Image courtesy of NASA
Ruth Aylett originally wanted to be an astronomer, but settled for a career in AI and Robotics. She often works at melding science and technology into poetry. Her two pamphlets, both published in 2021 are Pretty in Pink (4Word) and Queen of Infinite Space (Maytree), and she is also the joint author, with Greg Michaelson, of two SF/Fantasy novel set in Scotland: Equinox (Stairwell Books 2023) and Solstice (forthcoming).
Eugen Bacon is an African Australian author. She’s a British Fantasy and Foreword Indies Award winner, a twice World Fantasy Award finalist, and a finalist in the Shirley Jackson, Philip K. Dick Award, and the Nommo Awards for speculative fiction by Africans. Eugen was announced in the honor list of the Otherwise Fellowships for ‘doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction’. Danged Black Thing made the Otherwise Award Honor List as a ‘sharp collection of Afro-Surrealist work’. Visit her at eugenbacon.com.
Ian Badcoe (he/they) is a nonbinary poet living in Sheffield, Yorkshire. His work includes performance and page pieces, on topics such as progressive issues, gender, science/technology and genres such as SciFi and Noire. He has been published in Celebrating Change; Selcouth Station; Corporeal; En*gendered; Streetcake; Ink, Sweat and Tears; Snakeskin; and other places.
Simon Barraclough’s Los Alamos Mon Amour (Salt 2008) was a Forward First Collection finalist. Other works include Bonjour Tetris (Penned in the Margins 2010), Neptune Blue (Salt 2011), Sunspots (Penned in the Margins 2015), and Iarnród Éireann (Broken Sleep Books 2021). He toured Sunspots as a one-man show featuring music, songs and film in 2015/16. Simon devised the multi-poet event Psycho Poetica (Sidekick Books 2012) and co-wrote and co-performed The Debris Field (Sidekick Books 2013). In 2014 he was writer in residence at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory and edited the anthology of poems by scientists, Laboratorio (Sidekick Books 2015). Simon has published short fiction and essays and his next book is Divine Hours from Broken Sleep Books (June 2024). www.simonbarraclough.com
Suzannah Evans’ work combines climate anxiety and eco-poetry with dark humour and irreverence, and has been described as ‘doom-pop poetry with an apocalyptic edge’. She has published two books with Nine Arches Press, the most recent of which is Space Baby, and her pamphlet Green is published by Little Betty.
X: @suzannahevans
W. N. (‘Bill’) Herbert was born in Dundee in 1961 and writes extraordinary poetry both in English and Scots. He has published many collections, including the latest The Wreck of the Fathership (Bloodaxe, 2020) and edited many more. He is co-editor of the political poetry blog New Boots and Pantisocracies and also curates many other online poetry projects including Ghost Furniture Catalogue (with Sophie Herxheimer). He is Emeritus Professor of Poetry and Creative Writing at Newcastle University and lives in a lighthouse overlooking the River Tyne at North Shields. He was Dundee's inaugural Makar from 2013 to 2018 and in 2015 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Andy Jackson is a space travel geek and frustrated astronaut. He is also a writer of poetry with four collections including The Assassination Museum (Red Squirrel Press 2010), A Beginner’s Guide to Cheating (Red Squirrel Press 2015), The Saints Are Coming! (Blue Diode 2020) and Games Night (Red Squirrel Press 2023). He is also editor of over a dozen anthologies of poetry including Split Screen and Double Bill (Red Squirrel Press 2012/2014) and Scotia Extremis (Luath 2019). He is co-ordinator of several online poetry projects including New Boots and Pantisocracies and Otwituaries. www.andyjacksonpoet.co.uk
Kevin Patrick McCann has published nine collections of poetry for adults, one for children, a novel for children, a collection of fantasy stories and a guide to self-publishing for Hodder.
Ian McLachlan is a founding member of Poets for the Planet. His ecopoetry show Earthsong, which he co-produced, hosted and performed at, featured 18 poets from five continents performing in 11 different languages at COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. Social media: @ia jmclachlan
Sadie Maskery lives in Scotland by the sea. Her latest collection With The Usual Apologies is published by Red Ogre Press.
Aimee Norton is currently a research astronomer at Stanford University working with data from the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory to understand solar magnetism. http://sun.stanford.edu/~norton/
Katherine Quevedo was born and raised near Portland, Oregon, where she works as an analyst and lives with her husband and two sons. Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Rhysling Award, and her poems have appeared in Asimov’s, Apparition Literary Magazine, Triangulation: Energy, and elsewhere. Her mini-chapbook, The Inca Weaver’s Tales, is available from Sword & Kettle Press. Find her at www.katherinequevedo.com.
Farah Maria Rahman won second place in the Future Worlds Prize 2024 for writers of fantasy and science fiction (https://www.futureworldsprize.co.uk/2024-prize/). She is currently querying agents for her novel Tribe. Her online portfolio of published short fiction and articles may be found at https://www.clippings.me/farahmariarahman/
Holly Smith is currently studying a Masters in English Literature at the University of Liverpool, specifically Science Fiction Literature. This is her first published work, and reflects a growing fascination with AI, bio-tech and the current climate crisis.
David Lee Summers is an author, editor and astronomer living in Southern New Mexico. He is the author of thirteen novels including Owl Dance, Vampires of the Scarlet Order, and The Astronomer's Crypt. His short fiction has appeared in such magazines and anthologies as Realms of Fantasy, Cemetery Dance and Straight Outta Tombstone. He has edited the anthologies A Kepler's Dozen, Kepler's Cowboys, and Maximum Velocity: The Best of the Full-Throttle Space Tales. In addition to his work in the written word, David has also worked at numerous observatories around the southwestern United States. Currently he operates the Mayall 4-meter and WIYN 3.5-meter telescopes at Kitt Peak National Observatory, outside of Tucson, Arizona. Learn more about David at www.davidleesummers.com
Judith Taylor set out to be a medievalist and ended up as a database geek: this is not as unusual a trajectory as you might think. She is the author of two poetry collections from Red Squirrel Press: Not in Nightingale Country (2017) and Across Your Careful Garden (2023) and her work has appeared widely in magazines, including The Rialto, The High Window, Consilience, Gyroscope Review and Shoreline of Infinity. She lives in Aberdeen, where she co-hosts the monthly Poetry at Books and Beans event. http://sometimesjudy.co.uk/
Andrew J. Wilson is a freelance writer, editor and publisher. His short stories and poetry have appeared all over the world. Andrew was nominated for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association’s Dwarf Stars Award in 2020 and 2022. “A Quickening Tide”, a story written in collaboration with Alan McIntosh was reprinted in Best of British Science Fiction 2022. With Neil Williamson, he co-edited Nova Scotia: New Scottish Speculative Fiction, a critically acclaimed original anthology that was nominated for the World Fantasy Award. Nova Scotia 2: New Speculative Fiction from Scotland was published to coincide with the 2024 World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow.