T Party members come from all walks of life and in all shapes and sizes. It helps to be broad-minded, clever, and, of course, passionate about writing. Here are the biographies of some our bolder members.
Helen Callaghan
Helen Callaghan writes fiction inspired by her love of intelligent books and brainless movies. Her first novel, Mephistophela, is set in a near-future London and inspired by elements of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Her second is Sleepwalker, a multiple universe adventure set in the North of England, Ancient Carthage, and various other places not accessible from this version of reality. Her latest novel, Dear Amy, is a psychological thriller about a Cambridge schoolteacher and agony aunt who starts to receive letters from a girl supposedly murdered twenty years ago. It was published by Michael Joseph in Spring 2016.
She lives in Cambridge with a hamster called Aleister, a beloved car, some mutinous houseplants and too many books. Her personal webpage and erratically updated blog describing her adventures and research writing her novels is here. She is currently working on Morningstar, a murder mystery centred around what appears to be a double suicide that has links to a cult leader and self-proclaimed “Magus” from the 1980s who manipulates and blackmails his ex-acolytes into the present day. Morningstar will be published by Michael Joseph in Spring 2017.
Helen is represented by Judith Murray at Greene and Heaton.
Jack Calverley
Jack says: “I like making things. I enjoy the crafting process whether virtual goods like software (the day job) or, preferably, a make-believe world made from words.” He also believes in cross-over between mediums, since he’s been heard reading for StarShipSofa and has seen at exhibitions trying to flog his Photoshopped holiday snaps. His home page is www.jackcalverley.com.
Gary Couzens
Gary Couzens has published over thirty pieces of short fiction in F&SF, Interzone, The Third Alternative, Crimewave, Midnight Street, Black Static, Roadworks, Peeping Tom, Subterfuge, the anthologies The Alsiso Project and The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases and elsewhere.
In 2003 his collection Second Contact and Other Stories was published by Elastic Press, and in 2006 he edited Extended Play: The Elastic Book of Music, which won the 2007 British Fantasy Award for Best Anthology. His second collection, Out Stack and Other Places, was published by Midnight Street Press in 2015 and he is working on short fiction in various genres and young-adult novels. He lives in Aldershot.
Colleen Douglas
My background is South American I am from the former British colony of Guyana and have been living in London for 25 years. I am a graduate in Creative Writing. I have always enjoyed works with some form of darkness, be it the gradual creeping or more blatantly obvious kind. My interest in writing started from the age of 14, when I wrote my first horror story, after reading my father’s copy of Burial: The Manitou by Graham Masterton. I should probably mention that I listen to rock music when I write fight scenes and haunt cafés when I begin and complete a project. The latter maybe a frame narrative habit, I cannot honestly account for the former.
As a writer, I have always been drawn to the unconventional. I write Dark Fantasy with some elements of Horror and Sci-Fi. I love my eclectic disposition and storytelling diversity as it places me in a unique atmosphere, with new challenges to conquer each time I write.
My début novel is a Dark Fantasy named ORIGIN, which is scheduled for release under Cosmic Egg Books in May/June 2014 (this not a firm date in terms of month, but it will be 2014!)
Blog: colleendemonrising.wordpress.com
T.D. Edge
T.D. Edge ran away from home to travel around Britain, becoming a street theatre performer, props maker for the Welsh Opera, sign writer, schools caretaker, soft toys salesman, and professional palm-reader at Pink Floyd gigs. This gave him plenty of stuff to write about. His children’s novels have been published by Random House, Scholastic, Hutchinson and others. His adult short fiction has appeared in various places, including Flash Fiction Online, Penumbra, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Realms of Fantasy. In 2012, he won the New Scientist/Arc Magazine SF short fiction competition. Terry has tutored creative writing for many years, e.g. for the Open College of the Arts, and currently for Denman College. He’s also proud of being the youngest-ever England Subbuteo Champion. More at: www.td-edge.com.
Sarah Ellender
Sarah Ellender mostly writes science fiction and fantasy, although a year-long experiment with flash fiction has taken her down some unexpected paths. She is currently working on her second novel.
Sarah is a co-founder of PlotMedics, an innovative service that helps authors overcome their creative difficulties, along with fellow T Party veteran Gaie Sebold. Her plot-workings, writing angst (and exploits in crocheting, glasswork, random enthusiasms etc.) are documented on her website.
K D Grace
K D Grace is passionate about nature, writing, and sex – not necessarily in that order. She entertains herself with Chinese martial arts, long, thought-provoking walks and extreme vegetable gardening. She has had erotica published in Cleis, Black Lace, Xcite Books and Ravenous Romance anthologies, as well as Scarlet magazine. In addition to erotica, she also writes genre and mainstream fiction. Her blog is here.
