Noura Al-Noman is the author of Ajwan, the first ever contemporary science fiction book  for Young Adults written in Arabic. Born in Sharjah, she represented the UAE in the 2013 Abu Dhabi Book Fair, the same year as winning the Etisalat Children’s Books Award for best YA Book. She launched Mandan, her second book in the series at the Cairo Book Fair earlier this year. Noura is working on another sequel as well as overseeing scripts for a television series based on Ajwan. She has a  degree in English Literature and a Masters in Translation Studies but has chosen to delay publishing her works in English to allow for the Arabic versions to take a foothold. Noura is a trustee of the UAE Board on Books for Young People (UAEBBY).

Twitter: @NouraNoman

Amal El-Mohtar is an Arab-Canadian poet and fiction writer, currently living with her two cats and fiancé in Glasgow. She is a two-time winner of the Rhysling Award for Best Short Poem and a Nebula-nominated author of The Honey Month, a collection of spontaneous short stories and poems written to the taste of twenty-eight different kinds of honey.  She edits Goblin Fruit, an online quarterly dedicated to fantastical poetry. Numerous works of her short fiction and poetry have appeared in multiple publications. Most recently she authored a short story ‘To Follow the Waves’ in The Apex Book of World SF 3, the latest anthology edited by Lavie Tidhar.

Twitter: @tithenai

Yasser Bahjat is a computer engineer by profession and is achieving his dream of introducing gaming as competitive sport as President of the Electronic Sports International Federation. Based in Saudi Arabia,  Yasser is a co-founding member of Yatakhayaloon (The League of Arabic SciFiers) that brings together fans and creators of Arabic SciFi, with the goal  of encouraging Arabic SciFi culture and enrich its content to empower it to become globally competitive. Yasser is also the co-author of the English edition of HWJN.

Twitter: @YBahjatt

Ibraheem Abbas is a creative director and a film maker. Ibrahim published his first novel HWJN in 2013 which tells the life story and romance encounters of an old Jinn in his nineties. Subsequently, the book has been banned by the Saudi government but the English translation is still available for digital download.  His second novel Hunaak! (Somewhere!) has just been released on  Kindle. Ibrahim is also the co-founding member of Yatakhayaloon.

Twitter: @ ibraheem_abbas

Yasmin Khan will moderate the panel as the creative producer of Sindbad Sci-Fi.

Twitter: @SindbadScifi        #SindbadScifi