Graham Sleight

Hi. My name’s Graham Sleight; welcome to this site.

A brief biography. I was born in 1972, was mostly educated in and around London, and went to university here. I’ve spent my career so far in two areas of work. Firstly, I’ve done a whole range of roles in publishing (mostly medical/mental health): I’ve commissioned books, put together marketing flyers, redesigned websites, looked after journals, and so forth. Secondly, I’ve worked in the charity sector, and have been involved in a wide range of governance/procurement issues: contracts, IP ownership, running elections, risk management, and governance structures. I’m currently Head of Governance and Contracts at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in London, and am studying for the PGDip/MSc in Voluntary Sector Management at the Cass Business School.

This site is about what I do in the rest of my time: write about stories, mostly those found in science fiction and fantasy books. Among the things I do in that field are:

• I edit Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, a peer-reviewed journal that’s been published for nearly four decades.
• For six years until 2012, I wrote a regular column for Locus, the news magazine of the sf/f fields, on classic sf – I’m hoping to collect those columns together into a book. In the meantime, I continue to write for Locus on comtemporary sf.
• I review for plenty of other places, in particular the Washington Post, New York Review of Science Fiction and Strange Horizons.
• I’ve just finished writing a couple of books – more details coming soon via the “Books” link on the right. The first of these is The Doctor’s Monsters.
• I write chapters in other peoples’ books – see “Book contributions” for a full list.
• I’m the managing editor for the new third edition of the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, edited by John Clute and David Langford , and founded by Peter Nicholls.
• I’ve recently been writing a lot of introductions (along with Adam Roberts and others) for Gollancz’s SF Masterworks series.
• I give talks at conferences of various kinds. In 2010, for instance, I gave a paper to the Classical Association about the use of Greek and Roman myth in Doctor Who.
• I occasionally get put in front of a microphone or camera to talk about all of the above. I’ve appeared on BBC Radio 3′s Night Waves, Radio 4′s Open Book, and on various podcasts. A recent appearance (albeit with a few technical glitches) was on the New York station WBAI’s Hour of the Wolf.

In the past, I’ve also been a judge for the Clarke Award and written a column for the British SF Association‘s critical journal Vector. For the last couple of years, I’ve been part of the judging panel for the Crawford Award. I go to conferences and conventions in the field: you can usually find me at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in Florida in March; Readercon in Boston in July; and the movable feast that is the UK’s Eastercon.

In 2012, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction won the BSFA Award for Non-Fiction, the Eurocon Award for Best Promoter (of the genre) and the Hugo Award for Best Related Work. I did a post about the latter here.

I can be found online in several other places, including:

• At the Locus Roundtable – where I blog about sf/f stuff.
• Facebook – which I tend to use to keep track of people I’ve met in person; given my vague memory, if you send me a friend request having met me at a con, you might want to accompany it with a message reminding me when and where we spoke.
• Linkedin – which I tend to use for stuff connected to my day-job.

I also, slightly worryingly, have a Wikipedia entry. My surname rhymes with “kite” not “Kate”.