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The genre of science fiction and fantasy has many subcategories.

http://www.fuseliterary.com/sff-subcategories/

Spencer Hill Press specializes in urban fantasy, sci fi, and paranormal romance for young adults. 

http://www.site.spencerhillpress.com/

Month9 Books will specialize in speculative fiction for tweens and teens. 

http://www.month9books.com/

When the Society of Authors asked me to organise an event and let me choose Science Fiction as the theme (my last theme was comics), I had such fun pulling together this fabulous group of writers for our Worlds of Tomorrow panel. It's the first time the Society of Authors has hosted an SF event and they were very excited! And other bloggers have beat me to the write-up: check out fab blogs by writers Jeff Norton, here, and Jonathan Green, here, and if you're on Facebook, Candy Gourlay has posted a bunch of photos (many of which I have nicked for this post). To be honest, I was so caught up in hosting the event that it's all a bit of a blur now and I've forgotten most of what we said, but these bloggers took good notes.



So last Tuesday, I zipped up my space boots and joined the panel in front of a big crowd at Foyles bookshop on Charing Cross Road. Oo, I was not the only one in interesting footwear! Who could these belong to?


Photos by Candy Gourlay


...Yes, Queen of curious gadgetry and small press Kim Lakin-Smith and this year's Costa Award winner, post-apocalyptic-western writer Moira Young! Kim and Moira both have fascinating histories if you look around the Internet; here's Moira on BBC News, talking about her beginnings in comedy, tap dancing and opera, and how breaking both wrists turned her into a writer.


Photo by Candy Gourlay

Thanks to Philip Reeve for being a fabulous event host! Here you can see him lobbing good questions at the panel.


Photo by Candy Gourlay

And here I am with good chum Steve Cole, who's written a zillion books, taught me lots about doing events, and really understands how kids' minds work. (He's wearing the Jamie Smart t-shirt I gave him for his 40th birthday.)


Photo by Candy Gourlay

And some of our lovely books! It made me laugh, thinking that I could be part of an SF panel because I have a book about a princess going into space. And we pretty much stuck to talking about books for young adults, or 'Ya' books, as Philip called them. But I was chuffed to have someone come up to me later and say that she'd been hoping we'd also talk about SF in picture books, so perhaps that is a good subject for another event.



Jared Shurin and his partner Anne Perry run The Kitschies awards, and Jared was able t