowling at me even though there is clearly food in her bowl, look, it’s right there, look.”
Follow Alastair Chisholm on Twitter @alastair_ch or visit his website.
Ben Oliver began writing creatively at age seven, and was promptly placed into the lowest reading and writing group at school. Frustrated by his lack of immediate success, Ben chose to step-down from the world of writing. Three years later, he came out of retirement to write a 'What I Did During My Summer Holiday' assignment, where he claimed he saved the world from the apocalypse. Encouraged by an enthusiastic teacher, Ben returned, triumphantly, to writing. A mere twenty-two years later, and now a high school English teacher, Ben’s first novel, The Loop, was published in 2020.
Follow Ben Oliver on Twitter @benjamin0liver.
Running time: 60 minutes
Venue: Pleasance Theatre
Price: £10/£8 concession - In Person - or £6/£4 concession - Live Stream - (plus 50p booking fee)
This event takes place in person and is broadcast via live stream.
Richard Strachan is a writer and editor and is based in in Edinburgh, UK. He's had short stories published in magazines like Interzone, New Writing Scotland, Gutter and The Lonely Crowd, and also writes for Games Workshop’s Black Library imprint.
Follow Richard Strachan on Twitter @richstrach or visit his website.
Anna Stephens is the acclaimed British author of the Godblind Trilogy – an epic fantasy series somewhere on the grimdark scale, as well as a selection of novellas and short fiction. She has a second Dan black belt in Shotokan Karate and trains in sword fighting.
Follow Anna Stephens on Twitter @AnnaSmithWrites or visit her website.
Russell Jones is an Edinburgh-based writer and editor. He has published 10 books including the Beast Realms LitRPG trilogy. He has also edited 3 writing anthologies, is deputy and poetry editor of Shoreline of Infinity (a sci-fi magazine), was the UK's first Pet Poet Laureate and has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh.
Follow Russell Jones on Twitter @RussJonesWrites or visit his website.
Apathy is not the look here. Here, we burst forth with all the strength and force we can muster.
Welcome to Kekon, the island where blood, family and honour is the ruling hand. In Jade City, Fonda Lee introduces the Green Bone clans of Kekon, those of No Peak and the Mountain clans, who live and die by the lifeblood of jade – and cannot let sleeping dogs lie.
Xiran Jay Zhao’s Iron Widow follows Zetian, a young concubine-pilot determined to avenge the brutal death of her sister. But Zetian finds herself at the centre of a patriarchal military system, with a fierce anger set to bring it crashing down.
Chaired by Travis Tippens
Running time: 60 minues
Price: £6/£4 concession (plus 50p booking fee)
This event is live on Zoom.
Fonda Lee is the author of the epic fantasy Green Bone Saga, beginning with Jade City, continuing in Jade War, and concluding in Jade Legacy. She is also the author of the science fiction novels Zeroboxer, Exo and Cross Fire. Fonda is a winner of the World Fantasy Award, as well as a three-time winner of the Aurora Award (Canada’s national science fiction and fantasy award), and a multiple finalist for the Nebula Award, the Locus Award, and the Oregon Book Award. Born and raised in Canada, she currently resides in the Pacific Northwest.
Follow Fonda Lee on Twitter @FondaJLee or visit their website.
Xiran Jay Zhao is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Iron Widow series and Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor. A first-gen Hui Chinese immigrant from small-town China to Vancouver, Canada, they were raised by the Internet and made the inexplicable decision to leave their biochem degree in the dust to write books and make educational content instead. You can find them on Twitter for memes, Instagram for cosplays and fancy outfits, TikTok for fun short videos, and YouTube for long videos about Chinese history and culture.
Follow Xiran Jay Zhao on Twitter @XiranJayZhao or visit their website.
Yet there is only so much magic a person can take. The otherworld is not Griogair’s home, and a fairy woman scorned is a tempest that knows no bounds.
I Would Drink of Your Heart’s Blood weaves together Scottish folklore, poetry and Greek myth into a unique oral storytelling performance. Written and performed by oral storyteller and bestselling author Daniel Allison, the show ask why we long for the otherworld and what happens when we meet it.
Daniel Allison is a USA Today bestselling author, oral storyteller and podcaster from Scotland. He is the author of Scottish Myths & Legends, Finn & The Fianna and The Orkney Cycle; The Shattering Sea. Daniel’s House of Legends podcast has been downloaded over 100,000 times, while his Roundhouse Storytelling School provides a unique online training platform for emerging storytellers throughout the world.
