Explore a range of exciting sci-fi poems with SF poery editor, Dr Russell Jones. Create and share ideas, before trying your hand at writing your own sci-fi poem in a supportive group.

No experience required, session open to all!

About Russell

Russell Jones is an Edinburgh-based writer and editor. He has published four pamphlets and one full collection of poetry and has edited three anthologies, two of science fiction poetry, and one of poems about Edinburgh. He is the deputy editor and poetry editor of Shoreline of Infinity, a sci-fi magazine from Scotland. He has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh and has published research on the poetry of Edwin Morgan.

Running time: 90 minutes

Materials will be provided. This workshop is suitable for writers aged 14+.

Price £10/£8 concession

Venue: Cheviot Room

This workshop is supported by the Edinburgh Napier University’s MA Creative Writing.

The Masters in Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University loves science fiction, fantasy and horror, making it unique among postgrad degrees. The MA focuses master-class feedback and one-to-one mentoring instead of the usual peer review workshops, preparing students for life as professional genre writers. It offers specialist modules on writing graphic novels and YA fiction, important creative areas ignored by other writing programmes.

Magic can be dark and dangerous, monsters embody our darkest fears, most fairy tales are just a step away from horror stories… Yet magic, monsters and fairy tales are the ingredients of many of our favourite children’s books! Join Lari Don, award-winning children’s writer, to discuss why and how to use old tales to inspire new kids’ fiction, and to explore ways to enchant and excite young readers.

About Lari

Lari Don has worked in politics and broadcasting, but is now a full-time writer and occasional storyteller. She grew up in the north-east of Scotland, and lives in Edinburgh. She is the author of the four Fabled Beasts Chronicles novels, Rocking Horse War, and the award-winning Mind Blind for young teens. She also writes picture books, including The Tale of Tam Linn and The Secret of the Kelpie.

This workshop is for writers aged 16+

Running time: 90 minutes

Tickets: £10/ £8 concession

Venue: Cheviot Room

This workshop is supported by the Edinburgh Napier University’s MA Creative Writing.

The Masters in Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University loves science fiction, fantasy and horror, making it unique among postgrad degrees. The MA focuses master-class feedback and one-to-one mentoring instead of the usual peer review workshops, preparing students for life as professional genre writers. It offers specialist modules on writing graphic novels and YA fiction, important creative areas ignored by other writing programmes.

Laura Lam and David Bishop lead a session looking at different ways to make writing your profession, and how to create a portfolio career across a range of storytelling media.

About Laura

Originally from sunny California, Laura Lam now lives in cloudy Scotland. Her next novel is the feminist space opera, Seven Devils, co-written with Elizabeth May. Lam is also the author of BBC Radio 2 Book Club section False Hearts, the companion novel Shattered Minds, as well as the award-winning Micah Grey series Pantomime, Shadowplay, and Masquerade. Her short fiction and essays have also appeared in anthologies such as Nasty Women, Solaris Rising 3, Cranky Ladies of History, and more. She lectures part-time at Edinburgh Napier University on the Creative Writing MA.

About David

David Bishop is programme leader for Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland. The author of twenty published novels and an award-winning screenwriter, he helped found the innovative MA Creative Writing programme at Edinburgh Napier in 2009. David is a member of the Society of Authors and the Crime Writers' Association. He is a trustee of the Cymera Festival of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Writing, which launches in June 2019. He was awarded a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship by Creative Scotland in 2017. .

Running time: 90 minutes

Tickets: Free

Venue: Pentland Room

This workshop is supported by the Edinburgh Napier University’s MA Creative Writing.

The Masters in Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University loves science fiction, fantasy and horror, making it unique among postgrad degrees. The MA focuses master-class feedback and one-to-one mentoring instead of the usual peer review workshops, preparing students for life as professional genre writers. It offers specialist modules on writing graphic novels and YA fiction, important creative areas ignored by other writing programmes.

In this workshop, you will explore techniques for making your writing more immediate, vivid and visceral. Through a variety of critical and practical approaches, you will develop and deepen your ability to write convincing detail, and to ground your stories in the embodied experiences of your characters. You will have the opportunity to explore the connections between the physical, emotional, and political in your writing, and learn how to create powerful and arresting effects.

About Georgina

Georgina Bruce is a writer and teacher. Her short stories have been widely published in magazines and anthologies, and have been longlisted for the Bridport and Mslexia short story prizes. In 2017, her story “White Rabbit” won the British Fantasy Award for Short Fiction. Her debut collection, “This House of Wounds,” is due out in May 2019.

Running time: 90 minutes

Materials will be provided. This workshop is suitable for writers aged 14+.

Price £10/£8 concession

Venue: Cheviot Room

This workshop is supported by the Edinburgh Napier University’s MA Creative Writing.

The Masters in Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University loves science fiction, fantasy and horror, making it unique among postgrad degrees. The MA focuses master-class feedback and one-to-one mentoring instead of the usual peer review workshops, preparing students for life as professional genre writers. It offers specialist modules on writing graphic novels and YA fiction, important creative areas ignored by other writing programmes.

