Queer Fantastical (re)imaginings

Saara El-Arifi is the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the Faebound Trilogy and The Ending Fire Trilogy inspired by her Ghanaian and Sudanese heritage. El-Arifi knew she was a storyteller from the moment she told her first lie. Over the years, she has perfected her tall tales into epic ones. She currently resides in London as a full-time procrastinator.

Lex Croucher grew up in Surrey, reading a lot of books and making friends with strangers on the internet, and now lives in London. With a background in social media and NGOs, Lex now writes historical-ish rom-coms and fantasy for both adults and teenagers. They are the YA Book Prize winning, Nero Award-shortlisted, New York Times, Indie & USA Today bestselling author of GWEN AND ART ARE NOT IN LOVE.

Dr Jean Menzies is an ancient historian, presenter, and author from Edinburgh, Scotland. She holds a PhD in classics and has written widely on mythology and history for all ages. Her first book Greek Myths: Meet the Heroes, Gods, and Monsters of Ancient Greece was published by DK in 2020 and won the Books Are My Bag Breakthrough Author Award that same year. Her most recent book All the Violet Tiaras: Queering the Greek Myths was publishing in 2024 by 404Ink as part of their Inklings series, and her debut trad-pub novel, a sapphic Arthurian fantasy, is due to be published in 2025 by Michael Joseph, Penguin. In the meantime, Jean can also be found creating history and literature content as ‘jeansthoughts’ on YouTube and TikTok.

Lifelong bookworm Ayse Huseyin is the founder of the Queer Girls Book Club: a London based group that was born out of a passion to spotlight and celebrate queer literature.  Whilst writing her dissertation for her English Literature degree, Ayse discovered the works of Sappho, Amy Lowell and Alison Bechdel. Nurtured through her coming out journey by this literary canon, one thing became clear: queer literature was expansive, healing and sharing it was a radical act of community building and love. When she isn’t doing book club admin or her day job, Ayse can be found dragging a bag of books around and insisting she doesn’t need an E-reader, in her local indie bookshop, or passionately supporting other queer community events around London.