Daniel's live performances are an intoxicating blend of Celtic folklore and world myths. Darkness and beauty, heartbreak and wonder; these are stories with golden feathers and sharp teeth. Daniel has performed throughout the world, from the jungles of Peru to Thai villages, Hebridean hilltops and festivals in Singapore and Dubai, and is currently based in Thailand.
Running time: 90 minutes including a ten minute interval
Venue: Pleasance Upper Hall
Price: £10/£8 concession - In Person - or £6/£4 concession - Live Stream - (plus 50p booking fee)
This event takes place in person and is broadcast via live stream.
Chaired by Rebecca Wojturska from Haunt Publishing
Running time: 60 minutes
Venue: Pleasance Theatre
Price: £10/£8 concession - In Person - or £6/£4 concession - Live Stream - (plus 50p booking fee)
This event takes place in person and is broadcast via live stream.
Alison Rumfitt is a writer and semi-professional trans woman. Her debut pamphlet of poetry, The T(y)ranny, was a critical deconstruction of Margaret Atwood's work through the lens of a trans woman navigating her own misogynistic dystopia. It was published by Zarf Editions in 2019. Tell Me I'm Worthless is her debut novel. Her work has appeared in countless publications. Her poetry was nominated - twice! - for the Rhysling Award in 2018.
Follow Alison Rumfitt on Twitter @hangsawoman or visit her website.
Catriona Ward was born in Washington, DC and grew up in the United States, Kenya, Madagascar, Yemen, and Morocco. She read English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford and is a graduate of the Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia.
Follow Catriona Ward on Twitter @Catrionaward.
Matt Wesolowski is an author from Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the UK. He is an English tutor for young people in care. Matt started his writing career in horror, and his short horror fiction has been published in numerous UK- and US-based anthologies, such as Midnight Movie Creature, Selfies from the End of the World, Cold Iron and many more. Matt lives in Newcastle with his partner and young son, and is currently working on the sixth book in the Six Stories series.
Follow Matt Wesolowski on Twitter @ConcreteKraken.
Running time: 120 minutes
Venue: Pleasance Bar
This event takes place in person.
What would you give for a better life A new job, new routine, new house, new health kick, new you? What if all it takes is a few drops of blood? Not very much is it. Not very much at all. Jonathan Harker wants a better life and with a new Benefactor, it's all within his grasp. Just be careful what you wish for.
Chaired by Lucy Hounsom.
Running time: 60 minutes
Price: £6/£4 concession (plus 50p booking fee)
This event is live on Zoom.
Naomi Novik is the acclaimed New York Times-bestselling author of the Nebula Award-winning novel Uprooted, Spinning Silver, and the nine-volume Temeraire series, as well as a founder of the Archive of Our Own. Her book A Deadly Education is the first of the Scholomance trilogy, followed by The Last Graduate.
Follow Naomi Novik on Twitter @naominovik or visit their website.
With special guests Oliver K Langmead and Rebecca Zahabi
‘Inside the Rookery’ join us live at Cymera as The Rookery host a special of their weekly RPG shindig.
Expect some lively chat and special birds of a feather joining our flock as we take a deep dive or should that be swoop into the ways and wynds of games in the company of our experts.
Hosted by The Rookery’s Lindsay Law
Running time: 60 minutes
Venue: Highland Room (RPG Space)
This event is free to attend but spaces are limited. Arrive early to avoid disappointment.
This event takes place in person and is broadcasted via the Rookery live stream.
Who are The Rookery?
The Rookery are Andy Law, Andy Leask, Graeme Davis, Mark Gibbons, and Lindsay Law, five award-winning TTRPG professionals with over a century’s combined experience in the gaming industry. They not only host Inside the Rookery, but also run their own company, Rookery Publications.
Watch their previous livestreams on YouTube and support Inside The Rookery on Patreon
Chaired by Jim McLeod from Ginger Nuts of Horror
Running time: 60 minutes
Venue: Upper Hall
Price: £10/£8 concession - In Person - or £6/£4 concession - Live Stream - (plus 50p booking fee)
This event takes place in person and is broadcast via live stream.
Please note this event will not be available for catch-up afterwards.
Polis Loizou is an award-winning writer and performer working across various disciplines. He tends to draw on history, social politics, folklore and ‘queerness’ in all its forms. His debut novel, Disbanded Kingdom, was published in 2018 and long-listed for the Polari First Book Prize. His second novel, The Way It Breaks, is set in his motherland of Cyprus, as is a forthcoming historical novella (A Good Year) inspired by local horror folklore. Polis lives in Nottingham with his husband and cats.
Follow Polis Loizou on Twitter @PolisLoizou or visit his website.
