Scottish Writers’ Centre Great Debate
“Other Worlds- Other Dimensions: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Paranormal, do they have a place in Literature?” CCA, Club Room Thursday, 24th May, 7pm. FREE All Welcome
We want to hear your opinions about the place of fantasy, science fiction, paranormal, and magic realism in comics, novels (graphic or text), poetry, and the short story. Come and join our panellists in our sixth Great Debate and Discussion event for 2012.
John Birch
John is a Curator at the National Library of Scotland. He has contributed to Discover Magazine on topics associated with exhibitions he’s curated, such as Local Heroes: The Art of the Graphic Novel (2008). He is the curator of the current exhibition, ‘It’s Life Jimmy, But Not As We Know It: Science Fiction in Scotland’, which displays the first Scottish fiction novel and shows connections between science fiction and Scottish writers.
Tweeting as @NLSLearn
Roy Gill
Roy holds a PhD in Media Fandom from Stirling University, and in 2007, gained an MLitt in Creative Writing from Glasgow. He has taught and lectured on English and Film, and has written essays, articles and reviews for Critical Quarterly; Media, Culture and Society, and Creeping Flesh. He was shortlisted for the Sceptre Prize in 2008, and in 2009 the Scottish Book Trust awarded Roy a New Writer’s Award. His short fiction has appeared in Fractured West and Algebra: Tramway’s literary magazine. His first novel, The Daemon Parallel, was shortlisted for the 2011 Kelpies Prize and has just been published by Floris.
Tweeting as @roy_gill
v Praise for Roy Gill: “Without doubting for a second [The Daemon Parallel’s] originality, it’s like a version of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere for teenagers – and there’s not much higher praise than that…”, Krissie West (Kids Read Books); “I adored [The Daemon Parallel]. I really, really want it to be the first in a sequence. I want it to be a boxed set of novels that are just about falling apart with repeated rereadings. That’s how much I enjoyed this first one”, Paul Magrs
Kirsty Logan
Kirsty holds an MLitt (Distinction) in Creative Writing from Glasgow University. Her award-winning short stories, flash fiction, and poetry are regularly included in anthologies, such as Best British Short Stories 2011 and literary magazines and zines, like Pank, and have been adapted for BBCR4. She co-edits flash-fiction magazine Fractured West and reviews for We Love this Book. Kirsty’s creative non-fiction has appeared in The Boston Globe and The [Glasgow] Herald and she is a columnist for Ideas Tap. In 2009, Kirsty won the Gillian Purvis Award for New Writing and the same year the Scottish Book Trust awarded her a New Writers Award. Her short story ‘Tiger Palace’ is short-listed for the 2012 Glass Woman Prize. Kirsty is currently putting together a short story collection, The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales and polishing her debut novel, Rust and Stardust.
Tweeting as @kirstylogan
v Praise for Kirsty Logan: [’Primogeniture’] is “original, very well written and genuinely disturbing”; [‘Underskirts’] is “a weird and enthralling tale of sexual transgression, told in a series of prose-poem monologues. Robert Browning meets Adrienne Rich: terrific”, Zoe Heller
Gordon Robertson
Gordon is a founding member of the Glasgow League of Writers. He is a co-creator of the award-winning arsecancer webcomic and the comic book editor of GEEKChocolate. Gordon is longlisted in the new writer category of the 2012 Eagle Awards.
Tweeting as @slackergordon
v Praise for ArseCancer: “…incredibly funny, jaw-droppingly honest, and, frankly, inspiring….it puts your daily woes into perspective “, Comic Heroes; “…It’s weirdly saddening and hilarious at the same time“, Comics Anonymous
Douglas Thompson
http://douglasthompson.wordpress.com
Douglas’s short stories have appeared in a wide range of magazines and anthologies, including, Ambit and New Writing Scotland; most recently, his short story ‘Eleanor’ was included in The Inkermen’s collection titled, Book. He won the Grolsch/Herald Question of Style Award in 1989 and second prize in the Neil Gunn Writing Competition in 2007. Douglas is a prize-winning novelist of surreal and wondrous fiction: his first book, Ultrameta, by Eibonvale Press was nominated for the Edge Hill Prize and shortlisted for the BFS Best Newcomer Award, which he followed up with Sylvow and Apoidea (The Exaggerated Press). His fourth novel, Mechagnosis is coming out with Dog Horn this summer. He’s currently posting a series of ‘Postcards from the Future’ on the Elsewhen Press blog and later this year Elwewhen will publish his speculative fiction novel Entanglement.
Tweeting as @UrbanSurrealist
v Praise for Douglas Thompson: [Ultrameta] is a “strange . . . disturbing but certainly magical mystery tour of the extremities of human experience”, Joy Hendry, Chapman Magazine; “Thompson uses the tropes of the fantastic in unique and compelling ways while at the same time creating vivid and fully realized protagonists…”, Mike O’Driscoll, Interzone
Neil Williamson
http://neilwilliamson.wordpress.com
Neil’s first story was published in Territories in 1993 and since then his stories have appeared widely in magazines and anthologies. An enhanced edition of The Ephemera (Infinity Plus Books) was released in 2011. With Andrew Wilson, Neil co-edited Nova Scotia: New Scottish Speculative Fiction (Mercat Press) which was nominated for the 2006 World Fantasy Award and he’s also been nominated for the British Fantasy Award and the British Science Fiction Award. Neil is a member of the Glasgow Science Fiction Writers Circle.
Tweeting as @neilwilliamson
v Praise for Neil Williamson: [The Ephemera] is “…an inventive, versatile and luminous debut. A cabinet of curiosities crammed with well-crafted, richly textured and utterly absorbing stories”, Andy Hedgecock, Interzone
Scottish Writers' Centre Blog 
Thank you for sharing your info. I really appreciate your
efforts and I will be waiting for your next write ups
thank you once again.