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Bella Pagan helps to manage Tor UK, which means that she commissions, edits, and publishes science fiction, fantasy and horror by new writers and established writers. Previously she worked at Orbit. Authors she has worked with include: Olivie Blake, Shelley Parker-Chan, Zen Cho<./a>, Cassandra Clare, Genevieve Cogman, Peter F. Hamilton, Alix E. Harrow, Lucy Holland, T. L. Huchu, Arkady Martine, Christopher Paolini, John Scalzi and Adrian Tchaikovsky. Apart from taking part in key Fantasycon events like the welcome to the convention, the British Fantasy Awards Banquet and Awards ceremony, and her own guest of honour interview. Bella also appeared on panels such as 'Explain the Dark Academia to Me Like I’m Five', 'Future-proofing Publishing', 'Libraries in SFFH' and 'Cosy Across the Genres'.
Priya Sharma writes horror so she is all right in my book. In fact, she writes award-winning horror which has appeared in publications such as Interzone, the late-lamented Black Static, Nightmare, The Dark and Tor.com. Her collection All the Fabulous Beasts from the wonderful Undertow Publications won a British Fantasy Award for Short Fiction, and her short story 'Fabulous Beasts' won a BFS award a few years earlier. She has also won a Shirley Jackson Award and another British Fantasy Award for her novella 'Ormeshadow'. She has also been short-listed for various awards, and walked away with a World Fantasy Award for her novella, 'Pomegranates'. Apart from the mandatory parts of the programme like the convention welcome, guest of honour interview, etc, Priya took part on the panels 'Horror and Female Representation', 'Morally Grey Women in SFF and Horror', 'Crafting a Short Story Collection' and 'Writing the Senses and Creating Rich Settings'.
Iranian-born, Stephen Aryan writes fantasy, probably because when he was very young he read books by David Eddings, Tolkien, C. S Lewis, Terry Brooks, Ursula Le Guin, Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman and David Gemmell. Reading correctly, it took him about 15 years to get his first novel Battlemage published which was followed by the rest of his 'Age of Darkness' trilogy with the books Bloodmage and Chaosmage. Since then he has written another trilogy – 'the Age of Dread' – comprising Mageborn, Magefall and Magebane. These were followed by The Coward and The Warrior and a new Persian-inspired fantasy series. Stephen is also all right in my book, not because he writes horror – he doesn’t, but because he likes real ale. Stephen fulfilled his Guest of Honour duties by being in the right places at the right times, and also appeared on the panels 'Dealing with Imposter Syndrome', 'The Edges of World-building', doing a reading, and being part of the panels 'Nothing Compares to You' and 'Submission Stories'.
 Almost five hundred people attended the 2024 Fantasycon and as usual the convention was made up of different programming strands like readings, launches, workshops and panels. Workshops included topics like Content Marketing, World-building, Writing Collaboratively, Games Writing, Self-Publishing and Coming Up with a Language. The British Fantasy Society renamed part of the hotel where the convention was taking place so we had The Phoenix Room, The Kraken Room, The Baba Yaga Room, The Wyvern Room, The Arcane Archives and The Hidden Library. Some of these rooms had their own, nifty BFS bookmarks dedicated to them. Also as part of the programme there was the British Fantasy Awards Banquet, the Awards ceremony (Award winners here), and the British Fantasy Society AGM.
I was taking part in three events. The first was about 'Juggling the POV', which seemed straight forward enough, or so I thought, and I was armed and ready to talk about second-person narratives, stream of consciousness, and even the story being told in diagrams and tables. This panel clashed with a PS Publishing launch, but I managed to dash across the hotel to seize the last copy of Ramsey Campbell’s collection, Fear Across the Mersey. My second event was 'Who Owns the Book When It’s Finished?' considering the death of the author, the author as a conduit for the story, reader intention vs. authorial intent, the authorial subconscious, adaptations, and fan fiction. Heady stuff! My last panel was about 'Folk Stories in Fantasy and Horror' where I got the chance to talk about my encounters with folk stories having lived in the town where Scottish sorcerer, Major Thomas Weir, was born; the Rocking Stone and the Druid’s Graves in Renfrewshire; and also the Neolithic Tomb at Largs. I also took part in the poetry open mic event to read my own poems, but also in my secret identity as BFS Poetry Editor to nab some new talent.
Programming aside, there was also the dealers room which was dominated by small presses, indie presses and tables run by writers who had self-published their own books, and comics. Some of the usual suspects who were there included PS Publishing, who, of course, had some launch events during the convention; Cathaven Press, who publish the Occult Detective Magazine, and they must be lovely people as one of my stories featuring vampire Roam Belanger, appeared in an issue of Occult Detective; Guardbridge Books; and Alchemy Press. Books aside, the portrait photographer, Tom Pepperdine, also had a table, as well as Genki Gear who had a variety of wacky t-shirts and gifts, and artist Caleb Peregrine, also showed off his talents.
It really was a great convention and I look forward to being back in Brighton for a combined World Fantasy Convention and Fantasycon in 2025. Brighton previously hosted the World Horror Convention, the World Fantasy Convention, and Fantasycons in the early 2010s. Now where have I put my trusty John Aitken convention pub map?
Ian Hunter
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