Helen Grant has a passion for the Gothic and for ghost stories. Joyce Carol Oates has described her as "a brilliant chronicler of the uncanny as only those who dwell in places of dripping, graylit beauty can be." A lifelong fan of the ghost story writer M.R.James, she has spoken at two M.R.James conferences and appeared at the Dublin Ghost Story Festival. She lives in Perthshire with her family, and when not writing, she likes to explore abandoned country houses and swim in freezing lochs.
Follow Helen Grant on Twitter @helengrantsays or visit her website.
Ally Wilkes grew up in a succession of isolated—possibly haunted—country houses and boarding schools. After studying law at Oxford, she went on to spend eleven years as a criminal barrister, learning how extreme situations bring out the best (or worst) in human nature. Ally now lives in Greenwich, London, with an anatomical human skeleton and far too many books about Polar exploration. When she isn't writing or reading horror, she's usually to be found hanging upside-down (like a bat) from her aerial silks.
Follow Ally Wilkes on Twitter @UnheimlichManvr or visit her website.
Running time: 60 minutes
Venue: Pleasance Theatre
Price: £10/£8 concession - In Person - or £6/£4 concession - Live Stream - (plus 50p booking fee)
This event takes place in person and is broadcast via live stream.
J. Dianne Dotson dreamed up other worlds and their characters as a child in the 1980s in East Tennessee. She formed her own neighborhood astronomy club before age 10. As an adult, Dianne earned a degree in ecology and evolutionary biology and spent several years working in research. She published the The Questrison Saga. Dianne is also a science writer, short story writer and anthology contributor, watercolorist, and illustrator. She lives with her family.
Follow J. Dianne Dotson on Twitter @jdiannedotson or visit her website.
Gareth L. Powell is an award-winning British science fiction author. He is best known for his Embers of War and Ack-Ack Macaque trilogies, but he has also written numerous short stories and novellas, and even turned his hand to screenplays and comic strips. To date, he has written and published nine novels, two short story collections, three novellas and a nonfiction writing guide. His writing is often praised for its strong characterisations, vivid action sequences, and thought-provoking explorations of the human condition. Gareth currently lives in North Somerset with his two children and is engaged to the American science fiction author J. Dianne Dotson.
Follow Gareth L. Powell on Twitter @garethlpowell or visit his website.
Adrian Tchaikovsky is an award-winning and highly acclaimed science fiction and fantasy author with works published at home in the UK and internationally. He primarily explores deep themes, such as artificial intelligence and alien awareness within epic galactic and fantastical settings. He has a deep interest in the animal world specifically insects from his studies in Zoology and has a particular penchant for spiders.
Follow Adrian Tchaikovsky on Twitter @aptshadow or visit his website.
Enter the harrowing halls of dark academia, where you will encounter hidden magics, secret societies and murderous ambitions.
In Olivie Blakes’ The Atlas Six, six uniquely talented young magicians as they are invited to an initiation that will change their lives forever. The Alexandrian Society is a secret society of magical academicians, the best in the world. Their members are caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity. And those who earn a place among their number will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams. Each decade, the world's six most uniquely talented magicians are selected for initiation. But only five will walk away.
Dalloway School in Victoria Lee’s A Lesson in Vengeance is a centuries-old, ivy-covered boarding school haunted by its history of witchcraft and the death of five of its students. When Felicity Morrow returns to finish her senior year after the tragic death of her girlfriend, she vows to stay away from the secret occult gatherings and their dark promises. But it's hard when Dalloway's occult history is everywhere. When new girl and prodigy novelist Ellis Haley asks Felicity to help her research the Dalloway Five for her second book, Felicity is compelled to say yes. But as history begins to repeat itself, she will have to face the darkness in Dalloway and in herself.
Running time: 60 minues
Price: £6/£4 concession (plus 50p booking fee)
This event is live on Zoom.
Alexene Farol Follmuth, also known under the pen name Olivie Blake, is a lover and writer of stories, many of which involve the fantastic, the paranormal, or the supernatural, but not always. More often, her works revolve around the collective experience, what it means to be human (or not), and the endlessly interesting complexities of life and love. Alexene lives and works in Los Angeles with her husband and new baby, where she is generally tolerated by her rescue pit bull.
Follow Olivie Blake on Twitter @OlivieBlake or visit their website.
Victoria Lee grew up in Durham, North Carolina, where she spent her childhood writing ghost stories and fantasizing about attending boarding school. She has a Ph.D. in psychology, which she uses to overanalyze fictional characters and also herself. Lee is the author of A Lesson in Vengeance as well as The Fever King and its sequel, The Electric Heir. She lives in New York City with her partner, cat, and malevolent dog.
Follow Victoria Lee on Twitter @sosaidvictoria or visit their website.
