First Guest of Honour Announced

FantasyCon 2010 is delighted to announce that Lisa Tuttle will be joining us this year.

Lisa Tuttle won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1974, and went on to write seven novels and numerous short stories (four collections published so far) as well as fiction for young adults and children and several non-fiction books, including Encyclopedia of Feminism. Among her best-known books are Windhaven, written in collaboration with George R.R. Martin, Lost Futures, short-listed for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, A Nest of Nightmares (described by Stephen Jones as “without doubt one of the finest collections of horror stories to appear for many years”), The Pillow Friend, and The Mysteries. Her most recent novel was a romantic fantasy set in a Scottish village overwhelmed by creatures and events from ancient legend, The Silver Bough. Her complete short stories (almost 100) are forthcoming in three volumes from Ash Tree Press.

Lisa has worked as a journalist – five years as a reporter, reviewer, feature writer and television columnist for The Austin American-Statesman followed by occasional free-lance work for various publications, including Time Out, City Limits and The Bookseller, while she was based in London during the 1980s. Also during that time she taught science fiction classes (reading and writing) for the extra-mural department of the University of London at the City Lit. She’s also been the tutor-in-residence on several Arvon courses – twice at Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire, once at the centre in Devon, twice at Moniack Mhor in Scotland. Herself a former Clarion student (New Orleans, 1971, and Seattle, 1972) she returned to teach at Clarion West in 1991. In addition, she’s taught occasional one-day writing workshops in various venues around Britain, and has been involved with informal professional writing groups throughout her career, being one of the founder members (with Howard Waldrop, Tom Reamy, Steven Utley and others) of the Turkey City Writers’ Workshop in Texas, and Writers’ Bloc in London (with Christopher Evans, R.M. Lamming, Garry Kilworth, Robert Holdstock and David Wingrove)., as well as attending the English Milford for a number of years.

Born and raised in Texas, she received a BA in English (Creative Writing) from Syracuse University in 1973. Since 1990, she’s been living in a remote, rural part of Scotland with her husband, Colin Murray, who now works as a freelance editor and writer after many years in publishing, and their daughter, Emily.