FantasyCon 2011

The first Guest of Honour to be announced for FantasyCon 2011 is fantasy author Gwyneth Jones.

Gwyneth Jones, World Fantasy Award-winning writer and critic of science fiction and fantasy, is the author of many novels for teenagers, mostly horror and thrillers, using the name 'Ann Halam', and several highly regarded sf novels for adults. Her critical essays and reviews are collected in Deconstructing The Starships, 1999 and Imagination/Space 2009.

Among other honours, several of her novels have been nominated for the Arthur C Clarke award, the latest being Spirit, 2009. She lives in Brighton, UK, with her husband and son, some goldfish and two cats; practices yoga & has done some extreme tourism in her time. Hobbies include gardening and cooking, and playing with her websites.

Websites: http://www.boldaslove.co.uk
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gwynethann/
Blog: http://www.boldaslove.co.uk/blog/

Our next Guest of honour is horror author John Ajvide Lindqvist. John started out as a conjurer, then worked as a stand-up comedian for twelve years, before becoming known first and foremost as a writer with his debut vampire novel, Let The Right One In, which was made into the highly-acclaimed movie of the same name. His follow-up novel was Handling The Undead, and his newest novel is the just-released Harbour. He has also written for Swedish television. John will be launching his latest novel, Little Star, at the Convention.

Website: http://www.johnajvide.com

Our third Guest of Honour is Peter Atkins. Peter was born in Liverpool and now lives in Los Angeles. He is the author of the novels Morningstar, Big Thunder, and Moontown and the screenplays Hellraiser II, Hellraiser III, Hellraiser IV, Wishmaster, and Prisoners of the Sun. His short fiction has appeared in such best-selling anthologies as The Museum of Horrors, Dark Delicacies II, and Hellbound Hearts and has been selected four times for the award-winning annual Best New Horror. Magazines to which he has contributed include Weird Tales, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Postscripts and Cemetery Dance and he has also written for the stage and for television. He is the co-founder, with Dennis Etchison and Glen Hirshberg, of The Rolling Darkness Revue, who tour USA's west coast annually bringing ghost stories and live music to any venue that’ll put up with them. 2009’s Spook City was a three-author collection featuring him alongside his fellow Liverpudlians Clive Barker and Ramsey Campbell, and a new collection of his short fiction is to be published in October 2011.

Website: http://peteratkins.blogspot.com/

Photo © Peter Coleborn

FantasyCon 2011 is delighted to announce Joe Abercrombie as Guest of Honour. Joe was born in Lancaster, England, on the last day of 1974. He was educated at Lancaster Royal Grammar School and Manchester University, then moved to London and spent ten years working as a freelance TV editor, mostly on documentaries and live music, cutting concerts for bands from Iron Maiden to Coldplay. For much of this time he was spending his late nights bent over the keyboard, working on his take on epic fantasy. The Blade Itself was published in 2006, and now has publishers in more than 20 countries. Its sequels, Before They are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings, followed in 2007 and 2008. Best Served Cold, a standalone book set in the same world, was published in June 2009, and a second standalone, The Heroes, in January 2010, when it made no. 3 on the Sunday Times Bestseller list. Joe now lives in Bath with his wife, Lou, and his daughters Grace and Eve.

Website: http://www.joeabercrombie.com

Mistress of Ceremonies

Sarah Pinborough is the author of six horror novels and her first thriller, A Matter of Blood, was released by Gollancz in March 2010, and is the first of The Dog-Faced Gods trilogy which has now been option for a television series. Her first YA novel, The Double-Edged Sword, was released under the name Sarah Silverwood from Gollancz in September 2010 and is the first of The Nowhere Chronicles. Her short stories have appeared in several anthologies including Hellbound Hearts (ed. Paul Kane and Marie O'Regan), Zombie Apocalypse (ed. Stephen Jones) and The Mammoth book of Best New Horror 2009 (ed. Stephen Jones).

Sarah was the 2009 winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story, and has three times been short-listed for Best Novel. She has also been short-listed for a World Fantasy Award. Her novella, The Language of Dying (PS Publishing) was short-listed for the Shirley Jackson Award and won the 2010 British Fantasy Award for Best Novella.

Website: http://sarahpinborough.com/

Special Guests

FantasyCon 2011's first Special Guest is multiple award-winning author Brian Aldiss. Author of more than eighty novels, both mainstream and science fiction, including Frankenstein Unbound,The Helliconia Trilogy and Harm to name just a few; and innumerable short stories, including 'Super-Toys Last All Summer Long,' which was filmed as A.I. Brian has also edited many anthologies, acted in performances of his plays, and is also an artist.

Website: http://www.brianwaldiss.org

FantasyCon are delighted to announce best-selling US Fantasy author Christopher Paolini as our second Special Guest. The first three books in the Inheritance Cycle - Eragon, Eldest and Brisingr - have sold over 25 million copies worldwide, including more than 4 million copies in the UK editions. INHERITANCE, the fourth and final title in the epic fantasy sequence the Inheritance Cycle, is published on 8th November. Christopher will be attending on the Saturday of the convention (1st October) as part of his UK tour.

Website: http://alagaesia.com