Blaylock has received multiple nominations for the World Fantasy Award, winning it on two occasions – for short stories ‘Paper Dragons‘ and his collection ‘Thirteen Phantasms‘. Other novels include THE DIGGING LEVIATHAN, THE LAST COIN, ALL THE BELLS ON EARTH, THE PAPER GRAIL, NIGHT RELICS, WINTER TIDES,  THE RAINY SEASON and most recently THE KNIGHTS OF THE CORNERSTONE.  Over the years his work has consistently ranked the highest positions in the annual LOCUS Magazine poll and his story ‘Unidentified Objects‘ was included in Prize Stories 1990, the O. Henry Awards.

‘I have admired Jim’s work for over two decades now,’ says Zeno agent John Berlyne, ‘In fact – gushing fanboy that I am – I realise I’ve read every word of  his published fiction! Aside from being, by a country mile, the best short fiction writer I’ve ever come across, he is, and remains, a truly original voice – unique in fact – and a hugely respected and cherished genre figure.’

James P. Blaylock lives in Orange, CA with his wife, Viki. He teaches creative writing at Chapman University where he is Assistant Professor of English.‘

Blaylock’s evocative prose and studied pacing make him one of the most distinctive contributors to American magical realism’ — Library Journal,

‘James P. Blaylock has proved himself to be among the front-running authors working in speculative fiction’ — Rick Kleffel

‘Blaylock is a singular American fabulist’ — William Gibson

‘Blaylock allows us to see the mundane world through new eyes, to perceive the familiar as strange, and therefore exciting’– Charles de Lint

• Visit the Unofficial James P. Blaylock Web Site
• Jim Blaylock’s Wikipedia page

He has written three epic/adventure fantasy novels, The Simoqin Prophecies which was published by Penguin India in 2003, by Ordbilder Sweden in 2005 and in Germany by Piper Verlag in2006 – The Manticore’s Secret, published by Penguin India in 2005 and The Unwaba Revelations, published by Penguin India, 2007. These were the first works of fantasy by an Indian in English and were all bestsellers in India.

As well as these novels, Basu has written several short stories in anthologies for adults and children, and several comics, including two series, Devi and The Tall Tales of Vishnu Sharma, published worldwide by Virgin Comics (now Liquid Comics) and a graphic novel, Untouchable, co-written with British author Mike Carey due from Liquid Comics.

Basu was born in Calcutta, India, and educated in Calcutta and London. He lives and works in New Delhi.

His new novel, Turbulence, is to be released in autumn 2010 from Hachette India.

• Visit Samit’s Web Site
• Samit’s Wikipedia page

Other works include other novels set in Hughes’ Archonate universe – FOOL’S ERRANT, FOOL ME TWICE (collected by the Science Fiction Book Club and released as GULLIBLE’S TRAVELS), BLACK BRILLION, THE COMMONS, TEMPLATE and the short fiction collection THE GIST HUNTER AND OTHER STORIES. Outside the Archonate world, Matt has written numerous short stories and a number of non-fiction works.

Most recently Zeno has negotiated a three book deal for Matt with Angry Robot, the first of which is tentatively titled  TO HELL AND BACK and will be the first novel in The Actuary series. Look out for this in September 2010. Here’s what Angry Robot say about these books…

“‘[Matt]… brings us a trio of novels featuring mild-mannered actuary Chesney Anstruther. After he accidentally summons a demon (as you do), the canny Anstruther refuses to go ahead with any soul-selling, which leads through various confusions to, well, Hell going on strike. Which means that nothing bad ever happens in the world… with disastrous consequences. When Satan offers him his heart’s desire to sort the whole mess out, our hero seizes his chance, and becomes a caped crimefighter, with a very unwilling demon for a sidekick”

• Matthew Hughes official Web Site

In his youth he wrote for Doctor Who (his ‘Remembrance of the Daleks‘ is regarded as a classic by many) Casualty and the late lamented space soap Jupiter Moon – a show so low budget that you were only allowed seven of the regular cast in any given episode!

He also wrote a series of well regarded tie-in novels for Virgin Books and Big Finish which turned out to be excellent practice for his fiendish plan to inflict his prose upon an unsuspecting world.

