Saturday 18th November 2023, 9am to 6pm

9am - 9:30am: Registration

Room: Great Hall

9:30am: Welcome

Room: Great Hall & Livestreamed on Zoom

9:40am: What makes a Masterworks? with Marcus Gipps, Publishing Director at Gollancz

Duration: 30 minutes

Room: Great Hall & Livestreamed on Zoom

Our Speaker

After almost ten years as a bookseller, Marcus joined the UK's leading SF & Fantasy publisher, Gollancz, in 2011. Since then he has worked on all sorts of books with all sorts of authors, including people he grew up reading, such as Michael Moorcock, Neil Gaiman, Mary Gentle. He has judged the Edge Hill Shory Story Prize (2011), the Tibor Jones Pageturner Award (2012), and the British Fantasy Society Best Magazine Award (2016).

This panel will be recorded and will be available to watch back after the conference on our YouTube channel. The access link will be sent out a few days after the conference.

10:15am - 10:25am Comfort Break

10:25am: Beyond the Page with Cat Clarke, Gavin Inglis and Robbie MacNiven

Discover a world beyond novel writing with three experts who’ll discuss the special skills required to work in TV, Games and Audio and Tie-in Writing.

Duration: 45 minutes

Room: Great Hall & Livestreamed on Zoom

This panel will be recorded and will be available to watch back after the conference on our YouTube channel. The access link will be sent out a few days after the conference.

10:25am: Contract Skills Workshop with Francesca Barbini

Duration: 45 minutes

Room: Leith

Francesca Barbini of Luna Press hosts this informative workshop designed to help you develop the essential skills required to read, understand, and negotiate a publishing contract. 

11:10 - 11:35am Tea Break

Venue: Great Hall & Zoom

11:35am: Writing and Publishing Genre Fiction Workshop with D.V. Bishop

This workshop will help you explore your reasons for choosing genre fiction, and set out the three key qualities every author needs to survive and thrive, and how to develop them. You’ll have a chance to consider how to go about getting published, whether via self-publishing or traditional routes, and establish the tools you need to begin mapping out your career trajectory.

Duration: 90 minutes

Room: Great Hall & Livestreamed on Zoom

This panel will be recorded and will be available to watch back after the conference on our YouTube channel. The access link will be sent out a few days after the conference

D. V. Bishop is the pseudonym of award-winning writer David Bishop. His love for the city of Florence and the Renaissance period meant there could be only one setting for his historical thrillers. The first Cesare Aldo novel, City of Vengeance, won the Pitch Perfect competition at the Bloody Scotland crime writing festival and the NZ Booklovers Award for Best Adult Fiction Book. Book two in the series, The Darkest Sin, won the prestigious Crime Writers' Association Historical Dagger. Before he embarked on a life of crime (writing), he was an editor at 2000 AD and wrote novels for Doctor Who, Judge Dredd, Heroes and Nikolai Dante, as well as comic strip adventures of The Phantom. He teaches creative writing at Edinburgh Napier University.

11:35am: Find Your Voice Workshop with MK Hardy

Duration: 90 minutes

Room: Abbeyhill

How do we define 'voice' in fiction? Is it a case of 'you have it or you don't'? Does it come naturally, or is it something you can learn? In this one and a half hour interactive workshop, you'll explore your own authorial voice in a series of guided discussions and exercises though analysis to practice.

This workshop will contain short writing exercises, but no obligation to share your work unless you are comfortable with doing so.

Your Workshop Leaders
Mo and Erin aka MK Hardy are an author duo based in Dundee, Scotland. They have been writing together for over 15 years. With backgrounds in Science Outreach and Content Design, they are both communication professionals with decades of combined experience in teaching, storytelling, and the written word. As indie authors they published several works with NineStar Press before finding representation with John Baker at Bell Lomax Moretun.

