Gollancz Festival returns with headliner Garth Nix

Gollancz Festival is teaming up with Foyles for its fifth anniversary event in October, featuring headliner Garth Nix.

The Orion science fiction and fantasy imprint will bring an array of authors to Foyles’ flagship store in Charing Cross Road and The Phoenix Artists’ Club on 19th October.

More than 30 big names from the world of sci-fi, fantasy and horror have joined the Gollancz Festival line-up including Ben Aaronovitch, Joanne Harris, Joe Abercrombie, Vic James and Aliette de Bodard.

Nix, author of forthcoming adult debut Angel Mage, is flying in from Australia and will join a “Magic and the Mundane” panel discussing how to weave reality together with the fantastical.

Like previous years, the event will run two simultaneous strands. Foyles will host panels and signings for readers while across the road at the Phoenix, upcoming writers can learn how to improve their skills and get insights into publishing.

This year also sees the return of Gollancz’s “speed advice” sessions, where groups of three or four ticketholders get to sit down with authors and industry professions to ask questions about the writing and publishing process.

Tickets for readers’ events, ranging from £12 to £25, and writers, costing £30 to £60, are available from the event website.

The festival was launched in 2014 to celebrate the UK’s best genre authors and has seen more than 100 writers attend. It was shortlisted for the Publishers Publicity Circle Annual Awards in 2014 and 2015, has been highly commended by the Books Marketing Society, and was nominated for a National British Book Industry Award in 2015.