This year’s David Gemmell Awards For Fantasy were presented on 15 June 2012 in a ceremony held at London’s Magic Circle headquarters.

The winners were:
Ravenheart Award (best cover art): Raymond Swanland – Blood of Aenarion
Morningstar Award (best debut): Helen Lowe – Heir of Night
Legend Award (best novel): Patrick Rothfuss – The Wiseman’s Fear

It was also announced that next year’s Gemmell Awards ceremony will take place as part of the 2013 World Fantasy Convention.

The convention takes place in Brighton, UK between 31 October and 3 November 2013.  The only other times that the World Fantasy Convention has moved outside North America was in 1988 and 1997, when it was staged in London, so we feel privileged to be a part of this prestigious international event.

Held at Brighton’s Metropole Hotel and the West Pier, WFC 2013 boasts an impressive line-up of guests, including Richard Matheson, Richard Christian Matheson, Brian Aldiss, Alan Lee and Tessa Farmer.  The Master of Ceremonies is China Mieville; and a host of other authors, artists, publishers and industry insiders will also be attending.

For full details of the convention visit the official website HERE

As the Gemmell Awards will be presented in October/November next year, and not in mid-June as usual, the voting cycle will be altered to accommodate the change of date.  To keep abreast of the changes check the awards website where you can sign-up for the free newsletter. The change of venue and date is for one year only – 2014 will see the awards returning to the Magic Circle.

World Fantasy Convention 2013 is honoured to welcome multiple award-winning author, poet, artist, actor and raconteur Brian W. Aldiss as its second Special Guest.

Brian has written in almost every genre, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, historical and humorous fiction, as well as non-fiction and poetry. Among his many acclaimed novels are Non-Stop, The Primal Urge, Hothouse, Greybeard, Earthworks, An Age (aka Cryptozoic!), Report on Probability A, Barefoot in the Head, Frankenstein Unbound (filmed by Roger Corman in 1990), The Malacia Tapestry, Brothers of the Head, Moreau’s Other Island, The Helliconia Trilogy (Helliconia Spring, Helliconia Summer and Helliconia Winter), Dracula Unbound, Jocasta, Walcot and Finches of Mars.

A multiple winner of the Hugo, Nebula, British Science Fiction and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards, Brian Aldiss was named Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 2000. On 11 June 2005 he was awarded the title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to literature in H.M. Queen Elizabeth II’s Birthday Honours list.

“Of course I am radiant to be asked as a Special Guest to the World Fantasy Con,” says Brian, “particularly since it is to be held in Brighton – do our overseas guests know what a gorgeous place Brighton is?”

Brian Aldiss joins previously announced Author Guests of Honour Richard Matheson and Richard Christian Matheson, Artist Guest of Honour Alan Lee, Special Guest Tessa Farmer and Master of Ceremonies China Mieville, in the picturesque and vibrant seaside town of Brighton, on the south coast of England, over the weekend of 31 October – 3 November 2013.

Although the convention is still more than a year away there are already more than 500 registered memberships! Please be aware that there is a firm limit on the number of Attending Members, so once the convention is sold out there will be no more memberships available. Remember, the 2012 World Fantasy Convention in San Diego sold out eight months prior to the event, so the sooner you join, the sooner you are guaranteed a place. Plus the membership rate will increase at regular intervals as the convention approaches.

Check the website for information on how to join.

As part its historical theme of “Arthur Machen @ 150”, World Fantasy Convention 2013 is pleased to welcome acclaimed British sculptor Tessa Farmer as a Special Guest to Brighton.

The great-granddaughter of the influential Welsh fantasy writer, she works with sculptural installation, stop-motion animation and drawing to explore the fantastical world of a species of insect-sized malevolent skeletal fairies that have existed since the late 1990s. Not unsurprisingly, the artist acknowledges that her great-grandfather’s fiction has been an important influence upon her own work.

Tessa Farmer studied Fine Art at The University of Oxford, and in 2007, she was artist in residence at London’s The Natural History Museum. Her solo exhibitions in 2011 include “Nymphidia” at London’s Danielle Arnaud Contemporary Art Gallery, and “ISAM: Control Over Nature”, a collaboration with DJ and producer Amon Tobin, at the city’s Crypt Gallery.

“I am delighted to have been invited to attend the World Fantasy Convention in 2013,” she says, “and for the opportunity to show my work alongside inspirational and influential artists and writers. I am looking forward to celebrating the anniversary of Arthur Machen’s birth amongst equally inspirational enthusiasts. (What I really mean is that the evil fairies are excited about parasitising all these great minds . . . I think they are in for a treat!)”

