The Fantasy Hive have collaborated with award winning publisher Angry Robot Books to bring you a Women In SFF: Behind the Scenes post.

Today, for Women in SFF, we wanted to celebrate the women who work behind the scenes of our favourite SFF titles – the editors, publicists, and publishers who get these amazing stories on our shelves.

Firstly, here’s a little bit about Angry Robot: 

They’re a global imprint dedicated to the best in modern adult science fiction, fantasy and everything in between.

Our mission, quite simply, is to publish the best in brand new genre fiction – SF, F and WTF?!

Traditional SF and fantasy has been ploughing an entertaining furrow for many decades, but to our way of thinking much of it is missing a trick. To the new generations of readers reared on Dr Who and Battlestar Galactica, graphic novels and Gears of War 2, old school can mean staid, stuck in a rut. “Crossover” is increasingly the way forward and you’ll find plenty of it here, without batting an eyelid. New heroes and new settings, or maybe just reinventing the wheel, we’re not fussed – if there’s an energy in a book that gets us jumping up and down, we’re all over it.

To find out more, you can check out their website here.

They also run an Open Door submission period once a year, but have an extended indefinitely Black Voices Matter open door policy. Find out more HERE. 

Welcome to the Hive Ailsa, Gemma, Eleanor, and Caroline!

Tell us a little about yourselves, your role in Angry Robot, and what you look for/like in a book!

Ailsa Stuart, Marketing Executive

Bio: Ailsa has spent several years working in marketing, often with a focus on the digital side of things, including connecting with influencers, organising blog tours and building social media communities. She’s on Twitter as @AilsaCF

What I look for: My hands down favourite genre is urban fantasy, and give me romance plot lines in everything. I love stories that play with myths and legends, from Scottish faery tales to Ancient Greek goddesses. I’m a big fan of politics in space, like A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine or Everina Maxwell’s Winter’s Orbit; I adored the storytelling in Kristen Ciccarelli’s The Last Namsara and the pacing of V. E. Schwab’s Shades of Magic series. And I’m a sucker for classic tropes done well, like enemies to lovers or mixed band of heroes crosses a map. 

Gemma Creffield, Managing Editor

Bio: Gemma has worked in the publishing industry for five years, in various roles. She started as a Publicity Assistant and has worked her way up to Managing Editor. Find her on Twitter: @geebiegems

I am on the look out for a book that shakes me like The Hunger Games and Only Ever Yours, that grabs me like The Power, and stays with me like Fahrenheit 451. I am a lover of dystopian, feminist, literary-leaning and message-driven fiction. I also love steampunk, mystery, crime, fairytale/folklore and adventure-fantasy. I love to champion new voices and bring out the very best in an author’s potential.

Eleanor Teasdale, Associate Publisher

Bio: Eleanor’s background in agenting means she approaches the Angry Robot list in a new way. As well as managing the team and the strategy for the imprint, she is looking for voices from the super commercial fast fun side of SFF to the more thoughtful literary end. She loves weird mushroom books, anything with a love story in, horrible body horror and generation ship stories. Find her on Twitter: @Eteasdale

I’m the Associate Publisher at Angry Robot Books – an imprint I fell in love with before I started working in the Publishing industry for its risk taking and championing of weird and wonderful stories. I used to work in a Literary Agency but found myself wanting more and more to specialise in SFF at an imprint and so made the move to Angry Robot as Commissioning Editor and now as Associate Publisher. My role has changed a lot – whilst I still am actively buying and championing authors I think a lot about strategy of the imprint and oversee business decisions. 

I love all aspects of SFF and buy things from the super pulpy fast energetic end of the list – a good space caper or fantasy adventure is always loved and wanted – give me found families and romance and high stakes missions to save the world(s)! I also love the more esoteric side of SFF – the weird novels that get under your skin from the horrific body horror style stories to mathsy high concept Sci Fi and creeping near future dystopias. I’m not really on twitter but my handle is @eteasdale there! 

Caroline Lambe, Publicist

Bio: At home in Ireland, Caroline obtained an MA in Literature and Publishing from NUI, Galway before starting her publishing career in Dublin in 2008. In 2013, she moved to the UK and began working for Angry Robot Books until in 2016 life’s funny twists moved her and her young family to Italy for a time. Living once more in the Midlands of England, she has returned to the literary mothership that is AR. When not dividing time between work, kids, baking, the dog and the chickens that run around the back-garden, and being PRO for Warwickshire LGFA, Caroline can always be found on the football field, playing gaelic football for Roger Casements in Coventry. Find her on Twitter: @caramalines

One of the absolute joys of working with a house like Angry Robot Book is the sheer range I get to read, from the traditional fantasies and space adventures, to the weird and wonderful wacky side. 

I personally enjoy gore, romance, and humour, and don’t mind what combination they feature! I adore epic fantasies that transport me, where I mourn for the world and location, as much as the characters, when I finish, like Jacqueline Carey’s Terre d’Ange novels. Mythological retellings like John Connolly’s The Book of Lost Things and Lucy Holland’s Sistersong are firm favourites, as are books steeped in history, mysticism and humour such as Andrew Caldecott’s Rotherweird series. 

And in case you’re wondering, I’ve purposefully not chosen AR authors or books…a parent can never actually admit which child s/he favours!

A huge thank-you to Ailsa, Gemma, Eleanor, and Caroline for joining us today for Women in SFF!