June 6th 2026, Trafford, will you be there?
An invitation to my CELEBRATION OF READING panel.
A few weeks ago, I was invited to talk at the Trafford Celebration of Reading, for their IMAGINED WORLDS panel, all about science fiction and fantasy.
Date: Saturday, 6th June, 2026
Time of event (when the event will be open to the public): 10:30am – 3:30pm Venue:
Urmston Library
34 Golden Way
Urmston, Manchester (England, UK)
M41 0NA
Here it is, looking like some giant server rack.
Now, I have to quickly say that all events on this day are SOLD OUT but the library itself is still open to the public.
It seemed wrong not to send you an invite just because of this, but I must let you know it will be busy, or full.
I will be signing a limited number of copies of:
WHO BUILT THE HUMANS
MACABRE MULTIVERSE
THE COSMONAUT WHO DIED TWICE
That said, if you miss out on these, I now have signed copies on the TikTok shop, which I will announce properly soon.
CELEBRATION OF READING
At 2pm, I will be talking about accessibility in fiction, especially about how WHO BUILT THE HUMANS? is designed so as to be as silly or as clever as you want it to be - with its 11 universes broken into 47 easy-to-read chapters.
That makes the book “ADHD friendly” according to an old friend who told me it was the first book he’d manage to finish in four years. This is my obvious selling point (shame it took me five years to figure that out), and more books in that series are coming, but I will also be talking more widely about the writing process, about adventure, and coming up with new ideas from interdisciplinary spaces (why can’t Sci-Fi contain poetry?).
I think, ultimately, that a lot of the writing industry is losing its sight of what makes literature FUN, and I dedicate my existence to rectifying that by being as weird as possible, as long as it makes storytelling sense to be.
Urmston Books and Board Games seem to be ahead of the crowd when it comes to keeping literature FUN. It is an honour to be invited, and this time tomorrow, I will be writing my thoughts about the event here for you all.
I want to say thanks to my photographer for the event, Craige, as well.
2:00pm - 3:00pm: Imagined Worlds
Find out about the growth in popularity of speculative fiction genres in recent years, the breadth and depth of books on offer, why some ideas transcend genres and why people love exploring new worlds. In association with the BFS.
Panellists:
Phillip Carter, Eliza Chan, Thomas D. Lee, Alethea Lyons (chair)
Won’t be there but want to listen to me being clever anyway?
Conveniently, I have also got a pre-recorded radio show coming out on Hannah’s Bookshelf, at exactly the same time.
And, since it is FREE SCI-FI FRIDAY, you simply must be made aware of the year-long promo I joined. The stories are free, all those authors want is to know your email address so they can email you weird stuff forever, sort of like what I did a while ago.
More weird stuff is coming. Watch this space.