Writing the Future gathers some of the best contemporary writers of science fiction, speculative fiction, dystopia and eco-fiction to explain their craft and explore the many worlds upon which our imaginations might land. Authors such as Toby Litt, Nina Allan, Adam Roberts and Una McCormack reveal how to balance scientific research with creative freedom, examine the different forms the written text might evolve into, and offer practical advice on giving life to your own vision of the future.

Contributors Rachelle Atalla and Una McCormack are joined by Dan Coxon, one of the collection’s editors, to talk about the collection and their take on Writing the Future.

Vajra Chandrasekera is a writer, mostly of speculative fiction, from Colombo, Sri Lanka. His debut novel The Saint of Bright Doors is nominated for the Hugo, Lammy, and Nebula awards, won the Crawford Award and was a New York Times Notable Book of 2023, and his second novel Rakesfall is out in 2024. He has published over a hundred short stories, essays, reviews, articles, and poems since 2012, in half a dozen languages and in publications from the US, UK, India, China, Pakistan, and France among others, ranging from Analog and Clarkesworld to West Branch and The Los Angeles Times. His short fiction has been nominated for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award and collected in prestigious anthology series including The Best Science Fiction of the Year, The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction, and The Apex Book of World SF. He has worked as an editor for Strange Horizons and Afterlives: The Year’s Best Death Stories, and as a judge for the Dream Foundry Writing Contest and the Salam Award.

He is online at vajra.me and probably on whatever social media still exists at the time you’re reading this.

Vaishnavi Patel is a lawyer focusing on constitutional law and civil rights. She likes to write at the intersection of Indian myth, feminism, and anti-colonialism. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Kaikeyi. Vaishnavi grew up in and around Chicago, and in her spare time, enjoys activities that are almost stereotypically Midwestern: knitting, ice skating, drinking hot chocolate, and making hotdish.

Find Vaishnavi on X and Instagram @vaishnawrites

Edward Ashton is the author of the novels Mal Goes to War (available April, 2024), Antimatter Blues, Mickey7 (now a motion picture directed by Bong Joon-ho and starring Robert Pattinson), Three Days in April and The End of Ordinary. His short fiction has appeared in venues ranging from the newsletter of an Italian sausage company to Escape Pod, Analog, and Fireside Fiction. He lives in upstate New York in a cabin in the woods (not that Cabin in the Woods) with his wife, a nine pound killing machine named Maggie, and the world’s only purebred ratrantula, where he writes—mostly fiction, occasionally fact—under the watchful eyes of a giant woodpecker and a rotating cast of barred owls. In his free time, he enjoys cancer research, teaching quantum physics to sullen graduate students, and whittling.

Find Edward on X and Instagram @@edashtonwriting

Premee Mohamed is a Nebula, World Fantasy, and Aurora award-winning Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton, Alberta. She has also been a finalist for the Hugo, Ignyte, Locus, British Fantasy, and Crawford awards. Currently, she is the Edmonton Public Library writer-in-residence and an Assistant Editor at the short fiction audio venue Escape Pod. She is the author of the ‘Beneath the Rising’ series of novels as well as several novellas. Her short fiction has appeared in many venues and she can be found on her website at www.premeemohamed.com.

A teacher, a stand-up comic, former cement packing factory worker and graduate of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, Snorri Kristjánsson also writes things. Sometimes they are books (mainly about Vikings), sometimes they are films (mainly not about Vikings) or silly stage plays (you probably don’t want to know, to be honest).

He now spends his days working with words, eating cakes and teaching Drama.

Taran Matharu is the New York Times bestselling author of the Summoner series, which has been translated into 15 languages and has sold over a million copies in English. He was born in London in 1990. Taran began to write the Summoner series in November 2013 at the age of 22, taking part in “Nanowrimo 2013” and sharing his work on Wattpad.com. The shared sample of the story went viral, reaching over 3 million reads in less than six months. In addition to Dragon Rider, he is also the author of the Contender series, out now.

Find Taran on X at @taranmatharu1, on Instagram at @@taranmatharu1 and on his Facebook Page

Elizabeth May is a Sunday Times bestselling author of science fiction and fantasy novels, including Seven Devils, Seven Mercies, and the Falconer Trilogy, and historical romances under the pen name Katrina Kendrick. She writes about monsters and monster slayers, empire destroyers and rebellions, assassins and spies. Sometimes they live in palaces, and sometimes they live in the stars, and some of them fall in love.

Megan Bannen is a former public librarian and an award-winning author of speculative fiction. Her work has been selected for the RUSA Reading List, the Indies Introduce list, and the Kids’ Indie Next List, along with numerous best-of-the-year compilations. While most of her professional career has been spent behind a reference desk, she has also sold luggage, written grants, collected a few graduate degrees from various Kansas universities, and taught English at home and abroad. She lives in the Kansas City area with her family and more pets than is reasonable.

Find Megan on X and Instagram @meganbannen

Gabby Hutchinson Crouch (Horrible Histories, Newzoids, The News Quiz, The Now Show) has a background in satire, and with the global political climate as it is, believes that now is an important time to explore themes of authoritarianism and intolerance in comedy and fiction. Born in Pontypool in Wales, and raised in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, Gabby moved to Canterbury at 18 to study at the University of Kent and ended up staying and having a family there. Her novel Cursed Under London is the start of her new Elizabethan romantasy series.

Visit Gabby’s X @Scriblit