Guests
CLÉMENCE ALBERIE & VÉRONIQUE BRÉGER
Thirty-three year old Clémence from Albi in the Tarn region of France grew up with an older brother and twin sister. With a degree in agricultural engineering, she simplifies the description of her work by specifying that she accompanies the construction of projects generally linked to current environmental issues with groups of farmers. A great dreamer, Clémence has always liked to jot down every little idea that comes to mind for later.
When she writes, the young woman escapes into a world where her imagination takes control. And she has imagination in spades, inventing and reinventing stories from a very early age. 6h22 Place 108 is her first novel, and it helped her to accept and appreciate herself, and to reveal herself as she really is.
Now the author of 5 novels and 5 short stories, Clémence has found her balance between family life, life as a mother, life as an author and professional life. She’s flourishing as a writer and her pen is growing and evolving project by project, giving her enough confidence to dare to tackle many subjects close to her heart, such as self-acceptance, the environment, resilience in the face of tragedy, all without ever losing the humour she’s particularly fond of.
Véronique Bréger was born in June 1963. Her childhood in the Limousin region gave her a strong taste for nature, wandering along back roads, streams jumping from stone to stone in the woods, the early morning mists that lick the generous, undulating landscapes, the song of the blackbirds in the chestnut trees and long hours of contemplation.
In her novels, she explores the themes that are dear to her: encounters, surpassing oneself, questions about identity. The inner adventure that mirrors reality is a constant source of creativity. Faraway journeys are an inexhaustible source of inspiration for her imagination. These interludes are conducive to an explosion of ideas. She currently divides her time between the city, the countryside and the shores of the Aegean Sea.
FRANÇOIS PANIER
George J. Ghislain A.K.A. François Panier is a Belgian writer. He lives in eastern Hainaut (Belgium). He trained as a landscape architect and has a passion for old stone, gardens and traveling.
He published his first novel in 2016, but his passion for writing began long before that. His writing is sometimes historical, without being a history lesson, and sometimes contemporary.
What sets him apart is that he writes in such a way as to immerse the reader, not as a spectator, but as an actor in the story. He manages to go through the reader’s filters with emotions and feelings, creating an instant fusion that gives the feeling of ‘being there’. Because he can’t get enough, he also mastered staff and ornaments and now sculpts or restores plaster ornaments to decorate ceilings or walls in sometimes very old homes.
JACKIE KESWICK
Jackie Keswick was born with a fondness for rocks and a recurring dream of stepping off a bus in the middle of nowhere. She has worked in a hospital and as the only woman among 52 men on an oil rig, spent a winter in Moscow and a summer in Iceland and finally settled in the land of her dreams with her husband, a cat and a tandem.
Jackie writes a mix of suspense, action adventure, fantasy and history, loves stories with layers, plots with twists and characters with hidden depths. She adores friends to lovers stories, and tales of unexpected reunions, second chances, and men who write their own rules.
She blogs about English history and food, has a thing for green eyes, and is a great believer in making up soundtracks for everything, including her characters and the cat. And she still hasn’t found where the bus stops.
MARIE ALHINHO & NINE GORMAN
Marie Alhinho is the co-author of the saga La Nuit où les étoiles se sont éteintes. DA graduate of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, she went on to do a Master’s degree in Medieval History and a Master’s degree in Children’s Literature, her two greatest passions. Born in the Paris region, she has a French mother and a Portuguese father who passed on to her his taste for expatriation. She writes both realistic fiction and fantasy, and her works reflect her obsession with the quest for identity, uprooting and migration. La Nuit où les étoiles se sont éteintes is her first teen novel.
Nine Gorman is an author of teen-adult novels born in the South of France. In 2016, she was discovered online by Albin Michel, which published her first novel, Le Pacte d’Emma. Others followed, including the Ashes Falling for the Sky saga (co-written with Mathieu Guibé) and the La Nuit où les étoiles se sont éteintes (co-written with Marie Alhinho). Her stories, which have a reputation for moving readers and bringing tears to their eyes, are a big hit on social networks, especially on TikTok.
MAGGIE
Maggie is an English teacher in Brittany and is preparing a thesis on the relationship between slash fans and producers in TV series, a subject she has already explored in her dissertation.
She joined the Organisation of Transformative Works just over a year ago as part of the Fanlore team, the fandom wiki, where she helps manage their social networks. For the past few months she has also been posting on the Fanhackers blog to popularise the study of fans.
