Guests of Honour
Lauren Beukes
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.
Derek Landy
Derek is an Irish author and screenwriter, best known for the Skulduggery Pleasant and Demon Road book series. Since 2018, he has also written for Marvel Comics. Skullduggery Pleasant was published by HarperCollins, who paid £1.8 million for the publishing rights, growing to a nine-book series, a six-book sequel series, a spin-off, and a prequel. In 2008, Landy won the Red House Children’s Book Award. Playing with Fire, Mortal Coil and Last Stand of Dead Men each won the senior Irish Children’s Book Award, in 2009, 2010 and 2013. In addition in 2010 Skulduggery Pleasant (Sceptre of the Ancients) was voted as Irish book of the decade.
Jeannette Ng
Jeannette is originally from Hong Kong but now lives in Durham, UK. Her MA in Medieval and Renaissance Studies fed into an interest in medieval and missionary theology, which in turn spawned her love for writing gothic fantasy with a theological twist. She used to sell costumes out of her garage. She runs live roleplay games, performs hair wizardry and sometimes has opinions on the internet, including in Foreign Policy. She has won the Astounding for Best New Writer in 2019 and the Sydney J Bounds Award (Best Newcomer) in the British Fantasy Awards 2018
Ian McDonald
Ian is an SFF writer living just outside Belfast in Northern Ireland. His first novel, the cult fave Desolation Road, was published in 1988 and won the Locus best first novel award. Since then he’s published twentysomething novels, several story collections and a handful of novellas. He’s a Hugo, Campbell Memorial, Philip K Dick and BSFA award winner and has been nominated for just about every award going. He was Guest of Honour at An Irish Worldcon in 2019 in Dublin. His most recent novel is Hopeland.
Rebecca Roanhorse
Rebecca is a NYTimes bestselling author and Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Award-winning speculative fiction writer and the recipient of the 2018 Astounding Award. She has published multiple award-winning short stories and six novels, including two in The Sixth World Series, Star Wars: Resistance Reborn, Race to the Sun for the Rick Riordan imprint, and two in the epic fantasy Between Earth and Sky trilogy – Black Sun and Fevered Star. The third book in the trilogy, Mirrored Heavens, is expected out in 2024. She has also written for Marvel Comics and for television, and had projects optioned by Amazon Studios, Netflix, and AMC Studios. She lives in Northern New Mexico, USA, with her husband, daughter, and pup.
Will Simpson
A Northern Irish native, living in Belfast, Will began his career in British comics in the 1980s, drawing “Big Ben” for Warrior magazine in 1984, Transformers for Marvel UK, work for 2000 AD, including “Judge Dredd” and “Rogue Trooper”. From 2011 until 2019 he was a storyboard and concept artist for the HBO TV series Game of Thrones, [4] [5] for which he designed the White Walkers – amazing work. His most recent stuff is with movies such as Morgan, Halo, Byzantium and the tv series The Nevers.