Tessa Farmer joins previously announced Author Guests of Honour Richard Matheson and Richard Christian Matheson, Artist Guest of Honour Alan Lee, and Master of Ceremonies China Mieville, in the picturesque and vibrant seaside town of Brighton, on the south coast of England, over the weekend of 31 October – 3 November 2013. For further information and how to book please see the website HERE

Arc is a new science fiction / science fact publication from the makers of New Scientist. Its aims are to explore the future through cutting-edge science fiction and forward-looking essays by some of the world’s most celebrated authors, along with columns by thinkers and practitioners from the worlds of books, design, gaming, film and more.

The first issue, Arc 1.1: The Future Always Wins, is out now, including new fiction from Margaret Atwood, Stephen Baxter, M.John Harrison, Hannu Rajaniemi and Alastair Reynolds; thought-provoking essays from Simon Ings, China Miéville, Sumit Paul-Choudhury and Paul Graham Raven; and incisive commentary from Leigh Alexander, Simon Pummell, Adam Roberts and Bruce Sterling.

Full details HERE

World Fantasy Convention 2013 is pleased to announce that Academy Award- and World Fantasy Award-winning illustrator Alan Lee will be its Artist Guest of Honour in Brighton. Alan Lee began his career working as a commercial artist, contributing work to dozens of paperback book covers, including reissues of The Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories edited by Robert Aickman and R. Chetwynd-Hayes. After moving in the mid-1970s to a small village on the edge of Dartmoor in Devon, he shared a studio with Brian Froud and together they created the groundbreaking illustrated book Faeries.

The success of this picture book gave the artist the freedom to spend several years bringing the Celtic myth of The Mabinogion to life, and he went on to create the delicate watercolour illustrations for Castles by David Day, Michael Palin’s The Mirrorstone (in collaboration with Richard Seymour), The Moon’s Revenge by Joan Aiken and Merlin Dreams by Peter Dickinson, along with numerous book cover designs.

However, Alan Lee is best known for his association with perhaps the greatest fantasy author of all time, illustrating the 1,200-page centenary edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Artist and author soon became inextricably linked through such collaborations as Tolkien’s World: Paintings of Middle-Earth, the 1993 J.R.R. Tolkien Calendar (and many subsequent editions), Realms of Tolkien: Images of Middle-Earth, a new edition of The Hobbit, The Children of Húrin, Tales from the Perilous Realm and David Day’s non-fiction study Tolkien’s Ring.

The artist’s work for Rosemary Sutcliff’s Black Ships Before Troy received the prestigious Kate Greenaway Award in 1993 for distinguished work in the illustration of children’s books in the UK. In 1998 he won the World Fantasy Award for Best Artist.

Alan Lee has also enjoyed an equally successful career as a conceptual designer for movies, and his credits include Legend, Erik the Viking, the Jane Yolen-scripted Merlin and the Dragons, the 2005 King Kong and the 1998 TV mini-series Merlin.

Director Peter Jackson contacted the artist to work on his acclaimed cinematic trilogy of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King. After being nominated for The Two Towers the year before, in 2004 Alan Lee won an Oscar for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration for his work on The Return of the King. The artist is currently based in New Zealand, where he is working again with Jackson on the eagerly-anticipated prequels The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again.

“I’m very flattered to be asked to be Artist Guest of Honour,” says Alan Lee, “and happy to accept the invitation. I’m meant to be finishing on The Hobbit movies some time this year. My work on the The Lord of the Rings films went on for six years beyond what I was originally anticipating, but even if I am still involved I can arrange my annual trip back to England to coincide with the convention. I look forward to seeing everyone in 2013!”

Alan Lee joins previously announced Author Guests of Honour Richard Matheson and Richard Christian Matheson, along with Master of Ceremonies China Mieville, in the picturesque and vibrant seaside town of Brighton, on the south coast of England, over the weekend of 31 October – 3 November 2013.

Full details and booking information on the website HERE

China Mieville is set to be Master of Ceremonies at World Fantasy Con 2013, which is being held in Brighton from 31 October to 3 November 2013.

Full details HERE

China Mieville‘s novel Kraken is among the longlisted works for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. All the books on the longlist have been nominated by libraries from around the world.

According to the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award website: “The .. Award is the largest and most international prize of its kind. It involves libraries from all corners of the globe, and is open to books written in any language.”

The full longlist can be viewed HERE