11:35am: Writing Compelling Villains Digital Workshop

Duration: 90 minutes

Room: Zoom Meetings

From distant, insubstantial dark entities like Sauron or Pennywise to the all too human Tom Ripley, a monstrous villain is often the strongest and most memorable character in any piece of fiction. Whether you're crafting a morally grey world of blurred motives or a classic story of good vs. evil, this workshop will give writers room to explore how to make their antagonists believable, memorable, and to practice adding depth and flavour to those characters we love to hate in a supportive workshop environment.

Your Workshop Leader
Ed McDonald is the author of the Raven's Mark trilogy and the Redwinter Chronicles. A medieval historian, amateur swordsman and tabletop roleplay game lover, Ed has been writing stories for as long as he can remember. He currently lives in London.

11:35am: In-person Agent One to Ones with Robbie Guillory (Underline Literary Agency) or Caro Clarke (Portobello Literary)

Duration: 15 minutes slots

Room: Tollcross & Calton

Grab this invaluable opportunity to talk directly to a literary agent about your work. You can seek advice about any stage of the writing process, and receive direct feedback on pitches and ideas.

Meetings will be 15 minutes long, and there will be a £25 fee.

By booking tickets for this event, you are committing to submitting your submission letter and the first 2000 words of your novel (or less) by Monday 30th October.2023

Please send your material to admin@cymerafestival.co.uk

Please note that Agent One to Ones are not included in the Conference ticket and must be booked separately.

1:05pm - 2:35pm Lunch Break

Venue: Great Hall

1:10pm: Digital Agent One to Ones with John Baker (Bell Lomax Moretun)

Duration: 15 minutes slots

Room: Zoom Meetings

Grab this invaluable opportunity to talk directly to a literary agent about your work. You can seek advice about any stage of the writing process, and receive direct feedback on pitches and ideas.

Meetings will be 15 minutes long, and there will be a £25 fee.

By booking tickets for this event, you are committing to submitting your submission letter and the first 2000 words of your novel (or less) by Monday 30th October.2023

Please send your material to admin@cymerafestival.co.uk

Please note that Agent One to Ones are not included in the Conference ticket and must be booked separately.

2:35pm - 3:35pm: Allied Professions

Signing with a publisher and working with an editor is only the first step in your journey. Come meet some of the professional allies who will help you spread the word, build a readership, and engage with the public: publicists, booksellers, librarians, and festival organisers.

Joining us for this session are

Jennifer Andreacchi - Publicity and Marketing Officer at Birlinn Ltd

Paul Hudson - Librarian at Edinburgh Libraries

Matthew Land - Events Manager at Blackwell’s Bookshop, Edinburgh

Lee Randall - freelance book festival programmer, currently producing Wigtown Book Festival 2024

Duration: 60 minutes

Room: Great Hall & Livestreamed on Zoom

This panel will be recorded and will be available to watch back after the conference on our YouTube channel. The access link will be sent out a few days after the conference.

3:35pm to 3:45pm Comfort Break

3:45pm: Ask Me Anything with Marcus Gipps, Publishing Director of Gollancz

Duration: 30 minutes

Room: Great Hall & Livestreamed on Zoom

This panel will be recorded and will be available to watch back after the conference on our YouTube channel. The access link will be sent out a few days after the conference.

3:45pm: Ask Me Anything with Robbie Guillory from Underline Literary Agency

Duration: 30 minutes

Room: Abbeyhill

3:45pm: Digital Ask Me Anything with John Baker, Agent at Bell, Lomax Moreton.