• Ben’s blog – Temporarily Significant – can be found here.
• And here is Ben’s Wikipedia page.

• Visit Ian R. MacLeod’s web site
• Read Ian R MacLeod: an Appreciation by Jay Tomio
• Ian R. Macleod on Wikipedia
• John Berlyne’s review of The Light Ages
• John Berlyne’s review of House of Storms
• John Jarrold’s interview with Ian at Infinity Plus

“I have that science-fictional point of view. I always wanted to know what the elves were doing in Lothlorien when they weren’t singing. What were the sanitary facilities like? J.R.R. Tolkien was an enormous influence on me. I read him at a very impressionable time, and I’ve reread the books many times since. I started off as a teenager reading adventure books by popular novelists like Nevil Shute and Alistair MacLean, and then my sister’s boyfriend introduced me to John Wyndham and Isaac Asimov, and there seemed to be so much more there. Then I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey, and I was off. The ‘70s were a very good time to be reading SF, because SF was evolving. When I’d enjoyed Asimov, I could move on to Roger Zelazny and Samuel R. Delany and J.G. Ballard and so on. Dangerous Visions came out. Robert Silverberg was really pushing the boundaries with work like Dying Inside and ‘Born With the Dead’. There was this concern about all of the things that interested me, and done in a very stylish and compassionate way. Real people, real settings, and also with Silverberg, this relentless logic. I started reading T.S. Eliot and Shakespeare relatively late in my academic career. Fortunately, they weren’t thrust down my throat when I was 12.“

Colin Harvey is the author of Vengeance (2005), Lightning Days (2006), The Silk Palace (2007) and Blind Faith (2008), as well as about twenty short stories in various magazines such as Ireland’s Albedo One.

His new novel Winter Song, about a highly-evolved human who crash lands on a forgotten colony planet and his desperate struggle to get off it; and forthcoming novel Damage Time, about a detective in NYC hunting stolen memories that are posted on the net for entertainment have been been sold to Marc Gascoigne at Angry Robot. Winter Song is scheduled for release in October 2009.

Colin’s reviews appear regularly at Strange Horizons and he is the feature writer for speculative fiction at Suite101.

He is a member of the Horror Writers Association and several on-line crit groups.

For five years Colin served on the Management Committee of The Speculative Literature Foundation as one of the judges for the SLF’s Annual Travel Grant.

He lives just outside Bristol in the UK with his wife Kate and spaniel Alice.

Notes in the Margin can be found here.

Ellen Datlow

The book is to be published by M Press in October and features a fantastic line up of authors – including Michael Chabon, Joyce Carole Oates and our own rising star Lavie Tidhar. His story is entitled One Day, Soon and was previously mentioned by the author in this interview that appeared on the Apex Book Company web site last October.

She was already writing science fiction and fantasy short stories during her studies, though it took her a few years to get them published. She won Second Place in Writers of the Future in 2006.

Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in places such as Interzone, Black Static, and Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show. She currently lives in Paris…

Half-French and half-Vietnamese, Aliette has a special interest in non-Western cultures, particularly Asia and Precolumbian America.

• Visit Aliette de Bodard’s web site
• Visit Aliette de Bodard’s blog

Stephen Volk is the creator/writer of the multi award-winning ITV drama series Afterlife starring Lesley Sharp and Andrew Lincoln, and the notorious, almost legendary, BBCTV ‘Halloween hoax’ drama Ghostwatch.

An established screenwriter in Britain and the USA, his credits include Ken Russell’s Gothic, a retelling of the Mary Shelley/Frankenstein story; The Guardian, directed by William Friedkin, and Octane.He also won a BAFTA for his short film script The Deadness of Dad starring Rhys Ifans.

Stephen’s first collection of crime, horror and psychological short stories, Dark Corners, was published by Gray Friar Press in 2006, containing ’31/10′ which was nominated for both the British Fantasy Award and the Bram Stoker Award, and was included in Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 2007 edited by Gavin Grant and Kelly Link.

• Visit Stephen Volk’s Official Web Site