Kelpies, selkies, dragons, fairies — Lari Don has sent them all on magical adventures in her Spellchasers trilogy and Fabled Beast Chronicles. In this workshop for young writers, she will chat about being inspired by folklore and mythology, and encourage you to create your own magical characters then send them on fantastic quests…

About Lari

Lari Don has worked in politics and broadcasting, but is now a full-time writer and storyteller. She grew up in the north-east of Scotland, and lives in Edinburgh. She is the author more than 20 books for children of all ages including the Fabled Beasts Chronicles and Spellchasers trilogy for middle grade readers, Mind Blind for young teens, and picture books The Tale of Tam Linn and The Secret of the Kelpie.

@LariDonWriter  http://www.laridon.co.uk/

Suitable for writers aged 10 to 14 (ish)

Running time: 60 minutes

Tickets: £5 (no concession)

Venue: Cheviot Room

Lari is also running a workshop for older writers, titles Writing for Young People. More info https://www.cymerafestival.co.uk/writing-workshops/laridonafternoon

This workshop is supported by the Edinburgh Napier University’s MA Creative Writing.

The Masters in Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University loves science fiction, fantasy and horror, making it unique among postgrad degrees. The MA focuses master-class feedback and one-to-one mentoring instead of the usual peer review workshops, preparing students for life as professional genre writers. It offers specialist modules on writing graphic novels and YA fiction, important creative areas ignored by other writing programmes.

Unfortunately, Cara has had to cancel her appearance at Cymera 2019.

All tickets will be refunded automatically.

A good story is the starting point for much of the content we are consuming today, from that show you binge watch to the video game that kept you up all night.

Join writer Cara Ellison as she shares the secrets to writing not only across genres but also across media.

About Cara

Cara is a video game narrative designer, most of the time. She's the author of Embed with Games, a book about the year she spent traveling and sleeping on the couches of games developers. She's recently written Void Bastards, a strategy-shooter about prisoners in space, and is also working on Dreams for Media Molecule. She wrote for Becoming Dangerous, Fiction & Feeling's last anthology, about making a pilgrimage to Skye to find Scáthach's Fortress of Shadows. She wrote for the BBC show Last Commanders, which was recently nominated for a Scottish BAFTA. She is currently working on her first comic book.

Running time: 90 minutes

Materials will be provided. This workshop is suitable for writers aged 14+.

Price £10/£8 concession

Venue: Cheviot Room

This workshop is supported by the Edinburgh Napier University’s MA Creative Writing.

The Masters in Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University loves science fiction, fantasy and horror, making it unique among postgrad degrees. The MA focuses master-class feedback and one-to-one mentoring instead of the usual peer review workshops, preparing students for life as professional genre writers. It offers specialist modules on writing graphic novels and YA fiction, important creative areas ignored by other writing programmes.

Unfortunately our speaker for this event has taken ill.

A survey revealed that fear of death was number two in the Top Ten ‘What Gives you the Screaming Habdabs”. Number One was speaking in public. People would rather die than speak in public.

Is this you?

Well, let Susan Morrison take your terror away. Susan is a stand up comedian, writer and broadcaster with years of experience and has an arsenal of tips hints and advice to help you improve your public speaking. You might even get to like it.

Running time: 60 minutes

Materials will be provided. This workshop is suitable for writers aged 16+.

Price £8/£6 concession.

Venue: Cheviot Room

For those of us who are not astronauts, there is still a way for us to think about setting foot on new moons and new planets for the first time: through writing! As the world starts to think seriously about sending people to Mars, and finding ways of making the red planet habitable for humans, we, as writers, can speculate on the experience, through writing exciting science fiction short stories, and books, and scripts, and even poems. Just like Matt Damon in Ridley Scott's The Martian, based on the book of the same name by Andy Weir, we can put ourselves in the shoes of earth's first explorers of new worlds.

Join science fiction author and poet Oliver Langmead and award-winning speculative writer Ruth EJ Booth for a workshop where you will use individual and group exercises to consider the trials facing explorers as they set foot on Mars and beyond.

It will be an afternoon of getting creative, thinking about new technologies and unforeseen hurdles that might help or hinder humanity as we explore the universe outside our own small planet.

Running time: 90 minutes

Materials will be provided. This workshop is suitable for writers aged 14+.

Price £10/£8 concession

Venue: Cheviot Room

This workshop is supported by the Edinburgh Napier University’s MA Creative Writing.

The Masters in Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University loves science fiction, fantasy and horror, making it unique among postgrad degrees. The MA focuses master-class feedback and one-to-one mentoring instead of the usual peer review workshops, preparing students for life as professional genre writers. It offers specialist modules on writing graphic novels and YA fiction, important creative areas ignored by other writing programmes.

MA Creative Writing programme leader David Bishop reveals the secrets to crafting a well-structured plot that  can bring story ideas and themes together on the page for your readers.

