Phoenix Convention

AJ Healy, the author of the Tommy Storm books (see www.tommystorm.com) was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland.

Bob Neilson lives in Dublin, where he runs a successful retail business in partnership with his wife, Stacey. His first professional publication was in 1989 and since then he has been published extensively in Ireland, the UK and the US, including a graphic novel (Spell Maffia) and four comics (over a ten year period).

Brian J. Showers is originally from Madison, Wisconsin. In 2001 he moved to Dublin where he has lived ever since (if you don't count those nine months in Stockholm). Brian has written short stories, articles, interviews and reviews for magazines such as All Hallows, Supernatural Tales, Ghosts & Scholars, Le Fanu Studies, Machenalia, and Rue Morgue.

Catie Murphy was born on the 1st of June 1973 in Kenai, Alaska. Early literary aspirations led to her having a poem published in a school magazine at the tender age of six. She attended University of Alaska Fairbanks, where she studied English and History. She has had the usual assortment of jobs that seems to be the lot of all authors: public library volunteer, cannery worker, web designer, and a stint in a fast food restaurant.

Cheryl Morgan is a world renowned Science Fiction blogger; a fanzine editor; semiprozine editor, and all round great fan writer.  Cheryl’s Mewsings is her blog.  She is also responsible for Science Fiction Awards Watch and is Non-fiction Editor at Clarkesworld.

Colin Harvey is the editor of the SF anthology, Future Bristol, and the author of the novels Winter Song and the forthcoming Damage Time, both from Angry Robot Books. His short fiction has appeared in Interzone and Albedo One, and various anthologies, earning him an Honorable Mention in Ellen Datlow's Year's Best Horror.
 

Colin Smythe was born in Maidenhead in Berkshire in 1942, and was educated at Bradfield College near Reading and subsequently at Trinity College Dublin from which he graduated in 1963. In 1966 he sold his collection of first editions of W.B.Yeats's works, by that stage taking up about 65 feet of shelf-space, and started his publishing company, Colin Smythe Ltd, on the proceeds. He moved to Gerrards Cross in Buckinghamshire in 1967, and has been living there ever since.

David Clare obtained a Masters in Anglo-Irish Literature & Drama in 2008 with a thesis called "C.S. Lewis: An Irish Writer". He is currently pursuing his PhD, with an eye towards becoming a full-time academic.

David Murphy has had two novels published in the USA. Arkon Chronicles was published by Silver Lake, a small press, in 2003. Longevity City appeared from Five Star, and was well received, in 2005. The best of his award winning short fiction (almost ninety appearances in magazines and books worldwide) was collected in the 2004 collection Lost Notes from Dublin's Aeon Press. He has stories forthcoming in Doorways and Midnight Street magazines and is currently working on a new novel. David's website can be found here.

Derek Gunn is the author of the Vampire Apocalypse series (A Word Torn Asunder, 2006 and Descent into Chaos, 2008), widely praised on both sides of the Atlantic as an original and imaginative take on the Vampire legends. The books are published in the UK and US by Black Death Books.

The first Vampire Apocalypse book is currently in development as a major movie, and the series has received much extremely positive and well-deserved praise: The International Thriller Writers' Association's newsletter (January 2009) writes:

George Green was born in Ireland in 1956. He grew up in Tipperary, where he lived in a house built on an ancient burial ground. He now lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Lancaster.

George has two novels and a non-fiction book to his credit, namely: “Hound” (2003); “Hawk” (2005); and “Writing a Novel and Getting Published for dummies” (2007).

Ian McDonald has been steadily producing quality science fiction from his earliest days as a writer. He is no stranger to the lists of nominees and winners of the world’s most prestigious Science Fiction awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, BSFA, and Arthur C. Clarke.

John Kenny has been co-editor of Albedo One since its inception in 1993, and a fan of science fiction since the late 70s.

Before his involvement with Albedo One, he wrote extensively for Stargate, the magazine of the Irish Science Fiction Association, and was editor of FTL, the successor to Stargate.

Those who have seen him (or rather experienced him) at previous conventions will know that John Vaughan is a one-man entertainment engine. He's fast, funny and often furious.

John started off as your more-or-less typical manic movie enthusiast, spending a lot of time telling everyone how he would once day make his own movies.

Juliet E McKenna was born in Lincolnshire in July 1965, but now lives in West Oxfordshire with her husband Steve and their two sons, Keith and Ian. Even from an early age her interest in folk tales and mythology was evident. Her favourite subjects at school (Parkstone Girls' Grammar School, Poole) were History, English, and Latin. This led fairly naturally to a classics degree at St Hilda's College, Oxford, where she studied Greek and Roman history and literature.

 Laura Anne Gilman has accepted an invitation to be a Guest at P-Con 7.    Read about Laura's work at her website, here.

Born in the USA Maura was transplanted early to the West of Ireland where she bloomed into a reader of sf, fantasy, and horror literature after a visiting cousin left behind a copy of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. On occasion her parents voiced concerns about Maura's weird reading material, but she turned out all right in the end.

Michael Carroll is the author of several novels (for both young adults and old adults), and dozens of short stories, as well as hundreds of articles, reviews and interviews.

Born in Dublin, Ireland in March 1966, Michael has been writing since 1990 when his first published story "The Hummingbirds" appeared in FTL, the Irish Science Fiction Association's fiction magazine. Since then, there has been no stopping him, as any number of disappointed assassins will tell you.

Born in Dublin in 1973, Oisín spent his childhood there and in Drogheda, County Louth. He started writing and illustrating stories in copybooks when he was about six or seven, setting himself on a path that would steer him well clear of ever obtaining of a proper job.

Peadar currently lives in his native Ireland, though he has lived abroad for some years. He has a penchant for the languages of the warmer European countries and is fluent in a number of them.

The paperback edition of Peadar's novel, The Inferior (tagged with the phrase, "THERE IS BUT ONE LAW: EAT OR BE EATEN"), was launched in August, 2008, at MECON in Belfast. Peadar has been kept busy since with publicity tours, writing and doing the day job.

We are eagerly awaiting the publication of his next novel.

R.F. Long

R.F. Long, author of romantic fantasy tales, has always had a thing for fantasy, romance and ancient mysteries. That combination was bound to cause trouble. In university she studied English Literature, History of Religions and Celtic Civilisation; which merely compounded the problem.

Born and raised on the Wirral, Steve Westcott only succumbed to the writing bug eleven years ago, soon after moving to that jewel in the Irish Sea, the Isle of Man. He lives in an old farmhouse in the north of the island with his wife Carole, two children, Michael and Samantha, and a collection of dogs, cats, horses and motorbikes. Of all the pets, his Triumph 955 Speed Triple is his favourite.