CYMERA: Scotland’s Festival of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Writing

8-9 June 2019, The Pleasance, Edinburgh UK

CYMERA is a new literary festival launching this June in Edinburgh, Scotland’s first such festival devoted to science fiction, fantasy and horror writing. This ambitious event already  has a guest list of more than 60 authors from across all three genres (full programme to be announced in March at https://www.cymerafestival.co.uk/). Now the festival is inviting early career researchers to participate in its innovative academic strand with this call for papers.

The academic strand at CYMERA is free to attend, giving you and your research the chance to engage with the public as well as other academics. Presentations will be strictly limited to five minutes, but you will be presenting to a wider audience – and, potentially, a much bigger audience – than most purely academic conferences. With only five minutes to present, your paper should focus on the core argument or findings of your research in a dynamic manner. The most engaging papers from each Saturday session will be invited back for a second presentation on Sunday. One paper will be chosen to get presented in the festival’s main hall before a major guest event, with a potential public audience of up to 300 people. For further details about how the academic strand will work at the festival, email cymeracfp@gmail.com.

For the academic strand at CYMERA 2019, we are asking for papers that explore Scotland’s contribution to science fiction, fantasy and horror. That can range from writers and creators born in Scotland [from Stevenson and Conan Doyle to Iain Banks and beyond] to those who have made Scotland their home; from Scotland as a location for the genre’s narratives [such as Under the Skin by Michel Faber] to themes of Scottishness present in genre writing. Your paper may focus on one or more of the genres; it could look beyond prose fiction to consider science fiction, fantasy and horror in graphic novels and comics by Scottish creators; or at adaptations of Scottish science fiction, fantasy and horror narratives into other media.

We invite 100-word proposals for five (5) minute papers. Suggested topics include, but are certainly not limited to:

• Scottish authors of the genres – past and present
• Themes of Scottishness within the genres
• Scotland as a location, be it rural, urban or both
• Scotland’s role in the development of these genres
• New theoretical perspectives on Scottish science fiction, fantasy and horror
• Scotland’s influence on one or more of the three genres
• Intersections, blends and hybrids within Scottish fictions of the genres
• Scottish graphic novels and comic books within the genres, and their creators
• Adaptations of Scottish science fiction, fantasy and horror
• Scotland’s contribution to the genres in other media, such as games
• Genre blending and bending in Scottish writing
• Dualities in Scottish genre writing and its cities
• Scotland as a filming location for science fiction, fantasy and horror film and TV

Please send your 100 word abstract with a biographical note of 50-75 words to cymeracfp@gmail.com no later than midday on Friday 22nd March 2019. Please direct all queries and enquiries to the same address.