With over twenty books published in the last ten years, V.E. Schwab is one of the most prolific SFF writers out there. During Lockdown, her No Write Way! chat series on Instagram Live brought much joy to readers (and writers) all over the world.

Now it’s her turn to answer those tricky questions about writing.

V.E. Schwab is the No.1 New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, Vicious, The Near Witch and the Shades of Magic series, which was described as “a classic work of fantasy” by Deborah Harkness. It was one of Waterstones’ Best Fantasy Books of 2015, The Guardian’s Best Science Fiction novels, and a Telegraph choice. The Independent has called her “The natural successor to Diana Wynne Jones.”

She lives between Nashville, France and Edinburgh.

About the event:

Chaired by Stephanie Goulden

Running time: 30 minutes

The event will premiered on YouTube.

After the premiere, the event will be hosted on the Member Area of the Cymera website.

This Open Mic is free to watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/DI8qbg8q3Q0

Our readers:

+++ Hannah Faoilean

Hannah lives in Edinburgh and writes YA Fantasy, short stories and poems. She’s had a short story published in "Dream Catcher" literary magazine and will soon have a piece of microfiction published in Grindstone 2020 winners anthology. She is reading from her YA fantasy Spell.

Hannah @hfaoilean can be found on Twitter and on her website.

+++ Jeffrey Palms

Jeffrey is an MFA candidate in creative writing at the University of Glasgow, where he researches how music can challenge notions of "progress" in Science Fiction. Separately, his nonfiction book I'm Having a Knippchen, will be published by Black Fountain Press in July 2021. Jeffrey is reading from his novel Electriano.

Jeffrey @palmsfrey can be found on Twitter.

+++ Ellis Saxey

Ellis is a queer Londoner who works in Universities. Their short fiction has appeared in Apex Magazine, Best of British Fantasy 2019, The Future Fire and others. They are performing their piece Until one hundred generations – Enjoy!

Ellis @esaxey can be found on Twitter and on their website.

+++ Matthew Wasley

Matthew is a some-time writer living in Edinburgh. He has had two whole jokes broadcast on Newsjack. His last novel featured an alien AI inhabiting a shed and he is currently working on one that involves a Datsun Cherry in space. For our open Mic he is reading from The Shed.

Matthew @matthewwasley can be found on Twitter.

+++ Zebib K. A.

Zebib K. A. is a writer and psychiatrist. She is completing a Masters in Creative Writing at University of Edinburgh. She has been published in The Rumpus, Apparition Lit, and more. She is finishing her first novel, a scifi, psychological thriller. " Her Open Mic reading is the story The Body in Seams
Zebib @pegasusunder1 can be found on Twitter and on her website.

This event will be premiering on YouTube: https://youtu.be/DI8qbg8q3Q0

In the wastelands of a future Britain, the unlikely heroes of the new novels by T.L. Huchu and Jonathan Stroud just try to make a living.

In T.L Huchu's Edinburgh-set The Library of the Dead, Ropa makes her living delivering messages between the living and the dead.  When the ghosts star whispering of an evil targetting children, she sets out to discover the trush - armed with Zimbabwean magic and Scottish pragmatism. 

In Jonathan Stroud's The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne, Scarlett prefers bank robbery to a more traditional career path. A chance encounter in the wilderness opens up a whole new set of opportunities. All Scarlett has to do is survive the flight across hostile countryside with its giant otters and cannibals, and the company of Browne.

About the event:

Chaired by Patrice Lawrence

Running time: 60 minutes

The event premiered on YouTube.

After the premiere, the event will be hosted on the Member Area of the Cymera website.

About the authors

T. L. Huchu is a writer whose short fiction has appeared in publications such as Lightspeed, Interzone, AfroSF and elsewhere. He is the winner of a Nommo Award for African SF/F, and has been short-listed for the Caine Prize and the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire. Between projects, he translates fiction from Shona into English and the reverse. The Library of the Dead is the first in his Edinburgh Nights series."

Jonathan Stroud was born in Bedford, England and grew up in St Albans. After graduating from York University he embarked on a publishing and writing career in the gamebook and non-fiction department at Walker Books. He moved to Kingfisher Publications to edit children's non-fiction, and for a time juggled working with writing, but Stroud is now a full-time writer. In May 1999, Stroud burst onto the children’s book scene with his first novel, Buried Fire. His second fantasy adventure, The Leap, was published in January 2001 as part of the new Definitions list. 2003 saw the publication of a brand new novel, the first title of The Bartimeus Trilogy called The Amulet of Samarkand, an enthralling new fantasy trilogy about a wickedly witty and thoroughly irresistible "djinni." The Last Siege, published in October 2006, tells the tale of a chance encounter on the snowy slopes of a castle moat which throws together three lonely teenagers whose playful dares turn into a frenzy of nightmarish action when a re-enactment of a castle siege becomes very real.