Chaired by Anna Stephens
Running time: 60 minutes
Venue: Pleasance Upper Hall
Price: £10/£8 concession - In Person - or £6/£4 concession - Live Stream - (plus 50p booking fee)
This event takes place in person and is broadcast via live stream.
Tom Beckerlegge grew up in the northwest of England in a house filled with books. He decided that he wanted to be a writer at the age of four, and is yet to have a better idea. Writing as Tom Becker, he won the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize with his debut novel; The Carnival of Ash is his first adult book. He currently lives in Enfield with his wife and young son.
Follow Tom Beckerlegge on Twitter @tbeckerlegge.
Oliver K. Langmead lives and writes in Glasgow. He is the author of Glitterati and Birds of Paradise, out now. Oliver’s long-form poem, Dark Star, featured in the Guardian’s Best Books of 2015, and he is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Glasgow, where he is researching terraforming and ecological philosophy. In late 2018 he was the writer in residence at the European Space Agency’s Astronaut Centre in Cologne.
Follow Oliver K. Langmead on Twitter @oliverklangmead or visit his website.
Chaired by Annie Rutherford
Running time: 60 minutes
Venue: Pleasance Theatre
Price: £10/£8 concession - In Person - or £6/£4 concession - Live Stream - (plus 50p booking fee)
This event takes place in person and is broadcast via live stream.
Ken MacLeod is the author of seventeen science fiction novels, four novellas, over thirty short stories, and a few poems. His work has been widely translated and ranges from near-future dystopia to far-flung space opera, drawing on his first-hand knowledge of biological science, information technology, and political activism. An experienced speaker, event chair and organiser, he has given talks, workshops and readings at public events, libraries, universities and schools.
Follow Ken MacLeod on Twitter @amendlocke.
Of Scottish and Nigerian descent, Adam Oyebanji is an escapee from Birmingham University and Harvard Law School. He currently lives in Pittsburgh, PA with a wife, child, and two embarrassingly large dogs. When he’s not out among the stars, Adam works in the field of counter-terrorist financing: helping banks choke off the money supply that builds weapons of mass destruction, narcotics empires, and human trafficking networks.
Praise for Braking Day
‘This richly imagined, intricately plotted adventure is crammed with ideas, and has many surprises in store.’ The Guardian
‘If you're after action, mystery, and mind-bending mega-structures, look no further than Adam Oyebanji's Braking Day... It zips along with some wonderful world-building and a lot of unexpected turns.’ Washington Post
Harry Josephine Giles is a writer and performer from Orkney, now living in Leith. She has lived on four islands, each larger than the last. She has a MA in Theatre Directing from East 15 Acting School and a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Stirling. Harry Josephine’s work generally happens in the crunchy places where performance and politics get muddled up.
Follow Harry Josephine Giles on Twitter @HJosephineGiles or visit their website.
Chaired by C.L. Clark
Running time: 60 minutes
Venue: Pleasance Upper Hall
Price: £10/£8 concession - In Person - or £6/£4 concession - Live Stream - (plus 50p booking fee)
This event takes place in person and is broadcast via live stream.
Rebecca Zahabi is a mixed-race writer (a third British, a third French and a third Iranian, if the mix is of interest to you). She started writing in her home village in France at age 12 - a massive epic where women were knights and men were she-witches which set out to revolutionise feminism. Since, she learnt how to actually write, and has slightly re-jigged her expectations of what she can achieve with a keyboard and a blank page. The plan of taking over the world, however, has not changed. After honing in her craft in a variety of genres - playwriting, short stories, an attempt at Icelandic sagas - she hopes to write novels that can make a difference. She is currently working on Tales of the Edge, an ambitious trilogy blending magic and structural violence.
Visit Rebecca Zahabi’s website.
With a DNA profile that lights up like a satellite photograph of earth, Saara El-Arifi's heritage is intrinsically linked to the themes she explores in her writing. She was raised in the Middle East until her formative years, when her family swapped the Abu Dhabi desert for the English Peak District hills. This change of climate had a significant impact on her growth—not physically, she’s nearly 6ft—and she learned what it was to be Black in a white world. Saara knew she was a storyteller from the moment she told her first lie. Though her stories have developed beyond the ramblings of a child, she still appreciates the thrill of a well-told tale. The Final Strife is her debut novel, the first part of a trilogy inspired by Ghanaian folklore and Arabian myths.
Follow Saara El-Arifi on Twitter @saaraelarifi or visit her website.
Unfortunately even Vampires can catch Covid. Please be advised that the entire run of this play has been cancelled as several cast members have become infected with Covid-19. Tickets will be refunded automatically in the next few days.
We wish everyone a swift recovery.
