Hybrid Event: The Traveling SFF Festival

East City Bookshop welcomes Yume Kitasei, Ray Nayler, Julia Vee, and Fran Wilde for a special panel in the Traveling SFF Festival.

THE TRAVELING SFF FESTIVAL: Over two weeks and eight cities, two groups of 3-5 speculative fiction authors with new releases will be hitting the road in “traveling book festival” style. Each night, we’ll be making a stop at a new location to discuss a different aspect of speculative fiction. Panelists will take turns moderating each stop. Over the series, we will be exploring how the genre is evolving, how our identities and backgrounds inform our own writing, and where we think SFF is headed.

Note on Format: This hybrid event will have both an in-person component with limited seating as well as a virtual broadcast via Zoom Webinar. Both in-person and virtual attendees will be able to pose questions to the author during audience Q&A. Pre-Order your copy of the author's books in Eventbrite checkout as an add-on to your ticket.

Yume Kitasei is a Japanese and American speculative fiction author of THE DEEP SKY, THE STARDUST GRAIL, and SALTCROP. She lives in Brooklyn with two cats, Boondoggle and Filibuster. She chirps occasionally @yumewrites on Instagram and Bluesky. (www.yumekitasei.com)

Ray Nayler is the author of the novel The Mountain in the Sea, which won the Locus Award for “Best First Novel,” and the novella The Tusks of Extinction. Called “one of the up-and-coming masters of SF short fiction” by Locus, Nayler’s stories have been published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, Vice, and Nightmare, as well as in many “Best Of” anthologies. His stories have won the Clarkesworld Readers’ Poll and the Asimov’s Readers’ Award, and his novelette “Sarcophagus” was a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Award. (https://www.raynayler.net/)

Julia Vee was a trial lawyer in Silicon Valley for over two decades. She attended U.C Berkeley and majored in Asian Studies. She often writes with co-author Ken Bebelle. Their novel EBONY GATE, an Asian-inspired urban fantasy was a Golden Poppy Finalist for the Octavia E. Butler award. The series conclusion, PEARL CITY, released in July of 2025. (https://juliavee.com/)

Two-time Nebula Award-winner Fran Wilde has (so far) published eight novels, a poetry collection, and over 70 short stories for adults, teens, and kids. Her stories have been finalists for Nebulas, World Fantasy, Hugos, Locus, and a Lodestar. She is the Managing Editor for The Sunday Morning Transport and teaches or has taught for schools including Vermont College of Fine Arts’ WFCMYA MFA and St. Mary’s College of Maryland. (https://www.franwilde.net/)

Host or Publisher East City Bookshop