Jonathan is on Twitter.

As his time-travel novel The Recollection celebrates its tenth anniversary, and not a year goes by without a prize shortlist/win, we chat to Gareth L. Powell about his writing and his writing career.

Gareth L. Powell is an award-winning British science fiction author. He is best known for his Embers of War and Ack-Ack Macaque trilogies, but he has also written numerous short stories, novellas, and even turned his hand to screenwriting and comic scripts. Recently, Stampede Ventures and wiip have partnered to adapt his Embers of War novels for television, and he will act as Co-Executive Producer for the series.

He was born in Bristol and still lives nearby. He began writing at school and university and was fortunate to count Diana Wynne Jones and Helen Dunmore as early mentors.

His books have twice won the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) Award for Best Novel and have been finalists for the Locus, British Fantasy, and Seiun awards.

Gareth’s other passions include screenwriting, photography (the results of which you can see on his Instagram page), and digital art, of which he has recently sold a number of pieces.

In 2013, he realised a life-long ambition when a five-page strip he’d written appeared in the British comic 2000 AD.

Gareth spends a lot of time on Twitter, where he is known for the advice and encouragement he offers to fledgling writers. He has also included a lot of that advice in On Writing, a handbook for aspiring authors.

About the event:

Chaired by Marco Rinaldi and Tariq Ashkanani from The Page One Podcast

Running time: 30 minutes

The event premiered on YouTube

After the premiere, the event will be hosted on the Member Area of the Cymera website.

This event is followed by a live Kaffeeklatsch. More info here

Join our 2021 judges Cat Hellisen, Oliver Langmead and Noel Chidwick to celebrate this year's Cymera Prize for Speculative Short Fiction.

We will chat about this year’s shortlist, share some top-tips for short fiction writers and reveal the winner.

With a reading of the winning story.

About the event:

Running time: 60 minutes

The event premiered on YouTube. and is free to watch: https://youtu.be/CDAk0AeEZxY

The looming global climate crisis and its linked ecological catastrophes have long been featured in amazing works of (eco-)fiction: Lauren James’ Green Rising, Bijal Vachharajani’s A Cloud Called Bhura, Clara Hume’s Birdsong and James Bradley’s Ghost Species splendidly interwave reality and fantasy to reveal the truth about our climate and what it means to be human in the 21st century.

This event is organized in collaboration with the Climate Fiction Writers League. Founded by Lauren James and bringing together over 100 writers from all over the world, the Climate Fiction Writers League aims to raise awareness of climate change, and encourage action at the individual, corporate and government levels.

Visit the website to meet the writers and discover a whole host of brilliant writing and resources.

Running time: 60 minutes

The event premiered for free on YouTube.

After the premiere, the event will be hosted on the Member Area of the Cymera website.

Zookeeper: What Does it Mean to be Alone in this world? is the first volume of the story of John, a botanist who has emerged after a year long experiment, into a world devoid of humans. But he is not alone. Never have we been alone.

John has to journey through a new world fraught with many dangers and discoveries to unearth the truth. But the truth can break more than just one man. It can break us all.

To sacrifice one for the many? Isn’t that what being human is all about?

Created by Benjamin Morgan and drawn by Wolf Chi, Zookeeper has been 15 years in the making, and for Cymera, they chat to graphic novel guru Joe Gordon about their publishing journey.

Zookeeper is independently published and you can buy your copy here

About the event:

Chaired by Ann Landmann

Running time: 60 minutes

The event premiered on YouTube.

After the premiere, the event will be hosted on the Member Area of the Cymera website.

This Open Mic is free to watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/6rOKPs7g9YY

Our readers:

+++

Matthew Keeley

Matthew is a teacher and writer of novels, short stories and arts reviews. His sci-fi debut, Turning the Hourglass, was published in 2019 and he is a winner of the National Trust Scotland Morton Writing Competition. He lives in Glasgow surrounded by cats and rescue hens. For the Open Mic he is reading a piece called The Stone in My Pocket.

Matthew @matthewjkeeley can be found on Twitter and on his website.

+++

Sandy Morrison

Sandy was for many years a lab rat in industrial R&D. Later he worked as a Technical Editor on a range of business publications. Now retired, he plans to move to writing Science Fiction and on environmental and space topics. He is reading a short piece entitled At the Station.

+++

Lyda Morehouse

Lyda Morehouse leads a double life. By day, she’s a Shamus award-winning science fiction author. By night, she dons her secret identity as Tate Hallaway, best-selling paranormal romance author. She reads from her most recent romance: Unjust Cause, published by Wizard Tower Press in April 2020.

