Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson is the Sunday Times Bestselling author of The Order of Legends trilogy. Inaugural winner of Future Worlds Prize Award in 2020, her debut novel, The Principle of Moments, was published in January 2024 , by Gollancz. She holds a BA in English Literature and Classical Studies from the University of Exeter, where she enjoyed writing essays on Disney villains and reading Greek lyric poetry in the same day. As an author of Nigerian, Jamaican, and British-Australian heritage, her work primarily focuses on people who live at the intersection of identities, whether that’s here on Earth, or in far away galaxies of her own creation.

Dr Una McCormack is a New York Times bestselling author of TV tie-in novels based on franchises such as Star Trek and Doctor Who. She is the author of a dozen science fiction novels, including the original SF novels The Baba Yaga and Star of the Sea.

She is also the author of numerous audio dramas based on TV shows such as Doctor Who and Blake’s 7, produced by Big Finish, and performed by actors such as David Warner, Louise Jameson, Sheila Reid, John Finnemore, and others. She sold her first SF short story at the age of 19 to Doctor Who Magazine and, since then, her short fiction has been anthologised by Gardner Dozois, Farah Mendlesohn, and Ian Whates.

Follow Una on X @unamccormack and on Bluesky @unamccormack

Em Reed is a writer and researcher currently based in Glasgow. Their background includes art history, museum studies and creative writing but they also enjoy experimenting with small game tools in their spare time. Their work on science fiction, technology, and art history has previously appeared in Real Life, The Serving Library and Murdered Futures: A Cronenberg Zine. Originally from Central Pennsylvania, they now work as an editor in Glasgow, where they also publish zines through Plaintext Distro, and online interactive fiction through the digital art collective Domino Club.

Visit Em on X dayofthemutants and on their website

Lorraine Wilson is a third culture Scot, conservation scientist and award-winning author of speculative fiction influenced by folklore and the wilderness. She has published two novels with Luna Press - the dystopian thriller This Is Our Undoing, and the dark folkloric mystery, The Way The Light Bends. Her third book, Mother Sea, published in 2023 by Fairlight Books, is an exploration of motherhood, climate change and belonging. Her new novella The Last to Drown was published by Luna Press in February 2024.

Follow Raine on X @raine_clouds, on Instagram @raine_clouds_writes and on Bluesky @rainewilson.bsky.social

Eliza Chan is a Scottish-born speculative fiction author who writes about East Asian mythology, British folklore and reclaiming the dragon lady. Her short fiction has been published in The Dark, Podcastle, Fantasy Magazine and The Best of British Fantasy. Her debut novel FATHOMFOLK — inspired by mythology, ESEAN cities and diaspora feels — was published by Orbit in Feb 2024.

Natasha Pulley is the author of really quite a lot of books. An international bestseller, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Author’s Club Best First Novel Award, the Locus Awards, and remained on the Sunday Times bestseller list for much of summer 2016. The Bedlam Stacks was longlisted for the Walter Scott Award and shortlisted for the Encore Award. The Mars House is her first science fiction novel, published by Gollancz.

Zulekhá A. Afzal grew up in Cornwall. She now lives in Bath where she studied English Literature with Creative Writing and completed the MA in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University. When she isn’t writing or working as an editorial assistant, you can find Zulekhá in a ballet class.

Follow Zulekhá on X, Instagram, Threads and TikTok zulekhaa_afzal

Born in Harbin, China, Molly X. Chang was raised on folklore told by the grandparents who taught her to take pride in the heritages and cultures that shaped her life, and the harrowing history of the ancestors who'd come before her. To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is her debut novel.

Visit Molly on X, Instagram and TikTok @mollyxchang

Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson is the Sunday Times Bestselling author of The Order of Legends trilogy. Inaugural winner of Future Worlds Prize Award in 2020, her debut novel, The Principle of Moments, was published in January 2024 , by Gollancz. She holds a BA in English Literature and Classical Studies from the University of Exeter, where she enjoyed writing essays on Disney villains and reading Greek lyric poetry in the same day. As an author of Nigerian, Jamaican, and British-Australian heritage, her work primarily focuses on people who live at the intersection of identities, whether that’s here on Earth, or in far away galaxies of her own creation.

William Letford published his first collection of poetry while working as a roofer. Since then, his work has been adapted into film, projected onto buildings, carved into monuments, adapted for the stage, written onto skin, cast out over the radio, and performed by orchestras.

