This year’s Cheltenham Festival of Literature begins on October 3rd, and I’m delighted to announce that I will be appearing there this year on Saturday 4th. No, it is nothing to do with Wizard’s Tower, and not directly to do with my story in The Girl at the End of the World. What I’m doing is chairing a science fiction panel discussion. Here’s the blurb:

Welcome to the world of the dystopia: of government and society gone nightmarishly wrong. From 1984 to The Handmaid’s Tale, this image has been a gripping cautionary force. Ken MacLeod (Descent), author Chris Priest (Adjacent) and Jane Rogers (The Testament of Jessie Lamb) join chair Cheryl Morgan to explore fiction’s greatest nightmare visions and their enduring appeal.

Needless to say, I am very much looking forward to this. I see that Margaret Atwood is doing an event earlier in the day and I hope she’ll pop along too. It would be great to have her in the audience. Francis Spufford may be around too, as he’s doing a panel on the future of Christianity. Sadly it is sold out already, because I would have liked to go to it.

If any of you happen to be in Cheltenham on that day, I’d love to see you there too.