Neil Gaiman
Gaiman er født i byen Portsmouth på Englands sydkyst. Efter at hans forældre opdagede Scientology, flyttede familien i 1965 til East Grinstead. Gaiman boede i East Grinstead fra 1965 til 1980 og igen fra 1984 til 1987.
Gaiman voksede op med bøger af C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Michael Moorcock, Ursula K. Le Guin and G.K. Chesterton. Senere blev han interesseret i science fiction og læste forfattere som Samuel R. Delany, Roger Zelazny, Harlan Ellison, H.P. Lovecraft, Thorne Smith, and Gene Wolfe.
I 1980'erne forfulgte Neil Gaiman en karriere som journalist; foretog interviews og skrev boganmeldelser for at lære om branchen og skabe nyttige forbindelser. Han skrev og anmeldte for British Fantasy Society. Han fik sit første fantasynovelle, Featherquest, udgivet i Imagine Magazine i 1984, da han var 23 år. I 1984 skrev han også sin første bog, en biografi om bandet Duran Duran og en anden bog, Ghastly Beyound Belief med en samling af citater som han skrev sammen med Kim Newman. Han skrev også interviews og artikler for forskellige britiske magasiner. Sidst i 1980'erne skrev han Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion, om Douglas Adams og The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Efter skrev han, hvad der senere skulle blive begyndelsen til Good Omens skrevet i samarbejde med Terry Pratchett.
Gaiman blev venner med tegneserieskaberen Alan Moore og begyndte derefter selv at skrive tegneserier og hans første blev Miracleman som han tog op efter netop Alan Moore, der havde forladt serien. Gaiman samarbejdede med tegneren Mark Buckingham om adskillige numre af serien indtil seriens forlag, Eclipse Comics, gik nedenom og hjem og efterlod serien uafsluttet. De første tegneserier Neil Gaiman rent faktisk fik udgivet kom i 1986 og 1987 og var fire korte striber i lang række af striber kaldet Future Shocks i tegneserien 2000AD. Han skrev derefter tre grafiske romaner med sin ven og foretrukne samarbejdspartner Dave McKean med titlerne Violent Cases, Signal to Noise, and The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch. Han fik arbejde hos DC Comics, hvor hans første opgave var serien Black Orchid.
William Gibson
William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian writer who has been called the "noir prophet" of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction. Gibson coined the term "cyberspace" in his short story "Burning Chrome" and later popularized the concept in his debut novel, Neuromancer (1984). In envisaging cyberspace, Gibson created an iconography for the information age before the ubiquity of the Internet in the 1990s. He is also credited with predicting the rise of reality television and with establishing the conceptual foundations for the rapid growth of virtual environments such as video games and the Web.
Having changed residence frequently with his family as a child, Gibson became a shy, ungainly teenager who often read science fiction. After spending his adolescence at a private boarding school in Arizona, Gibson dodged the draft during the Vietnam War by emigrating to Canada in 1968, where he became immersed in the counterculture and after settling in Vancouver eventually became a full-time writer. He retains dual citizenship. Gibson's early works are bleak, noir near-future stories about the effect of cybernetics and computer networks on humans – a "combination of lowlife and high tech". The short stories were published in popular science fiction magazines. The themes, settings and characters developed in these stories culminated in his first novel, Neuromancer, which garnered critical and commercial success, virtually initiating the cyberpunk literary genre.
Although much of Gibson's reputation has remained associated with Neuromancer, his work has continued to evolve. After expanding on Neuromancer with two more novels to complete the dystopic Sprawl trilogy, Gibson became an important author of another science fiction sub-genre—steampunk—with the 1990 alternate history novel The Difference Engine, written with Bruce Sterling. In the 1990s, he composed the Bridge trilogy of novels, which focused on sociological observations of near-future urban environments and late capitalism. His most recent novels—Pattern Recognition (2003) and Spook Country (2007)—are set in a contemporary world and have put his work onto mainstream bestseller lists for the first time.
Gibson is one of the best-known North American science fiction writers, fêted by The Guardian in 1999 as "probably the most important novelist of the past two decades". Gibson has written more than twenty short stories and nine critically acclaimed novels (one in collaboration), and has contributed articles to several major publications and collaborated extensively with performance artists, filmmakers and musicians. His thought has been cited as an influence on science fiction authors, design, academia, cyberculture, and technology.
Zoe Gilbert
Zoe Gilbert started writing fiction sometime in her late teens, and after many years, some of it got published. Her work has appeared in anthologies from Comma, Cinnamon and Labello presses amongst others, and in journals worldwide including The Stinging Fly, Mechanics' Institute Review, and the British Fantasy Society Journal. Some of her stories have won prizes, including the Costa Short Story Award.
She is completing a PhD in Fiction and Creative Writing at the University of Chichester, focusing on folk tales in contemporary fiction. She is also co-founder of London Lit Lab, where she teaches creative writing, and she co-hosts the Short Story Club at The Word Factory.
Recently she has taken part in writing projects in China and South Korea for the British Council, and was commissioned by Microsoft to create a short story book in collaboration with graphic artist, Isabel Greenberg.
Zoe Gilbert lives in South London, where the local woods, both real and ghostly, are inspiring her next novel.