He has helped restore a medieval village in the mountains of Northern Italy, taught English in Japan, fished with his bare hands in Indonesia, been invited to perform in Iraq, South Korea, Lebanon, Australia, Germany, India, Palestine, and many more countries. 

Follow William on X @BillyLetford

E. J. Swift is the author of speculative fiction novels including The Osiris Project trilogy, a series set in a world radically altered by climate change, and Paris Adrift, a tale of bartenders and time travel in the City of Light. Her novel The Coral Bones was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Kitschies Red Tentacle and the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) Award for Best Novel. Her short fiction has appeared in multiple anthologies and has been longlisted for the Sunday Times Short Story Award.

Follow E.J. on X, Instagram and Bluesky @catamaroon

Poppy was born in Scotland and has been living in Japan since 2014. Her ANCESTOR MEMORIES series was bought at auction by Oneworld in the UK. Film and TV rights have been optioned by Westbrook, Will Smith’s production company. GATE TO KAGOSHIMA (BOOK 1), a sweeping historical fantasy set in samurai-era Japan, releases in summer 2024.

Poppy loves video games, cooking, history, and reading books of any genre. She lives in a beautiful town near the sea with her husband and son.

Follow Poppy on X, Instagram, and TikTok @kurokibooks

A founder member of the Comedy Store and Comic Strip in the 80s, Nigel continues to pursue a successful career as actor and singer in all media, which includes the creation of the characters Neil the Hippy, and Nicholas Craig the Thespian.

He has written novels, non-fiction and comedy books as well as stage and radio plays, poetry and scripts for TV – including over 100 episodes of the Magic Roundabout.

He has recently recorded several of the songs he wrote in the 1970s which are available on Bandcamp.com. Jeremiah Bourne in Time is his first adventure in time.

Find Nigel on X and Instagram @NigelPlaner1, on his Facebook page and patreon

Sylvie Cathrall writes stories of hope and healing with healthy doses of wonder and whimsy. She holds a graduate degree in odd Victorian art and has handled more than a few nineteenth-century letters (with great care). Sylvie married her former pen pal and lives in the mountains, where she dresses impractically and dreams of the sea.

Sangu Mandanna was four years old when an elephant chased her down a forest road and she decided to write her first story about it. Seventeen years and many, many manuscripts later, she signed her first book deal. Sangu now lives in Norwich, a city in the east of England, with her husband and kids.

S. A. MacLean is a romantasy author from sunny California. Infatuated with magical worlds since her days of brewing mud potions in her childhood garden, she fell in love with the romantasy genre after realizing all her favourite fantasy novels had kisses in them. Her stories invariably feature quirky humour, sassy animal companions, and queer casts who represent her voice as a chaotic bisexual woman. ​

Sarah received her BS in Natural Resources from Cornell University and a PhD in Environmental Science from UC Berkeley. If you think that sounds overly pedantic, well, she agrees! So she left the research track to teach environmental science at her local community college, inspiring the next generation of students to save the planet. Her ecology background seeps into her fantasy worlds as odd plants and an obnoxious number of bird references. ​

She currently lives in California with her partner, two cats, and a growing saltwater aquarium.

Tori Bovalino (she/her) is the author of three YA horror novels, including My Throat an Open Grave, and edited the Indie-bestselling anthology, The Gathering Dark. Tori also writes adult fantasy as V.L. Bovalino. She is originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and now lives in the UK with her partner and their very loud cat. Tori loves scary stories, obscure academic book facts, and impractical, oversized sweaters. She can be found on Instagram as @toribovalino.

Max Turner is a gay transgender fella living in the UK. He is a nerd, Intersectional Feminist, and a retired performer and show producer. He writes speculative fiction, science fiction, fantasy, furry fiction, horror and LGBTQ+ fiction. This includes gay and trans romance and erotica. Max is also the publisher of A Coup of Owls quarterly online anthology and print anthologies. 

Currently undergoing Parenting 101, he can be found hanging on for dear life to the nearest cup of strong coffee. Max has also written under the name L.E. Turner

Elle Nash is the author of the novel Animals Eat Each Other (Dzanc Books), which was featured in O Magazine and hailed by Publishers Weekly as a “complex, impressive exploration of obsession and desire.” Upon publication of her novel in the UK, she appeared at the Edinburgh International Book Festival to present the work of under-represented voices with Amnesty International, and to speak about sex, death and feminism in literature. Her work appears in Guernica, Adroit, The Creative Independent, Hazlitt, Literary Hub, Cosmopolitan, New York Tyrant and elsewhere. She is a founding editor of Witch Craft Magazine. She currently lives in Glasgow, Scotland.

