The Bookseller Advertisement Feature
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES
SPECULATIVE FICTION
WORDS BY CAROLINE CARPENTER
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cotish publishing has long been known for its crime genre and nature writing, and it has also been nurturing a growing speculative fiction scene, which has risen to new heights recently with the emergence
of new authors, publishers and events in this space. Edinburgh’s Luna Press Publishing was named Best Independent Press at the British Fantasy Awards 2021 last September. The list, which publishes across speculative fiction, science fiction, fantasy and dark fantasy in fiction and academia, is the brainchild of author Francesca T Barbini. Since launching it in 2015, Barbini has noticed “a growing number of opportunities for speculative authors in Scotland” such as Cymera: Scotland’s Festival of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Writing, award-winning sci-fi magazine Shoreline of Infinity (SoI); and the University of Glasgow’s Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic, billed as the first research centre in the world to focus solely on fantasy. She adds: “The speculative genre has always been part of Scotland’s literary history, but I feel as if now we are making a conscious, organised effort to really highlight just how good it is.” Cymera was devised in 2017 by festival enthusiast Ann Landmann and SoI’s editor, Noel Chidwick, to address the lack of genre authors at book festivals. Cymera now has charit status, with this year’s event scheduled to take place in June in Edinburgh and online. In addition to its quarterly magazine, the SoI Group runs monthly sci-fi cabaret nights in Edinburgh and special events at festivals as well as producing audio content, novels, short story and poetry collections, and comics. Other Scottish platforms for speculative fiction include long-running independent horror review website Ginger Nuts of Horror, which promotes horror fiction, comics, films and other related products.
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