Adrian Tchaikovsky is an award-winning and highly acclaimed science fiction and fantasy author with works published at home in the UK and internationally. He has written many series, including the Children of Time, Final Architects and Echoes of the Fall, as well as numerous standalone books.

He primarily explores deep themes, such as artificial intelligence and alien awareness within epic galactic and fantastical settings.

He has a deep interest in the animal world specifically insects from his studies in Zoology and has a particular penchant for spiders.

Ellen Kushner weaves together multiple careers as a writer, radio host, teacher, performer and public speaker.

A graduate of Barnard College, she also attended Bryn Mawr College, and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. She began her career in publishing as a fiction editor in New York City, but left to write her first novel Swordspoint, which has become a cult classic, hailed as the progenitor of the “mannerpunk” (or “Fantasy of Manners”) school of urban fantasy. Swordspoint was followed by Thomas the Rhymer (World Fantasy Award and the Mythopoeic Award), and two more novels in her “Riverside” series. In 2015, Thomas the Rhymer was published in the UK as part of the Gollancz “Fantasy Masterworks” line.

In addition, her short fiction appears regularly in numerous anthologies. Her stories have been translated into a wide variety of languages, including Japanese, French, Dutch, German, Spanish, Latvian and Finnish

Matthew Sangster is Professor of Romantic Studies, Fantasy and Cultural History at Glasgow University and author of An Introduction to Fantasy (2023). He is guest curator of the British Library exhibition Fantasy: Realms of Imagination.