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Eastercon 76

Eastercon, UK
April 18, 2025
12:00 am - 11:59 pm

Welcome to Belfast!

We are delighted to be here. Bringing Eastercon to a new city for the first time is a big deal for us, and it’s been a lot of work negotiating and getting here. We are grateful for the support of the Eastercon teams from 2022, 2023 and 2024 who have all actively supported and helped us get here.

Eastercon is the annual British science fiction convention that takes place every Easter weekend. Run by volunteers for all those who love Science Fiction and Fantasy, it features panels, workshops, talks, an art show and a dealer’s room selling books and other items. There are rooms for gaming, crafting or just chilling out. Events range from serious science to the very silly indeed! Come and join us.

Schedule

Friday 18 April 2025
Writing The Body

12:30 BST

Hilton – Lagan B

Lauren Beukes, Benjamin Cain, CƩcile Cristofari, Aliette de Bodard and Kate Towner (moderator)

Bodies are unique, and everyone has one. The panel will discuss how to write physical experiences well, including those you might not have experience with personally, such as childbirth or sex with an alien, writing different body types respectfully and avoiding stigmatising language, and matching the bodies you are writing to the world, society, and character surrounding them.

Morally Grey Mothers

14:00 BST

Hilton – Lagan B

Lauren Beukes, Annabel Campbell, CL Hellisen, shauna lawless and Catriona Silvey (moderator)

Fiction tends to have three versions of motherhood: beatific, abusive, or dead. But reality rarely fits neatly into these categories, and fiction is increasingly breaking out of them, with mothers not only getting more three-dimensional but taking centre stage in their own stories. The panel will discuss what makes more interesting stories about motherhood, and their favourite complex mother characters.

Opening Ceremony

15:30 BST

ICC – Hall 1 A

Lauren Beukes, James Bacon, Derek Landy, Ian McDonald, Jeannette Ng, Rebecca Roanhorse, William Simpson, Tommy Ferguson

Welcome to Eastercon and our official opening ceremony. Let’s get this convention started!

Reading: Lauren Beukes

17:00 BST

ICC Boardroom 1 – 2

Lauren Beukes

Guest of Honour Lauren Beukes reads from her work.

Saturday 19 April 2025
Switching Genres as an Author

11:00 BST

Hilton – Lagan A

Lauren Beukes, Ruth Frances Long / Jessica Thorne, Catriona Silvey, Emily Tesh and David Wake (moderator)

Jen Williams has kept her name. Iain Banks added an M., as did Joanne Harris. Nora Roberts is J. D. Robb, and Megan Lindholm even wrote a collection with Robin Hobb. Writers love moving between genres, but sometimes it isn’t as easy as just writing another book. What are the complexities of moving between genres? What is the learning curve, and the attractions? And what can authors bring from one genre to another as they shift focus?

Memory and Grief in Spec Fic

12:30 BST

Hilton – Lagan A

Lauren Beukes, Jean Bürlesk, Aliette de Bodard, Everina Maxwell and Dan Walsh (moderator)

Speculative fiction tells stories with epic stakes, and that includes life and death. But for every death, some live on, and lives leave legacies of grief and memory for those left behind. This panel will examine those legacies, and the ways that mourning, grief, and memory of the lost are represented in speculative fiction, from funerary practices to personal remembrances.

In Conversation – Guest of Honour Lauren Beukes

14:00 BST

ICC – Hall 1 A

Lauren Beukes and Samuel Poots

Guest of Honour Lauren Beukes in conversation with Sam Poots.

The Point Is To Change It: Science Fiction as Activism

15:30 BST

Hilton – Lagan B

Lauren Beukes, KEN MACLEOD, El McInerney (moderator), Farah Mendlesohn, Stephen Oram and Smuzz

Stories of the future and of alternate worlds have acted as inspirations, warnings, and critiques of society in the hands of writers. They have pointed out inequalities, extrapolated future disasters from present (in)actions, and presented dramatic improvements. But does that translate into the real world, and social and political change? Can science fiction change the world beyond the pages of the book or the edges of the screen?

Table Talk: Lauren Beukes

17:00 BST

ICC Boardroom 2 – 2

Lauren Beukes

Join our Guest of Honour, Lauren Beukes, for an hour of cosy & casual conversation!

Sunday 20 April 2025
Autographing: Lauren Beukes

12:30 BST

ICC – Hall C&D

Lauren Beukes

Guest of Honour Lauren Beukes signs

Down The Rabbit Hole: Portal Fantasy and Migration

14:00 BST

Hilton – Lagan B

Lauren Beukes, Aliette de Bodard, CL Hellisen, Rosanne Rabinowitz and Kate Towner (moderator)

From going into the back of a wardrobe to falling down a rabbit hole, or even just walking through the right door, there are many portals to fantasy worlds. But what does it mean to enter another world, especially to live there? What does it mean to return, after spending time in another world? How does portal fantasy reflect experiences of migration, and how does it avoid them?

From Page To Screen

15:30 BST

Hilton – Lagan B

Lauren Beukes, Derek Landy, Rebecca Roanhorse, Catriona Silvey and David Wake (moderator)

You might think having your writing adapted for screen is all glitz and glamour, but is it? Our panel discusses what happens when Hollywood comes knocking – the pitfalls, joys and what to watch out for. Who gets the final say, and what gets left on the cutting room floor?