Kaaron Warren is the author of the novels Slights, Walking the Tree, Mistification, Tide of Stone and The Grief Hole and the short story collections Through Splintered Walls, The Grinding House, and Dead Sea Fruit. Her short stories have won her a Shirley Jackson Award, as well as multiple Australian Shadows Awards, Ditmar Awards and Aurealis Awards. She lives in Canberra, Australia.

Johanna grew up in the Netherlands together with her two sisters. The three of them are triplets, though her sisters are identical to each other and she’s different, a fact she didn’t discover until she was five years old; at least, unlike most people, she can pinpoint the exact moment she became self-aware.

She has received an MA in English Literature with a specialisation in early modern literature, as well as an MA Book and Digital Media with a specialisation in early modern book history, both of them at Leiden University. She currently works as an editor for a big company that sends a lot of reports and letters out every day, all of them requiring a lot of love and attention to make sure that every comma is where it should be. This job gives her enough time to write (mostly queer gothic) novels. When she isn’t doing any of those things, she enjoys spending time with her girlfriend, her sisters, and her dog, though not necessarily all at the same time. My Darling Dreadful Thing is her debut novel.

Born in New Zealand, Sarah A. Parker now lives on the Gold Coast with her husband and three young children. When she’s not reading or tapping away at her keyboard, she’s spending time with her friends and family, her plants, and enjoying trips to the snow. Sarah has been writing since she was small, but has only recently begun sharing her stories with the world. When the Moon Hatched is her debut.

Chloe C. Peñaranda is the USA Today bestselling author of The Nytefall Trilogy and An Heir Comes to Rise Series.

 A lifelong avid reader and writer, Chloe discovered her passion for storytelling in her early teens. Her stories have been spun from years of building on fictional characters and exploring Tolkien-like quests in made up worlds. During her time at the University of the West of Scotland, Chloe immersed herself in writing for short film, producing animations, and spending class time dreaming of far off lands. 

 In her spare time from writing in her home in scenic Scotland, Chloe enjoys digital art, graphic design, and down time with her three little dogs. When the real world calls...she rarely listens.

Originally self-published, The Stars are Dying is Chloe’s traditionally published debut.

Amy Goldsmith grew up on the south coast of England, obsessed with obscure 70s horror movies and antiquarian ghost stories. She studied Psychology at the University of Sussex and, after gaining her Postgraduate Certificate in Education, moved to inner London to teach. Now, she lives back on the south coast where she still teaches English and spends her weekends trawling antiques shops for haunted mirrors. She is the author of Those We Drown and the forthcoming YA horror novel Our Wicked Histories.

T. L. Huchu has been published previously (as Tendai Huchu) in the adult market, but the Edinburgh Nights series is his genre fiction debut. His previous books (The Hairdresser of Harare and The Maestro, The Magistrate and the Mathematician) have been translated into multiple languages and his short fiction has won awards. Tendai grew up in Zimbabwe but has lived in Edinburgh for most of his adult life.

Frances White is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Voyage of the Damned, a fantasy murder mystery at sea. Born in Leicester and now 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 passionate about bringing more LGBTQIA+ representation and fat positivity into fantasy. When not writing, she can be found sewing costumes for comic conventions or researching obscure historical facts. She also loves to perform on stage, with a fondness for musicals and Shakespeare. 

Lauren Beukes is the award-winning author of six novels, a collection of short stories, a pop history about South African women, and New York Times best-selling comics. Her work has been translated into 26 languages and won prizes across genres from the Arthur C Clarke Award to the Strand Critic’s Choice award and the University of Johannesburg Prize. Her novel, The Shining Girls, about a time-travelling serial killer and the survivor who turns the hunt around is now a major AppleTV series with Elisabeth Moss. Her latest novel, Bridge, about a young woman’s search for her mother across realities is out now. She lives in London with a teenager and two cats.

Find Lauren on socials @laurenbeukes and on TikTok @lauren.beukes

Nikhil Singh is a South African artist, writer and musician. Former projects include the graphic novels: Salem Brownstone written by John Harris Dunning (longlisted for the Branford Boase Award, Walker Books 2009) as well as The Ziggurat (Bell-Roberts 2003) by The Constructus Corporation (now Die Antwoord). His work has also been featured in various magazines including Dazed, i-D Online, Creative Review, as well as Pictures and Words: New Comic Art and Narrative Illustration (Laurence King, 2005). His debut novel Taty Went West was published by Kwani? Trust in 2015, Jacaranda Books (UK) in 2017, and Rosarium (US) in 2018. The book was released with an accompanying soundtrack and was shortlisted for Best African Novel in the inaugural Nommo Awards. His new novel Dakini Atoll is a sequel to his 2020 novel Club Ded  which was shortlist for the BSFA and Nommo Awards.

