BFS Online: Crafting Characters – Readings

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We have six readings from a range of authors – fantasy, science fiction and horror – to help you find your next book (or add to that beautiful TBR pile). Bring your favourite tipple and enjoy some first-rate readings from the SFFH community.

Readings from Wole Talabi, Tam O’Malley, Rebecca Gault, Chrissey Harrison, Renee Edwards, and Juan Manuel. Find out more about them below.

Wole Talabi (he/him): Wole Talabi is a Nigerian engineer, writer, and editor. He is the author of the novel Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon (DAW books/Gollancz, 2023). His short fiction has appeared in places like Asimov’s Science Fiction, Lightspeed Magazine, Tor.com and is collected in the books Convergence Problems (DAW books, 2024) and Incomplete Solutions (Luna Press, 2019). He has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards, as well as the Caine Prize for African Writing and he has won the Nommo award for African speculative fiction and the Sidewise award for Alternate History. He has edited five anthologies including the acclaimed Africanfuturism: An Anthology (Brittlepaper, 2020) and Mothersound: The Sauutiverse Anthology (Android Press, 2023). He likes scuba diving, elegant equations, and oddly shaped things. He currently lives and works in Australia. Find him on his website or on Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky and Tiktok. Grab Wole’s book here.

Tam O’Malley (she/her): Tam O’Malley is an author, researcher and art department assistant for print, film and television. She has worked on projects as diverse as Avengers: Age of Ultron and BBC Wildlife Magazine. She founded Psykey Films and Kittenfish@rt in 2013. Follow Tam on Instagram. More on her work can be found on Linktree. And you can buy her book here.

Rebecca Gault (any): Rebecca Gault is an academic and writer from Glasgow, Scotland. She has a MA in English Literature from the University of Glasgow and an MLitt in Fantasy Literature from the University of Glasgow. Their interests include monstrosity, gender and sexuality, and modes of fantasy. She is also the co-host of Out To Get You, a queer horror podcast and loves to play tabletop RPGs in the queerest, most genre-bending ways possible. Follow Rebecca on Bluesky or Instagram to keep up with her latest works.

Chrissey Harrison (she/her): Chrissey Harrison writes supernatural thrillers and other spec genre fiction. Books about monsters, magic, action and adventure, and fragile human characters trying to muddle through as best they can. Her debut novel, Mime, released in July 2020, the first in her Weird News Series. Her short stories have featured in several anthologies, most recently Forgotten Sidekicks (Grimbold Books) and Fire (North Bristol Writers). Chrissey is a science geek, crafter and fan of sci-fi, fantasy and horror. She lives in Clevedon, in a creaky old Victorian terrace with her partner, and tortoiseshell kittens Maple and Pecan. Find out more about Chrissey on her website. Or follow her on Instagram and Facebook. Her books are available here.

Renee Edwards (she/her): Renee Edwards is a lifelong book person and trained librarian. Her favorite books to read are the kind with magic, adventure, and romance, so those are what she set out to write. She fiddles away on her laptop in Texas, where she lives with her husband and a basset hound named Winifred. Learn more about Renee and her work on her website. Or follow her on Instagram. You can buy her books here.

Juan Manuel Perez (he/him): Juan Manuel Pérez, a Mexican-American poet of Indigenous descent and the Poet Laureate for Corpus Christi, Texas (2019-2020), is the author of numerous poetry books including the poetry-memoir, Thirty Years Ago: Life and the First Gulf War (2023) and the Mexican-American Barrio Horror-Renga-Experiment comic book, La Santa Madre Tamalera (2023). Juan, a former migrant worker, is also the 2021 Horror Authors Guild’s Inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award winner and a recipient of a 2021 Horror Writers Association Diversity Grant. To learn more about this award-winning poet, combat vet, history teacher, and Native American gourd dancer, please check out his official website. You can also connect with him on Facebook.