About the event

From a never-ending repetitive day in a prison cell to waking up in a world that’s forty years in the future to what you knew, Luka from Ben Oliver’s debut novel The Loop and Laura from Kathryn Evans’ Beauty Sleep are stuck in worlds that allude to the extraordinary.

Chaired by Sarah Broadley

About the speakers

Kathryn Evans writes contemporary young adult novels with a science fiction twist and a spoonful of horror. He debut, More of Me, was nominated for the Carnegie Medal, won the SCBWI Crystal Kite and the Edinburgh International Book Festival First Book Award. Her latest novel, Beauty Sleep, has been described as Black Mirror for teens. It’s been shortlisted for The 2020 STEAM Prize. When not writing or giving workshops and talks in schools and festivals, Kathryn is an international fencer, an occasional belly dancer, co-regional advisor for SCBWI British Isles and a full-time farmer’s wife.

Ben Oliver is a writer of YA, sci-fi and speculative fiction. He grew up in Scotland and began writing long before he could spell. Ben attended the University of Stirling where he studied English but spent most of his time trying to write a novel. Ben’s first short story was published when he was 18, and since then he’s been published in over a dozen literary magazines and anthologies. Ben’s futuristic YA trilogy The Loop will be published by Chicken House in 2020 and has been optioned for TV by Lime Pictures.

Find out more about: Kathryn Evans and Ben Oliver!