Maud Woolf is a Scottish speculative writer with a particular focus on horror and science fiction. While completing an MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow, her unpublished novel was shortlisted for the North Lit Agency Prize. Her work has appeared in a variety of online magazines, including Metaphorosis Magazine where her short story ‘The Stranding’ was selected to appear in the Best of Metaphorosis 2020. Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock is her debut novel.

Rose Black is a combination of anxiety and dyslexia in a hoodie, bi, a professional computer wrangler, and mother to the world’s wiggliest child. She’s lucky enough to live in the historic city of Bath and is capable of eating her weight in sushi.

Trip Galey was born in the United States but has now lived in the United Kingdom for over half a decade. He has a Masters from the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon and a doctorate in Creative Writing, and is a lecturer on the subject in Cambridge, with a focus on sci-fi and fantasy. He has had short stories and articles published in numerous places, such as a multi-award-nominated queer SFF anthology from Neon Hemlock Press, and his first interactive novel came out in 2021 from Choice of Games. He lives in London with his partner.

James Logan was born in the southeast of England where he grew up on a diet of Commodore 64 computer games, Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, and classic eighties cartoons, which left him with a love of all things fantastical. He lives in London and works in publishing. The Silverblood Promise is his first novel.

Rob Greene, who writes as the search-engine friendly “R.W.W. Greene,” is a recovering journalist and high-school English teacher. He writes science-fiction novels and short stories in a little house in southern New Hampshire where he lives with spouse Brenda, cat Jack, and a hive or two of honeybees. Greene is the author of four books -- The Light Years, Twenty-Five to Life, Mercury Rising, and Earth Retrograde -- all from from Angry Robot Books. He keeps a website at www.rwwgreene.com.

Emily Hamilton is a science fiction author who writes about women kissing in space. Her debut novel, The Stars Too Fondly, is forthcoming from Harper Voyager (US) and Gollancz (UK) in June 2024. She is also an award-winning staff writer at the alt-weekly newspaper Seven Days. She lives in Burlington, Vermont with her wife and their tiny dog Mimi.

Having secured a First Class Honours degree in Classical Literature and Civilisation at the University of Birmingham, Rosie Hewlett has studied Greek mythology in depth and is passionate about unearthing strong female voices within the classical world. Her self-published debut novel, Medusa, won the Rubery Book of the Year award in 2021. Medea is her first traditionally published book.

Ionna Papadopoulou is a Greek by descent and Scottish by residence author. Other than writing, she is passionate about art history and museology. She has been published at Hexagon Magazine, Idle Ink, Piker Press and The Future Fire. Ioanna’s novel, Winter Harvest, was published by Ghost Orchid Press in November 2023.

Follow Ionna on X and Instagram @IoannaP_Author and on Bluesky ay ioannapauthor.bsky.social

Alex Penland is a former museum kid - they spent their childhood running rampant through the Smithsonian Institution. Alex has worked in the field with NASA scientists, linguists and acclaimed photographers and is a Pushcart-nominated author. They currently live in Scotland while studying for a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh. Their short stories have been published in Interzone, Metaphorosis and beyond.

Jane Flett is a Scottish writer based in Berlin. Her fiction has been commissioned for BBC Radio 4, featured in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, and awarded the New Orleans Writing Residency. Her poetry features in the Best British Poetry and received the Berlin Senate Award for non-German literature. She is represented by Marina de Pass of the Soho Agency and her debut novel Freakslaw is forthcoming from Doubleday (Penguin Random House) in June 2024.

Kelly Link is the author of the collections Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, Pretty Monsters, Get in Trouble, and White Cat, Black Dog. Her short stories have been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The Best American Short Stories, and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards. She was a 2018 MacArthur Fellow and has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. She and Gavin J. Grant have co-edited a number of anthologies, including multiple volumes of The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and, for young adults, Steampunk! and Monstrous Affections. She is the co-founder of Small Beer Press and co-edits the occasional zine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. She is the owner of Book Moon, an independent bookshop in Easthampton, MA.
Link was born in Miami, Florida. She currently lives with her family, dog, and chickens in Northampton, Massachusetts.