Aliens, Bodysnatchers, and Shining Girls: When Horror and SF Meet

17:00 BST

Hilton – Lagan A

Lauren Beukes, Ruth EJ Booth, Donna Scott (moderator), Ben Unsworth and Ian Watson

You’d think that sf and horror would make strange bedfellows, yet from Frankenstein through the Alien franchise and books such as Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation and Lauren Beukes’s The Shining Girls, the rational and the irrational have been joining forces for as long as the genres have existed to make us think and scare us at the same time. What is behind the enduring appeal of mixing these two genres? What works and what doesn’t? What are some of the best examples of the blending of these two genres?

If You’re Not Angry You’re Not Paying Attention

20:00 BST

ICC – Hall 1 A

Lauren Beukes, Mike Brooks (moderator), C.L. McCartney, Sharan Volin and Susie Williamson

The modern world has a lot of causes for anger, from racial injustice to corruption, from gender discrimination to rising wealth inequality. We are seeing characters channelling anger in our fiction, sometimes in destructive ways. How can authors tackle writing science fiction and fantasy stories about real-world situations that deserve anger? Can characters be used to model ways for us to channel our rage? And does anger really inevitably lead to the Dark Side?

Monday 21 April 2025
Closing Ceremony

15:30 BST

ICC – Hall 1 A

Lauren Beukes, Claire Brialey, Phil Dyson, James Bacon, Derek Landy, Ian McDonald, Jeannette Ng, Rebecca Roanhorse, William Simpson and Tommy Ferguson

We don’t want to go yet either but all good things come to an end. Join us for the closing ceremony and later in the bar for the Dead Dog!

Guests of Honour

Lauren_Beukes_Headshot

Lauren Beukes is the award-winning South African author of six novels, a short story collection and NYT-best-selling graphic novels, including Zoo City which won the Arthur C Clarke Award and the Kitschies Red Tentacle, The Shining Girls, now a major AppleTV show starring Elisabeth Moss, and, most recently, the reality-bending mother-daughter-dreamworm novel, Bridge. Her work has been translated into 25 languages and she’s also worked in kids animation, TV scriptwriting and directed an award-winning documentary.

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Derek Landy is an Irish author and screenwriter, best known for the Skulduggery Pleasant and Demon Road book series. Since 2018, he has also written for Marvel Comics. Skullduggery Pleasant was published by HarperCollins, who paid Ā£1.8 million for the publishing rights, growing to a nine-book series, a six-book sequel series, a spin-off, and a prequel. In 2008, Landy won the Red House Children’s Book Award. Playing with Fire, Mortal Coil and Last Stand of Dead Men each won the senior Irish Children’s Book Award, in 2009, 2010 and 2013. In addition in 2010 Skulduggery Pleasant (Sceptre of the Ancients) was voted as Irish book of the decade.

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Jeannette Ng is originally from Hong Kong but now lives in Durham, UK. Her MA in Medieval and Renaissance Studies fed into an interest in medieval and missionary theology, which in turn spawned her love for writing gothic fantasy with a theological twist. She used to sell costumes out of her garage. She runs live roleplay games, performs hair wizardry and sometimes has opinions on the internet, including in Foreign Policy.​ She has won the Astounding for Best New Writer in 2019 and the Sydney J Bounds Award (Best Newcomer) in the British Fantasy Awards 2018

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Ian McDonald is an SFF writer living just outside Belfast in Northern Ireland. His first novel, the cult fave Desolation Road, was published in 1988 and won the Locus best first novel award. Since then he’s published twentysomething novels, several story collections and a handful of novellas. He’s a Hugo, Campbell Memorial, Philip K Dick and BSFA award winner and has been nominated for just about every award going. He was Guest of Honour at An Irish Worldcon in 2019 in Dublin. His most recent novel is Hopeland.

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Rebecca Roanhorse is a NYTimes bestselling author and Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Award-winning speculative fiction writer and the recipient of the 2018 Astounding Award. She has published multiple award-winning short stories and six novels, including two in The Sixth World Series, Star Wars: Resistance Reborn, Race to the Sun for the Rick Riordan imprint, and two in the epic fantasy Between Earth and Sky trilogy – Black Sun and Fevered Star. The third book in the trilogy, Mirrored Heavens, is expected out in 2024. She has also written for Marvel Comics and for television, and had projects optioned by Amazon Studios, Netflix, and AMC Studios. She lives in Northern New Mexico, USA, with her husband, daughter, and pup.

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Will Simpson is a Northern Irish native, living in Belfast, Will began his career in British comics in the 1980s, drawing ā€œBig Benā€ for Warrior magazine in 1984, Transformers for Marvel UK, work for 2000 AD, including ā€œJudge Dreddā€ and ā€œRogue Trooperā€. From 2011 until 2019 he was a storyboard and concept artist for the HBO TV series Game of Thrones, [4] [5] for which he designed the White Walkers – amazing work. His most recent stuff is with movies such as Morgan, Halo, Byzantium and the tv series The Nevers.

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