With Eastercon over, and term nearly done, you’d be forgiven for thinking I’d be taking a break from now until Dublin Worldcon this August. On the contrary: with CYMERA Festival, GIFCon 2019 and more on the way, it’s shaping up to be a busy summer. Whether you’re into fiction, fantastic academia, or fandom, here’s where you can find me over May and June – and where you can hear me before all that.
Time for Cakes and Ale: Eastercon Special (Now!)
Eeson and Becks from Time for Cakes and Ale stopped by Eastercon 70: Ytterbium over the Easter weekend for chats with the likes of Emma Newman, Juliet Kemp, Ian Whates, Ali Baker – and me! If you’d like to hear what I’m reading right now, as well as some good sources of short fiction, click here for their bumper Eastercon podcast.
Symposium on Fantasy and the Fantastic (10th May)
I’ll be wearing all of my hats for this one. With a keynote from Terri Windling (yes, that Terri Windling), this symposium is one of the first of a series of initiatives from the University of Glasgow’s Fantasy Hub, funded by ArtsLab, bringing together researchers, creators, and industry professionals. I’m delighted to announce I’ll be speaking not just as an academic, but a fiction author and fan of speculative genres when I give my talk on how fan spaces can bridge academia and creative industries, as well as bring other benefits to Fantasy as a whole. Terri Windling’s keynote at 4pm is open to members of the public – click here for tickets.
Glasgow International Fantasy Conversations (23rd – 24th May)
This year’s keynotes on the theme of ‘Mapping the Mythosphere’ are internationally-renowned Fantasy theorist Brian Attebery, celebrated Comics scholar Mel Gibson, and author and poet Catherine Fisher, making our third event possibly our biggest yet. Now sold out, room is still left on the Waiting List for what will be my last GIFCon as co-organizer for the forseeable future. For more details, including this year’s programme, head to www.gifcon.org.
CYMERA Festival (7th – 9th June)
Another many hats event, I’ll be both academic and author at this one. You may already have seen the stunning line-up for this inaugural Edinburgh festival – like the Book Festival, but for fans of speculative genres – including Cassandra Khaw, Tom Pollock, Justina Ireland, BSFA Award winner Gareth L. Powell, Emma Newman, Tade Tompson, and more! I’ll be giving a talk on Hal Duncan’s Scruffians series as part of the academic track on Saturday 8th June Sunday 9th June. Also on Saturday 8th June at 2pm, Oliver Langmead and I will be running the lite version of our ‘Discovering New Worlds Through Writing’ workshop. Come explore the galaxy with us – click here to pick up tickets!