Morpeth Book Festival - Dystopian Fact & Fiction

The session will be introduced by American Novelist, Screenwriter & Producer, Chuck Hogan, who wrote The Strain Series, The Killing Moon and Devils in Exile via a special prerecorded video!

Amy Lord

Amy Lord is a writer and arts marketer from North East England. Her debut novel, The Disappeared, was published by Unbound in 2019.

She won a Northern Writers’ Award for The Disappeared and was also longlisted in the inaugural Bath Novel Award. Amy is currently working on a new novel, which received a K Blundell Trust grant from the Society of Authors. She also writes short stories and flash fiction and has had work published by Reflex Fiction, The London Reader and Palm-Sized Press.

Mark Iveson

Gateshead born Mark spent his early childhood in London before returning permanently to the North East as a teenager. He has always been a movie fan from a young age, especially horror; his heroes were Peter Cushing and Vincent Price. He is also a fan of British film comedy and the James Bond series. His love of motion pictures has given him a near photographic memory on the subject.

Mark has written many film, gig and theatre reviews for several periodicals, most notably the Glasgow based vampire magazine Bite Me and the Swiss based English language magazine The Geneva Times. He later wrote over thirty articles and reviews for the movie webmag Shadowlocked.

Cursed Horror Stars is his first book on the subject. Since its publication, Mark has given several book talks at Newcastle's famous Castle Keep, and for the Darlington Film Club and the Gateshead Film Club as well as various community groups and writing circles. He was guest speaker at the 2016 Whitley Bay Film Festival and the 2016 Newcastle Book Festival. In addition to film, Mark's other passion is music. He plays guitar and mandolin, and has ran several buskers night around the North East. This also included a two year stint as bassist for the local rock band Old Man Goat.

Sarah Elliot

Sarah Elliot was born in Newcastle and raised in Northumberland. She was diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of ten and turned to writing her own stories as a way of keeping up her skills. She has never looked back since. She graduated from Swansea University in 2009 with a Masters in Creative and Media Writing and has had three plays performed by a theatrical group in Swansea. She currently works as an administrator in a care home in Newcastle and spends her free time socialising with friends, writing, and taking Petal, the Rottweiler, for long walks.