Tag: Ruth Frances Long

Posted on

Preview: Spotlight on Our Panels

We’ve got an absolutely packed programme of panels, showing on not one but TWO Twitch channels simultaneously! (Thank you to all our Twitch streamers/producers – we couldn’t have put this programme together without you.)
Here are some of the programme team’s favourites.
(All times in Irish Summer Time / UTC+1.)

We’re in This Together Now: The Importance of Found Families

A gang of mismatched teens fighting supernatural horrors. A close-knit spaceship crew. Superheroes (and sometimes villains too) banding together against a common enemy. Whether they’re hurtling around the universe or crossing forests and mountains on a quest together, the bonds built between companions and crew can be tighter than those between blood relatives. What do the found families we enjoy say about the relationships we find ourselves in and the things we create together in fandom?
Catherine Sharp (moderator), Dan Abnett, Nik Vincent-Abnett, Amie Kaufman
Saturday 2nd October 11:00 – watch on Twitch Channel One

Grand Designs: The Big House and the Small Tombs of Gothic Fiction

The sinister castle or big house has been a staple of Gothic fiction since Horace Walpole launched the genre with The Castle of Otranto in 1764, continuing through the last two centuries, with abandoned spaceships playing a similar role in science fiction, the castles or castle-analogues almost becoming characters in the story. What do these once-grand but now decrepit mansions and their gardens signify? And what makes for a particularly memorable stay?
Samuel Poots (moderator), Maura McHugh, Ruth Frances Long / Jessica Thorne, Clare Foley, Ian Moore
Saturday 2nd October 12:00 – watch on Twitch Channel Two

African Science Fiction: Reclaiming Our Voices

When someone mentions Black science fiction, they are often thinking of Anglophone African-American and Black British writers. However, there has been an explosion of new writers from the African continent who are beginning to reclaim their voices and histories from colonial cultural damage. Our panel discusses the identities and traditions that contribute to the new wave of African science fiction
Joseph Elliott-Coleman (moderator), Tobi Ogundiran, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, Dilman Dila
Saturday 2nd October 18:00 – watch on Twitch Channel One

Crime Narratives in Other Worlds

Murder. Blackmail. Theft. Fraud. Even in far and future worlds, we can’t escape them or the institutions that police and punish them. Why are crime narratives central to so many science fiction and fantasy stories, and what makes them different to the crime tales set in the world we see around us?
Jack Fennell (moderator), Aliette de Bodard, Michael Carroll, Christopher J Garcia
Sunday 3rd October 12:00 – watch on Twitch Channel One

Howling Laughter: The Intersection of Comedy and Horror

Why is screaming so close to laughing, surprise so close to shock? Why does comedy so often fill the gaps in tales of horror? From ‘Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein’ through ‘Scream’ to ‘Happy Death Day’, these two great flavours of entertainment prove to be a winning combination time and time again. Are the audiences just here to see the juggling of the opposing forces of fear and joy, or is there a deeper truth to be found in how we deal with subjects too terrifying for the rational mind?
Robert JE Simpson (moderator), RB Kelly, Kim Newman, Anthea West, Dilman Dila
Sunday 3rd October 13:00 – watch on Twitch Channel Two

See our full programme
and find out more about our participants

Posted on

Who’s coming to Octocon? (part 3)

Octocon loves to celebrate our home-grown Irish creators, and we have a very fantastic bunch to show off, many of them regular Octocon panellists and guests.

Ruth Frances Long / Jessica Thorne

Ruth Frances Long / Jessica Thorne

Ruth Frances Long writes young adult fantasy, often about scary fairies. She works in a specialized library of rare & occasionally crazy books.

In 2015 she won the European Science Fiction Society Spirit of Dedication Award for Best Author of Children’s Science Fiction and Fantasy for A Crack in Everything.

As Jessica Thorne she writes Fantasy, Space Opera and other fantastic tales, including The Lost Girls of Foxfield Hall, The Queen’s Wing, Mageborn and Nightborn. The Stone’s Heart was nominated for the Romantic Novelists’ Association Romantic Fantasy novel of the year in 2020. Her latest novel, The Bookbinder’s Daughter will be available on the 20th September from Bookouture.