About David

David Bishop is the author of twenty published novels and an award-winning screenwriter, he helped found the innovative MA Creative Writing programme at Edinburgh Napier in 2009. David is a member of the Society of Authors and the Crime Writers' Association. He is a trustee of the Cymera Festival of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Writing, which launches in June 2019. He was awarded a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship by Creative Scotland in 2017. In his copious spare time David is completing a PhD in Creative Writing at Lancaster University in England.

Running time: 90 minutes

Tickets: Free

Running time: 90 minutes

Venue: Pentland Room

This workshop is supported by the Edinburgh Napier University’s MA Creative Writing.

The Masters in Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University loves science fiction, fantasy and horror, making it unique among postgrad degrees. The MA focuses master-class feedback and one-to-one mentoring instead of the usual peer review workshops, preparing students for life as professional genre writers. It offers specialist modules on writing graphic novels and YA fiction, important creative areas ignored by other writing programmes.

What is defamiliarisation? How can this technique help your writing?

Russian Formalist, Shklovsky, stated “art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stony.” He explains that with habituation, perception becomes automatic – the role of literature is to make things difficult, to defamiliarise and heighten perception. This technique is useful for all writers, but particularly relevant for those writing horror, fantasy, and sci-fi.

The workshop with Ever Dundas will help you explore defamiliarisation through examples, short writing exercises, and group discussion.

About Ever

Ever Dundas describes herself as a ‘queer disabled writer living in Edinburgh’. After completing a degree in Psychology and Sociology at Queen Margaret University, she went on to study for a Masters in Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University.

Having previously had several short stories and dark fairy tales published, in 2017 she released her debut novel Goblin, the story of an outcast girl living on the streets of London during the Second World War. Goblin won the Saltire Society First Book of the Year Award

Running time: 90 minutes

Materials will be provided. This workshop is suitable for writers aged 14+.

Price £10/£8 concession

Venue: Cheviot Room

This workshop is supported by the Edinburgh Napier University’s MA Creative Writing.

The Masters in Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University loves science fiction, fantasy and horror, making it unique among postgrad degrees. The MA focuses master-class feedback and one-to-one mentoring instead of the usual peer review workshops, preparing students for life as professional genre writers. It offers specialist modules on writing graphic novels and YA fiction, important creative areas ignored by other writing programmes.

A survey revealed that fear of death was number two in the Top Ten ‘What Gives you the Screaming Habdabs”. Number One was speaking in public. People would rather die than speak in public.

Is this you?

Well, let Susan Morrison take your terror away. Susan is a stand up comedian, writer and broadcaster with years of experience and has an arsenal of tips hints and advice to help you improve your public speaking. You might even get to like it.

Running time: 60 minutes

Materials will be provided. This workshop is suitable for writers aged 16+.

Price £8/£6 concession.

This workshop runs again 4pm to 5pm.

Venue: Cheviot Room

Award-winning author Laura Lam leads this workshop on world-building, packed with top tips and entertaining exercises to help you build more compelling worlds for your stories.

About Laura

Originally from sunny California, Laura Lam now lives in cloudy Scotland. Her next novel is the feminist space opera, Seven Devils, co-written with Elizabeth May. Lam is also the author of BBC Radio 2 Book Club section False Hearts, the companion novel Shattered Minds, as well as the award-winning Micah Grey series Pantomime, Shadowplay, and Masquerade. Her short fiction and essays have also appeared in anthologies such as Nasty Women, Solaris Rising 3, Cranky Ladies of History, and more. 

Running time: 90 minutes

Tickets: Free

Venue: Pentland Room

This workshop is supported by the Edinburgh Napier University’s MA Creative Writing.

The Masters in Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University loves science fiction, fantasy and horror, making it unique among postgrad degrees. The MA focuses master-class feedback and one-to-one mentoring instead of the usual peer review workshops, preparing students for life as professional genre writers. It offers specialist modules on writing graphic novels and YA fiction, important creative areas ignored by other writing programmes.

Gareth L. Powell is an award-winning and widely lauded author at the forefront of current speculative fiction. His passion for the genre, along with a refreshingly open and honest relationship with his fans, shows why he is such a unique talent.

In this workshop, Gareth shares his insights and tips from the world of genre fiction.

Running time: 3 hours

Materials will be provided. This workshop is suitable for writers aged 16+.

Price £20/ £17 concession

Venue: Cheviot Room

This workshop is supported by the Edinburgh Napier University’s MA Creative Writing.

The Masters in Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University loves science fiction, fantasy and horror, making it unique among postgrad degrees. The MA focuses master-class feedback and one-to-one mentoring instead of the usual peer review workshops, preparing students for life as professional genre writers. It offers specialist modules on writing graphic novels and YA fiction, important creative areas ignored by other writing programmes.

Want to see more of Gareth?

He’ll also be sharing a stage with Ken MacLeod and Adrian Tchaikovsky on Saturday 8th June 2019 at 2pm to talk about his writing. More info here