“Your reader should not have to know how to fight to follow your fight scene, and you should not aim to teach them. If you have to teach your reader to reach your reader, you might lose them in the midst of the lesson.” – Carla Hoch

BFS Online is excited to announce our next BFS Online event, Write for the Fight, taking place Wednesday 3rd September 2025, 7pm (BST).

A dance of blades? A chaotic brawl? Visceral descriptions of every wound? A glossy zoomed out description of blood and glory? Intimate insights, up close and personal? How do you write fight scenes that keep your readers glued to the page?

Join moderator Stewart Hotston and panellists Amy de la Force, Danie Ware, and Andy Wilkinson as they discuss the jabs and blows of penning combat.

Amy de la Force (she/her): Amy de la Force is the debut author of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame, Book 1 in the Fated For Hael fantasy romance series published by Canelo (DK, Penguin Random House) from July 2025. A shortlistee of the 2024 Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, Amy is an Aussie expat living in London, and used to train in Shaolin kung fu and medieval sword fighting. Connect with Amy on Bluesky, Instagram or TikTok, or check out her website. Get a copy of Amy’s book here.

Danie Ware (she/her): Danie Ware is a working Mum with long-held interests in writing and rolling certain polyhedral dice. She went to all all-boys’ public school, gained an English degree from UEA, and spent most of her twenties clobbering her friends with an assortment of steel cutlery. After seventeen years handling social media and event management for Forbidden Planet (London) Ltd, she now works for Waterstones Piccadilly, looking after their manga and graphic novels. Danie is the author of the critically acclaimed Ecko series (portal fantasy, Titan Books), and Children of Artifice, (queer urban fantasy, Fox Spirit Books). She’s written lots of WarHammer for the Black Library, plus fiction for Aconyte Books and Rebellion Publishing, and has short stories published by multiple small presses. Find her in Carshalton Village, south London, with her son and a very willful cat, or follow her on Bluesky or Instagram. Find out more on her website and get her books here.

Andy Wilkinson (he/him): With an extraordinary range of achievements across more than thirty-five years in the industry, Andy Wilkinson’s career embodies the creative possibilities of life in entertainment. Andy has appeared on screen in films such as Henry V, and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and many other productions, often training other performers in swordplay. Andy is the co-writer, choreographer and director of Golden Swords, and was the coach and fight director the first – and only – time the British Academy of Fencing won the World Artistic Fencing Championships. Andy has experience as a screenwriter, producer and director in genres as diverse as documentaries and musical comedies. Andy is a member of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, Directors UK, and the British Academy of Film and Television. Find out more about Andy on his website. Get Andy’s books here and here.

Stewart Hotston (he/him): Stewart Hotston lives in Reading, UK. With a Celtic-Indian mother and a father of North African/Roma descent, Stewart is a somewhat confused second-generation immigrant living in the UK who has written several novels with Project Hanuman out Nov 2025 as well as three other as yet unannounced novels coming over the next 18 months. When he’s not writing he can be found working as a financier in the City of London. Beyond that rather questionable career choice, he is treasurer for the British Fantasy Society and a Councillor for the BSFA. A lifelong roleplayer and LARPer he is also a happy long-distance runner with a PhD in theoretical physics. Oh, and he has a dangerously fanatical love for ice cream, sword fighting and Studio Ghibli. Feel free to ask him why Porco Rosso is the best. Connect with him on Bluesky or find out more on his website. Books: The Entropy of Loss; Project Hanuman; Tangle’s Game.

Please note: You should receive a confirmation email when you buy your ticket, plus a second email with the Zoom link to join. If you don’t, please contact Pam via email: onlineevents@britishfantasysociety.org