Lyda @tatehallaway can be found on Twitter and on her website.

+++

B. Rae Grosz

B. Rae Grosz is a Pittsburgh-born writer and storyteller. She is reading her flash fiction piece The Ghost Walk +++ Joyce Meggett Joyce is a writer and librarian living in Chicago and longing to return to Scotland, where it appears she left a large portion of her heart. She is reading a story called “One more Chance, or Why I Brought back the Dodos”.

B. Rae @braegrosz is on Twitter.

From record sleeve design to graphic novels, picture books to fonts, Rian Hughes is one of Britain’s most prolific creators - you probably own a piece of his work, though you may not know it.

His latest work, XX, is his first novel, incorporating NASA transcripts, newspaper and magazine articles, fictitious Wikipedia pages, undeciphered alphabets, and 'Ascension', a forgotten novelette by 1960s counterculture guru Herschel Teague that mysteriously foreshadows events.

Rian Hughes is a graphic designer, illustrator, comic artist, author, and typographer. From his studio, Device, he has produced watches for Swatch, Hawaiian shirts, logo designs for Batman and Spiderman, an iconoclastic revamp of British comic hero Dan Dare, and collaborated on a set of six children’s books with Geri Halliwell. A retrospective monograph, “Art, Commercial” was published in 2001. Recent books include “Logo-a-gogo”, “Custom Lettering of the ’20s and ’30s”, and his book of burlesque art, “Soho Dives, Soho Divas”. His comic strips have been collected in “Yesterdays Tomorrows”, which was launched at the ICA, London. He has an extensive collection of Thunderbirds memorabilia, a fridge full of vodka, and a stack of easy listening albums which he plays very quietly.

“One of the most successful and prolific designer/illustrators of the past 20 years” – Roger Sabin, Eye magazine.

About the event:

Chaired by David Bishop

Running time: 30 minutes

The event premiered on YouTube.

After the premiere, the event will be hosted on the Member Area of the Cymera website.

This event is followed by a Kaffeeklatsch. More info here

Fresh from her wins the 2020 British Fantasy Awards, Laura N. Mauro chats about her writing journey and her new book On the Shoulders of Otava.

Laura Mauro was born and raised in London and now lives in Essex under extreme duress. Her short story ‘Looking for Laika’ won the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction in 2018, and ‘Sun Dogs’ was shortlisted for the 2017 Shirley Jackson Award in the Novelette category. Her debut collection, ‘Sing Your Sadness Deep’ won the 2020 British Fantasy Award for Best Collection, and her short story ‘The Pain-Eater’s Daughter’ won the 2020 British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction. She likes Japanese wrestling, Finnish folklore and Russian space dogs.

About the event:

Chaired by Callum McSorley

Running time: 30 minutes

The event premiered on YouTube.

After the premiere, the event will be hosted on the Member Area of the Cymera website.

This event is followed by a live Kaffeeklatsch. More info here

Mythology is the source of inspiration for these two authors: Rachel Burge’s The Crooked Mask is part ghost story, part murder mystery steeped in Norse Myth, and Gabriela Houston’s The Second Bell a provocative spin on Slavic striga mythology.

Prepare to be stunned, terrified and absolutely thrilled!

About the event:

Chaired by Linda Strachan

Running time: 60 minutes

The event premiered on YouTube

After the premiere, the event will be hosted on the Member Area of the Cymera website.

About the authors

Rachel Burge is an author living in East Sussex, England. She used to work as a freelance copy writer but now writes creepy YA novels surrounded by candles, usually with a horror soundtrack playing. She doesn’t get out much, but can sometimes be found muttering plot ideas to herself whilst walking in the woods with her black Labrador, Biff. Rachel has always been drawn to the macabre. As a child, she would write stories and draw pictures that her mum would take away because they gave her nightmares. She has seen a ghost, and to this day swears she once saw a doll’s hand move by itself when she was a kid. Unfortunately, her first proper writing job was on The Dolls House Magazine, which meant handling dolls and styling them for photoshoots (oh the horror!). crow-cut-out Thankfully, dolls don’t feature in her work – much. Oh, and she also has a thing about crows. Don’t forget the crows.

Rachel is on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Gabriela Houston is a London-based writer. She was born in Poland and raised in a book-loving household on the nourishing diet of mythologies, classics and graphic novels. She had spent much of her early school years holed up in the library, only feeling truly herself in the company of Jack London’s trappers and Lucy Maud Montgomery’s red-headed orphan, among many others. She came to the UK at 19 to follow her passion for literature and she completed her undergraduate and Masters degrees at Royal Holloway, University of London. After her studies, she worked in publishing for a few years. She now lives with her family in Harrow, where she pursues her life-long passion for making stuff up.