Web: www.rflong.com | Twitter: @RFLong and @JessThorneBooks | Facebook: R. F. Long and Jessica Thorne Author | Instagram: @RuthFrancesLong and @JessThorneBooks

Peadar Ó Guilín

Peadar Ó Guilín

Irish writer Peadar Ó Guilín is the author of the YA novel, The Call, inspired by the beautiful northwest of Ireland where he grew up. The Invasion, a sequel to The Call and the end of the duology, was published in March 2018 and was a finallist for the 2019 Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book, awarded at Dublin 2019, an Irish Worldcon.
In September 2007, Peadar published his first novel, The Inferior, which the Times Educational Supplement called ‘a stark, dark tale, written with great energy and confidence and some arresting reflections on human nature.’ Foreign editors liked it too, and over the coming year it is to be translated into eight languages, including Japanese and Korean.
His fantasy and SF short stories have appeared in numerous venues, including Black Gate magazine and an anthology celebrating the best of the iconic Weird Tales.

Twitter: @TheCallYA

Oisín McGann

Oisín McGann was born in Dublin and spent his childhood there and in Drogheda, County Louth. He studied at Ballyfermot Senior College and Dun Laoghaire School of Art and Design, and went on to work in illustration, design and film animation, later moving to London to work as an art director and copy writer in advertising.
He has since become one of Ireland’s most prolific and best-known writer-illustrators, and has produced dozens of books for all levels of reader, including twelve novels. He is the author of the Mad Grandad books, Headbomz: Wreckin’ Your Head (in association with the ISPCC), and novels such as Race the Atlantic Wind, The Gods and Their Machines and The Wildenstern Saga. His latest books are We Want Our Park Back, a picture book for Green-Schools, and A Short, Hopeful Guide to Climate Change, a non-fiction book in association with Friends of the Earth, released in May 2021. He is the illustrator of Jason Byrne’s Onion O’Brien series, the latest of which is The Secret Scientist.
He is a winner of the European Science Fiction Society Award, CBI’s Children’s Choice Award and has been shortlisted for numerous other awards, including the Waterstones Childrens’ Book Prize in the UK, le Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire in France and Locus Magazine’s Best First Novel Award in the US. He is married with three children, two dogs and a cat, and lives somewhere in the Irish countryside, where he won’t be heard shouting at his computer.

Twitter: @OisinMcGann | Instagram: @oisinmcgann

Jack Fennell

Jack Fennell is a writer, anthologist and editor from Limerick. He has published academic studies on Irish science fiction and horror fiction, and he is the editor of the science fiction anthology A Brilliant Void (2018) and the fantasy anthology It Rose Up (2021). He also publishes short fiction, as himself and also under the name Jack Deel. He teaches at the University of Limerick.

Twitter: @JFennellAuthor

Tríona Farrell

Tríona Farrell

Tríona is an Irish comic book colourist who has worked on titles such as Crowed, Black Widow, Spider-Man and Terminator and currently lives in Dublin with her partner and her cats.

Twitter: @treestumped

View more programme participants

Posted on

Octocon Presents: An Evening with Jessica Thorne

Octocon is delighted to run a series of events in the run-up to our virtual convention in October. The first of these is An Evening with Jessica Thorne (Ruth Frances Long) taking place on Friday 23rd April at 8pm IST, featuring a reading from her most recent book, The Lost Girls of Foxfield Hall, followed by an interview and Q&A session.

Watch live on our Twitch channel OctoconIRL.

The Lost Girls of Foxfield Hall blends time travel, folklore and Arthurian legend, along with romances both in World War Two and the modern day, in a spine-chilling magical mystery.

This is the cover of the book The Lost Girls of Foxfield Hall by Jessica Thorne

Jessica Thorne writes fantasy, space opera and other fantastic tales, including The Queen’s Wing, Mageborn and Nightborn. The Stone’s Heart was nominated for the Romantic Novelists’ Association Romantic Fantasy novel of the year in 2020.

As Ruth Frances Long, she writes young adult fantasy, often about scary fairies. In 2015 she won the European Science Fiction Society Spirit of Dedication Award for Best Author of Children’s Science Fiction and Fantasy for A Crack in Everything.

When she’s not writing, she works in a specialized library of rare & occasionally crazy books.

Image of the author Jessica Thorne (Ruth Frances Long)

You can find out more about Jessica Thorne and Ruth Frances Long via the social media links below, and don’t forget to join us on Twitch at 8pm on Friday 23rd April for our first Octocon Presents event.