Every Friday, we meet a member of the BFS and peer deep into their soul (or, at least, a form they filled out). Want to be featured? Email us: online@britishfantasysociety.org
Name:
Zoe Cunningham (she/her)
Which region are you based in?
I’m based between London and NYC
If you write, which genre:
Sci-fi
If you don’t write, what do you do?
I’m a film and TV actor, and I produce sci-fi feature films. My last feature, Breaking Infinity, is available on all good platforms (including Amazon, Apple and Sky) and my next, Voidance, is due to release in May 2026. Since I joined the BFS I have started writing a cosy crime sci-fi novel, but it’s early days.
Are you drawn to any specific SFFH sub-genres?
I love so many: epic fantasy, urban fantasy, cyberpunk… I acted in a short film called The Clockmaker’s Child where I play a Victorian who creates her own child out of clockwork and a better-informed friend told me that clock-punk is indeed its own genre (who knew?).
Your influences
Tell us about the book/film/thing that got you into SFFH: What was it? How old were you? What impact did it have on you?
I read sci-fi before I knew it was sci-fi. It was just “books”. There’s a children’s author called Nicholas Fisk who wrote some great stories including “A Rag, A Bone and A Hank of Hair”, which was my favourite. I remember strongly a story arc involving the protagonist having his bones replaced with titanium, which led to a classic “he’s not dead after all!” moment after a seemingly fatal accident. Fisk also wrote “Trillions” about some cool nano-aliens and “Grinny” about a robot granny.
How does that early influence show up for you (in life/writing/agenting/publishing/editing/reading) now?
Good SFFH is always about people and stories. The settings may be fantastical, but the best settings explicitly illuminate a specific aspect of real human experience. SFFH is my main teaching resource about the world.
Where do you draw your creative inspiration from?
I’ve realised that I’m very influenced by whatever has come into my life in the very recent past—things I have just watched, conversations I have had, the news. It’s like it all swishes together in my mind and comes out as new ideas.
Who do you look to as a genre hero? Why?
Le Guin and Tolkien were other authors that I read as a child. Their works are a fixture for me, as if they are another place that really exists rather than just something made up by a human being.
Your Work
You’re stuck in an elevator for 60 seconds with that hero, and they want you to describe your work. Give us the pitch.
Oh! I really can’t imagine pitching my sci-fi films to Tolkien 😅.
I tell stories set within a fictional intergalactic organisation—the Atopian Traxinian Interstellar Consociation (ATIC)—that explore the conflict between our need on one hand to fit in, follow rules and be accepted, and on the other to determine our own path and live true to our own individual values.
What are you working on right now?
Voidance, the first feature film set in the ATIC Universe, has just completed post-production and is releasing in the UK on 25 May 2026.
I’m in the early stages of development on several further ATIC films.
And I’m challenging myself to write an ATIC-based cosy crime novel… with lots of help from a BFS mentor (thank you Justin!!).
(Pictured: props from the set of Voidance)
Thinking about all the stories/work you’ve done, what sticks out most in your mind? Why?
Voidance is a breakthrough piece of work for me. It’s the first feature film where I play the lead role, it’s an action film, and my character is thrown into a variety of challenging situations. As we are working on the distribution and marketing, it is very much on my mind right now. I hope that as further projects gradually come in to being, it will also stick out for me as the creative lynchpin of all my future work.
Where and when do you create/are you at your most creative?
I create best from input that already exists. Creating within a fictional universe is brilliant for me, as I find the experience to be more one of finding connections and tying things together than having to create cold (as it were). I’m also a problem solver and I’m at my best when there is a problem to solve (the more pressing the better!).
What’s the best advice you’ve received about creativity?
I’m reading The Creative Act by Rick Rubin and this sentence stood out to me:
“If we are willing to take each step into the unknown with grit and determination, carrying with us all of our collected knowledge, we will ultimately get to where we’re going. This destination may not be one we have chosen in advance. It will likely be more interesting.”
That is, you don’t know where you are going to get to, but if you keep moving forwards you will get to where you’re supposed to be. This very much describes how I am trying to create now, having previously been quite specific destination focussed.
What’s your writing soundtrack?
Silence. Or as close to it as is possible in big cities and cafes.
The Quick-Fire Round
Sci-fi, fantasy or horror?
Hmmmmm. The fantastical side of sci-fi. Books like the Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin.
Quiet or loud?
Quiet. Except when stomping in puddles.
Dark or light?
Light, with the streaks of darkness that bring it into better focus.
Strict lines or genre blend?
Blend FTW.
Awards or bestseller?
Neither. I prefer personal recs.
Fiction or non-fiction?
Fiction.
Poetry or prose?
Prose.
Plotter or pantser?
Pantser, in every aspect of creating.
Reading or listening?
Reading. Everything else is too slow.
Notebook or computer?
I admire the chic of notebook writing, but I cannot stomach the lack of interoperability. If using a laptop is too much for me for any reason, I take notes on my phone instead and copy them over when I am feeling up to it.
Favourite SFFH book of all time?
Murderbot, Broken Earth, and LotR. Ancilliary Justice is also an incredible book.
Last book you read?
Murder, Maps and Mischief by David Green.
Any SFFH author on auto-buy?
N.K. Jemisin (pictured)
Favourite podcast?
In Our Time on Radio 4. (I listen to it on my podcast app.)
The Home Stretch
What’s the best thing about being part of the SFFH community?
So many things!!! I found the BFS by accident and it turned out to be the community that I didn’t know I needed. The BFS has given me:
- Friends and lovely interesting social chat online
- Book, TV and game recs
- A mentor for a novel I didn’t really know I was writing
- An author assistant who helps me keep track of my worldbuilding and not break my own rules (Katie Bruce is AMAZING!)
- FantasyCon in October to look forward to!
(Pictured: Zoe on the set of Voidance with her stunt double)
Time to plug your stuff! Where can we find you and your work? What have you got coming up? Consider this your advertising space.
Breaking Infinity, a standlone sci-fi thriller, is ON ALL GOOD PLATFORMS.
Time-bending thriller Breaking Infinity follows research scientist Liam, inexplicably unstuck in time. As Liam’s episodes become more intense, and his jumps through time more extreme, Liam travels from the distant past to the future where he witnesses the end of the world—an apocalypse he may himself have caused.
Voidance, a sci-fi thriller set in the ATIC universe—SIGN UP FOR NEWS AT voidancefilm.com.
Alana Toro is set a challenge for her final exam to join the prestigious ATIC Guard: work out how she would prevent a historical terrorist attack that threatened a newly elected ATIC-supported politician. Digging into the motivations of the terrorists and of “innocent” bystanders, she gradually finds sympathy for her traditional enemy. But Alana is accountable to ATIC, and ATIC’s view of who is loyal is not so nuanced. Even once Alana finds the solution, will she be prepared to enact it?
ATIC, the space adventure board game (pictured below)
ATIC is a cooperative / solo adventure board game set in the galaxy of the Atopian-Traxinian Interstellar Consociation. With your very own spaceship, puzzles, fights and surprises, join us to explore our first planet: Atopia!
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