Duration: 30 minutes

Room: Zoom Meetings

4:15pm - 4:35pm Tea Break Venue: Great Hall and Zoom

4:35pm: Access and Accessibility for Writers with Julie Farrell, Director and Co-founder of Inklusion

Duration: 60 minutes

Room: Great Hall & Livestreamed on Zoom

Julie Farrell is a queer, disabled, neurodivergent author and award-winning poet based in Edinburgh, Scotland. She is listed as one of the Bookseller’s Top 150 Most Influential People in Publishing in 2022, and is Director and Co-Founder of The Inklusion Guide: a kickass guide to making literature events accessible to disabled people.  Julie's work explores our relationship with nature, and how it helps us to process our grief, loss, and nostalgia in relation to family, identity and the planet. She has published personal essays and creative journalism on disability, otherness, equality and philosophy. 
Her poem, Ripples of Change, won the Aurora Prize for Writing in 2021, with a second poem, Freedom, also shortlisted. She was a finalist in the Glasgow Women's Library Calm Slam 2020, and the Iceland Writers Retreat Alumni Award 2020. Her poem, IMAGINE was published in Not Going Back To Normal - A Disabled Artists Manifesto. 
We Are Fractals, her contemporary young-adult novel, has received various accolades including shortlistings  in the SCBWI Undiscovered Voices 2022 Anthology , the Guppy Open Submissions Competition 2022, the Write Mentor Children's Novel Award 2021 and the Owned Voices Novel Award 2021. 
Julie serves as a trustee of Mslexia Magazine and as a member of the Access Scheme Advisory Group for Arts Council England.
Follow her on Twitter: @Julie_Farrell_ and Instagram: @juliefarrellauthor 

This panel will be recorded and will be available to watch back after the conference on our YouTube channel. The access link will be sent out a few days after the conference.

4:35pm: Workshop: Create Your Own Fantasy Map with Andy Law

Duration: 60 minutes

Room: Abbeyhill

Drawing elaborate maps to support your world-building, novels, or games can be daunting. We can all scribble some wobbly lines and claim it’s a continent. And we can all scrawl HERE BE MOUNTAINS and hope for the best. But taking these ‘sketches’ and turning them into a thing of beauty is something quite different. Indeed, for most, it seems impossible.

Andy Law, professional cartographer, intends to prove that assumption incorrect.

This workshop, targeted at beginners and professionals alike, will take you step-by-step through creating your own fantasy maps. Using an easy-to-follow process, Andy will show you how to create cartographical wonders that will never fail to impress.

Your Workshop Leader

Andy Law has been professionally mapping fan-favourite settings for over two decades. He has worked for many companies including Critical Role, Games Workshop, and Penguin Random House. He has contributed to settings including Game of Thrones, Tal'Dorei, Dragon Age, Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, and Thunderbirds. Andy is also an award-winning games designer and writer, and he streams online weekly about world-building and games. He lives in Edinburgh with his gaming family, where he works for Rookery Publications, a games company he co-owns with some of the best people in the world.

4:35pm: Working with an editor: why? what? how?  Digital Workshop

Duration: 60 minutes

Room: Zoom

Getting as far as thinking about an edit is a huge achievement. But what is an edit? You may hear words like Developmental, Structural, Copyediting, Line editing, Proofreading … are they all the same thing, with varying degrees of scary-sounding names? And do you need to work with an editor to do all, some or any of them? If so, how does that work? 

Workshop leader Helen Bleck will introduce the different types of editing, and you’ll look at some (invented!) examples to assess what kind of work they might benefit from. You’ll have the chance to experiment with developmental and line editing yourself, and discuss your thoughts. The workshop rounds off with a look at how you can work with an editor to help make your work (even) better.  

Editing is a hugely rewarding part of the writing process, and your editor is there only to help you – come along to find out how! 

Your workshop Leader

Helen Bleck is a freelance editor who has worked in the publishing industry since the early 1990s (starting out as an editorial assistant and working up through typesetting, production and project management to managing editor at Edinburgh publisher Canongate). Freelance since 2008, she has also worked as digital resource creator for museums, and delighted in doing the MLitt in Fantasy at Glasgow (2015–17). She mentors beginning writers and could talk endlessly about publishing and editing … and pretty much anything else!

5:35pm Thank you and Closing Remarks

Room: Great Hall & Livestreamed on Zoom