Guests of Honour
AJ Fitzwater
AJ Fitzwater is a human-suit wearing dragon from Christchurch, New Zealand. The Sir Julius Vogel Awards 2015 winner of Best New Talent, they attended the six week Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Workshop at University of California San Diego in 2014.
Working in the art of the short form, their speculative fiction often focuses on intersectional social issues within feminism and the LBGTQ sphere.
Their work has appeared in venues such as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Crossed Genres Magazine, Wily Writers, Betwixt Magazine, Expanded Horizons, The Future Fire, and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. They have also contributed to anthologies such as Lethe Press’ “Heiresses of Russ 2014” and “Daughters of Frankenstein”, Crossed Genres “Fat Girl in a Strange Land”, “Oomph: A Little Super Goes a Long Way” and “Menial: Skilled Labour in SF”, Pink Narcissus Press “Daughters of Icarus”, and New Zealand anthologies “Tales for Canterbury” and “Regeneration: New Zealand Speculative Fiction 2”.
They blog at pickledthink.blogspot.com, and Twitter brain fluff can be found at @AJFitzwater
Juliet Marillier
Juliet Marillier was born and educated in Dunedin and now lives in Western Australia. Her historical fantasy novels and short stories for adults and young adults have been published internationally and have won a number of awards. Juliet’s lifelong love of folklore, fairy tales and mythology is a major influence on her writing. She is a member of OBOD (the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids.) Juliet’s next novel is Den of Wolves (Blackthorn & Grim series, book 3) coming out in October 2016. When not busy writing, Juliet is active in animal rescue. Find out more here.
Martin Wallace
Martin Wallace is one of a small number of people lucky enough to make a living from designing board games. This saves him from having to commute to work each day, or even bother to get up in the morning. He published his first game, Lords of Creation, in 1993. Today he has over sixty titles to his name, including Age of Steam, Brass, Discworld Ankh-Morpork, Doctor Who: the Card Game, Runebound, and Onward to Venus. Many of these titles have been released through Treefroggames, which Martin runs with his significant other, Julia. Martin and Julia emigrated to New Zealand in 2013 and now resides on the other side of the Misty Mountains, along with six cats, three ducks, four alpacas, and lots of chickens.