David Gullen
David Gullen self-assembled from a template provided by his parents while in South Africa. Three years later he was baptised by King Neptune as he sailed across the equator. Since then he has studied biology, worked as a van driver, washer-up, armourer, leatherworker, and IT geek; and become the father of three children. His novel, Shopocalypse, a near-future story of fast cars, consumerism and nuclear war, is available from Clarion Publishing. His short fiction has appeared in various magazines and anthologies, one of which was shortlisted for the James White Award, while another was an Aeon Award winner. His collection, Open Waters (theEXAGGERATEDpress), appeared in early 2014. He has also recently co-edited his first anthology, Mind Seed, for T Party Publications. David lives in Surrey, England, with the fantasy writer Gaie Sebold, and too many tree ferns.
www.davidgullen.com
@dergullen
Caroline Hooton
Caroline Hooton became hooked on the Harry Potter books in 2001 and from there became drawn into the wider world of young adult fiction. She is an enthusiastic member of the British chapter of the Society of Children’s Writers & Illustrators and reviews young adult and childrens’ novels for several on-line communities. She made her first short story sale to the e-zine Dred Tales in June 2008 and completed an MA in Creative Writing (Novels) at City University in September 2009.
Caroline is currently finalising a young adult urban fantasy manuscript about shapeshifters living in London and in her spare time works as a projects lawer for a top 20 city law firm. She is represented by Catherine Pellegrino at Rogers, Coleridge and White.
Nigel Johnson
Born in south Essex to East End émigrés, Nigel Johnson became a class traitor upon reading history at Cambridge and going to work as a consultant, or jumped up programmer, for a software house based in Surrey.
Ran away to the West Country shortly before the Great Crash, where he hides waiting for the world to become a sane and humane place (he might have to wait an awfully long time).
In the possibly vain hope of becoming part of the solution rather than the problem Nigel now works as a programmer for a public service dedicated to protecting the environment.
Nigel has been published in “Roadworks” and the T Party anthology “Deep Ten”.
Kate Kelly
Kate Kelly was born in Scotland but grew up in Devon. She studied Geology at Dundee University and then Oceanography as a post grad at Southampton. She now works as a Marine Scientist. Her interest in these subjects has inspired many of the themes in her writing.
Kate has written all her life and has had a number of science fiction short stories published in various magazines and anthologies. She is now concentrating on children’s novels and is represented by Julia Churchill of the Greenhouse Literary Agency. Her debut novel, Red Rock, a SF thriller for the 10+ age group, will be published in 2013 by Curious Fox.
She keeps a blog here.
Francis Knight
Francis Knight (@Knight_Francis on twitter) was born and lives in Sussex, England. When not living in her own head, she enjoys SF&F geekery, WWE geekery, teaching her children Monty Python quotes, and boldly going and seeking out new civilizations.
The first book in her Rojan Dizon trilogy, Fade to Black, is due to be published in February 2013 with Orbit.
Laura Mauro
Laura Mauro was born and raised in South East London, where a chronic lack of anything to do drove her to write. She mostly dabbles in horror and dark fantasy, but harbours a secret dream to write cyberpunk graphic novels. She moved to Essex (under extreme duress) in 2009. When not writing, she collects cats, acquires tattoos, dyes her hair interesting colours and plays videogames.
She has been published in Black Static and Shadows and Tall Trees, and her short story ‘When Charlie Sleeps’ was picked to appear in Best British Horror 2014, edited by Johnny Mains. Her short story ‘Ptichka’ was published in ‘Horror Uncut: Tales of Social Insecurity and Economic Unease’. In 2015 she was nominated for two British Fantasy Awards in the ‘Best Newcomer’ and ‘Best Short Story’ categories.
She blogs sporadically here, and can be found on Twitter as @lauranmauro
Will Mitchell
Will is an aerospace engineer and lives in West London. He writes Science Fiction and Horror, and his work has been accepted by The Book of Dark Wisdom and the Horrors Beyond anthology (both from Elder Signs Press), Midnight Street and the Canadian magazine Neo-Opsis. His Horrors Beyond contribution received an honourable mention in the 2006 Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror.
Will has a science fiction novel undergoing final draft, and has plans for a series of novels in various genres once it is complete. Will’s website, including extracts and reviews, is at http://www.wmfiction.com.
Damian P. O’Connor
Damian P.O’Connor (Ma, Ph.D etc etc), sometime soldier, academic and teacher has two dozen academic books, articles and reviews on historical and African themes to his name already. Having travelled widely in Africa, he has been awarded a medal from the Chief of the Zulus as well as being recognised in the Brenthurst Foundation Nelson Mandela Prize Essay competition. Now stuck as far up the Yang-Tse river as it seems feasible to go for most of the year, he yearns for the sanity of Essex.