OTW – Fanlore – Fanhackers
THOMAS ANDREW
Thomas Andrew from Bordeaux, is a passionate teacher and a fervent admirer of genre literature. He is a French author specialising in fantasy and romantic comedy, all in a decidedly funny and lively tone. He was awarded the Prix du roman gay 2018 – Best Romance for his book “Cœur de cible”.
A film and TV show buff, a geek at heart and in his skin, Thomas Andrew is also known for his urban fantasy saga, Drek Carter, which skilfully mixes fantasy codes. The saga has a spin-off entitled Glen Landsbury, a gay paranormal romance. He has also written the bestselling Murder By Magic saga, an urban fantasy serie combining humor, thrilling investigations and mysteries.
In collaboration with Sebastian Bernadotte, he wrote Les Mystères Fantastiques de Paris, a steampunk saga full of humor, love and mystery set in Belle Epoque Paris at the time of the 1889 Universal Exhibition.
WILLY DONO
Willy Dono is a young cosplayer committed to body acceptance and transgender and non-binary representation in the world of cosplay. Passionate about the art of embodying fictional characters, Willy uses cosplay as a means of expressing himself and asserting his true identity. Through his creations, he seeks to break down gender stereotypes and promote diversity and inclusion.
Speakers
Agathe
A fan of manga for almost 25 years and BL for almost as long, Agathe has been taking part in Japan Addict in Strasbourg for about 15 years, creating and running quizzes, games and so on. She also almost always has a stand selling fanworks and lotteries.
Last year, she had the idea of organising activities on the theme of BL, so she created some games to do just that.
Cordélia
Cordélia is a 30-year-old author living in Montpellier. Committed to LGBT+ and feminist issues, she is keen to offer her readers stories rich in LGBT+ representation. Cordélia loves cosplaying on TikTok, science fiction films (even bad ones) and tea with too much sugar. Along with two friends, she takes part in the production of the Disclaimer podcast dedicated to fanfiction. Alongside her work as a writer, she also hosts a BookTube channel devoted to literature, and more specifically to the representation of gender issues in children’s literature.
Helsenn
Comic book author Helsenn has been sharing his stories online and at conventions for over 10 years. He took his first steps into the world of self-publishing at the age of 16 with his manga Color of the Heart, published by Kejhia, before moving on to other projects, alternating between black and white and color manga. Helsenn is self-taught, publishing his stories for free on various online reading platforms before signing his first publishing contract with Dupuis in 2020, for the webtoon Terreur Nocturne, which he scripted and drew. In parallel with the publication of this webtoon, Helsenn begins work on a pirate story, Mutiny, whose printing will be financed by the success of an Ulule in 2022. His work ranges from romantic comedy to fantasy adventure to horrific thriller, but the focus remains on the characters and their relationships.
Gustave Auguste
Gustave Auguste works as an art director in publishing, and since 2018 has been developing a range of graphic novels and illustrated short stories on a self-publishing basis. From the torments of first love in Errabundus to the delirious eroticism of Nuits d’ambre, his fantastical epics bear witness to his own evolution through colorful illustrations and an ever-changing pen.
Julia Popek
Julia studies the history of manga aimed at a female audience (shōjo &c.). Her main subjects of interest are horror, yuri and erotica.
Odyssian Blaze
Kenny Manir (Kwartz) narrative designer, and Marc Sisinni (Maruko) illustrator & webdesigner, childhood friends with a passion for video games, literature and tabletop role-playing games, have always created out of passion in their private sphere. Encouraged by the people around them, they decided to co-found Librastral, a video game and visual communications studio. Surrounded by a small team, they are currently developing the game Odyssian Blaze, a Visual Novel that explores mythologies by placing narrative and the theme of identity at the heart of the story, with the ambition of pushing back the codes of the genre. Alongside this, they run a number of workshops to raise awareness of the diversity of sexual orientations through popular culture.
Ophélie
Ophelie has been a fan of manga since childhood, and of BL more recently, and is keen to share her passion by hosting a number of games at Y/CON.
T. Pralinus
T. Pralinus is a video artist, cartoonist, author of novels and comics, and above all a researcher specialising in Yaoi/BL in France, who is preparing a thesis on the subject and has published several articles on the subject. More broadly, he is interested in queer and girly pop culture.