Martin Owton
Martin Owton has been extensively published in UK small presses, appeared in Black Gate and Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine and, in translation, in Nowa Fantastyka (Poland). He has received three honourable mentions in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror collections. He is represented by Ian Drury of Sheil Land Associates, and his adventure fantasy novels Exile and Nandor are published by the Phantasia imprint of Ticketyboo Press. His website is http://www.martinowton.com.
Rosanne Rabinowitz
Rosanne got hooked on writing when she helped produce ‘zines in the 1990s like Feminaxe and Bad Attitude. Then she began to make stuff up. Her fiction has since found its way to places like Postscripts, The Third Alternative and its successor Black Static, and she completed a creative writing MA at Sheffield Hallam University. Her novella Helen’s Story (PS Publishing) was shortlisted for the 2013 Shirley Jackson award.
She has also contributed to anthologies such as Rustblind and Silverbright (with Mat Joiner), Never Again: Weird Fiction Against Racism and Fascism, Extended Play: the Elastic Book of Music, The Slow Mirror: New Fiction by Jewish Writers, Conflicts and The Horror Anthology of Horror Anthologies. Her reviews and articles have appeared in Interzone and Paradox, and she contributes non-fiction to union, community and activist websites.
Rosanne lives in South London; unsurprisingly her story in the anthology Horror Without Victims is called “Lambeth North”. Over 2014/15 her stories will appear in Horror Uncut, The Mammoth Book of the Vatican Vaults, Mind Seed and other anthologies.
Bruce Holland Rogers
Bruce Holland Rogers is an American writer. His stories have won two Nebula Awards, the Bram Stoker Award, and two World Fantasy Awards. Links to some of his stories can be found at www.shortshortshort.com. His personal web page is www.sff.net/people/bruce.
Gaie Sebold
Gaie Sebold was born in the US to an American father and English mother, and has lived in the UK most of her life. She now resides in leafy suburbia with her partner, writer David Gullen, a daft cat, and a lot of plants and books.
She began writing shortly after learning to read, and has produced a large number of words, many of them different. Her debut novel introduced brothel-owning ex-avatar of sex and war, Babylon Steel (Solaris, 2012); the sequel, Dangerous Gifts, came out in February 2013.
If you would like to see some snippets from the world in which the Babylon series is set, you can find Babylon’s problem page, notes from Chief Bitternut’s casebook and extracts from the local newspaper, the Scalentine Chronicler, here: http://scalentine.gaiesebold.com/. (Updated every Friday.)
Gaie is now working on a steampunk fantasy: Shanghai Sparrow, due in 2014.
She has sold a number of short stories; three have received honourable mentions in Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her stories appear in several anthologies (see the shop page) and several more are due to appear this year.
She has also won a few awards for poetry (her first collection, Urban Fox, is published by Tall Lighthouse).
She has worked as a cleaner, secretary, till-monkey, stage-tour-manager, editor, and charity administrator; she now writes full time and runs occasional writing workshops. She reads obsessively, gardens amateurishly, and sometimes runs around in woods hitting people with latex weapons.
Gaie also blogs with David Gullen (in the guise of Lord and Lady Plott) on writing and gardening at www.weedingandwriting.com.
Her own website is at www.gaiesebold.com.
Allyson Shaw
Allyson Shaw lives in York where she brews beer, makes jewelry and writes while trying not to lose her Californian-by-way-of-the-Midwest accent. Her genre-crossing novel of the poetic apocalypse can be found here. An award-winning poet, she is author of the poetry collection, The Bon-bon and Love Token, a Powell’s poetry best-seller. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and selected for awards by Pulitzer Prize winners John Ashbery and Charles Simic. Much of her fiction and poetry has appeared in anthologies and literary journals, including the National Gallery Publication Tiger Seen on Shaftsbury Avenue. She has taught writing at University of California, Irvine and Long Beach City College.
Sara-Jayne Townsend
Sara-Jayne Townsend is a UK-based writer. She was born in Cheshire in 1969, but spent most of the 1980s living in Canada after her family emigrated there. She now lives in Surrey with two cats and her husband Chris. She co-founded the T Party Writers’ Group in 1994, and remains Chairperson.
Sarah’s short stories have been published in various places, including the T Party’s two anthologies, and Kissing The Sky, the Jimi Hendrix-themed anthology published by Paycock press in the USA. Her first novel, Suffer The Children, was released as an e-book by Lyrical Press in April 2010.
Her website can be found at: http://sarajaynetownsend.weebly.com/
Carole Tyrell
Carole Tyrrell was a founder member of the T Party and has recently returned after a break. So far she has been published in Enigmatic Tales, Supernatural Tales, Revelation, the anthology Brainbox 1, Smoke, and the T Party collection Gravity’s Angels.
Carole is also a keen photographer and can often be found in Victorian cemeteries, especially Nunhead in SE London. Currently she is working on a supernatural crime novel using the Magnificent 7 Victorian cemeteries as inspiration.
The T Party 