Francesca T Barbini is the founder and director of Luna Press Publishing. She is an award-winning editor, and a translator, born and raised in Rome, Italy. After years of volunteer work around the world, she completed a MA Honours in Religious Studies at New College, Edinburgh University, focusing on the Ancient Near East and the…
Latest Octoposts
Crochet Your Own Octo
The Octo crochet pattern has been updated for 2025! Why not crochet your very own member of the Octo collective? Basic crochet knowledge required. Download the crochet pattern (PDF).
Octocon Presents at Reconnect: Unreliable Narrators and Other Tricks (and Our Fan Table)
Are you going to be at this year’s Eastercon, Reconnect, in Belfast? If so, check out our Octocon Presents panel, featuring a stellar cast of former Octocon guests and guests of honour, and moderated by this years’ co-chair. The panel was first run at Octocon 2022. Octocon Presents: Unreliable Narrators and Other Tricks Saturday 19…
Jo Zebedee – Online Guest (Sunday)
Jo Zebedee is the author of 7 novels, most set in and around her native Northern Ireland. She also runs The Secret Bookshelf, in Carrickfergus, and finds herself dreaming about books in all their various stages of completion. She is currently working on the sequel to her cult hit, Inish Carraig. She can be found…
Marve Michael Anson – Online Guest
Marve has been writing for over a decade and has self-published a thriller, His Dark Reflection, to critical acclaim. Her debut fantasy novel, Firstborn of the Sun, is the first in a trilogy being published by Penguin Michael Joseph in October 2025. This novel also placed her as a finalist in many competitions, including the…
T.L. Huchu – Online Guest
T.L. Huchu’s work has appeared in ‘Lightspeed’, ‘Interzone’, ‘Analog Science Fiction & Fact’, ‘The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2021’, ‘Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine’, ‘Mystery Weekly’, ‘The Year’s Best Crime and Mystery Stories 2016’, and elsewhere. He is the winner of a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (2023), Alex Award (2022), the Children’s Africana Book Award…
Shauna Lawless – In-Person Guest
Shauna Lawless is an avid reader of the mythology, folklore and history of Ireland. Her love for all these things inspired her to write Gael Song, a historical fantasy series chronicling some of the most turbulent wars of mediaeval Ireland. Her critically acclaimed debut novel in the Gael Song series, The Children of Gods and…
PJ Holden – In-Person Guest
PJ Holden is a Belfast based comic artist best known for his work for Judge Dredd for 2000AD. Over the past twenty years, PJ, has built a reputation as a rock solid storyteller able to tell illustrate everything from grim dystopian futures, to over the top comedy adventures through War stories on land, sea and…
#OctosDayOut at Dublin Comic Con 2025, Spring Edition
On a sunny weekend in March, Octo arrived at Dublin Comic Con and set off with our Comms Team on a grand adventure. Intrepid explorer Octo visited traders and fan clubs, found last year’s Co-Chair, faced off Klingons and Storm Troopers, performed with the Muppets, barely survived the Gremlins’ House … … and finally, swapped…
Registration for Octocon 2025 is Now Open!
Hello everyone! We have exciting news for you. We’re very happy to confirm our venue and dates for 2025. We’ll be in the Maldron Hotel, Tallaght, Dublin for our in-person Octocon on Saturday 11th October from about 10am until late (yes, there will be an evening social event). We’ll also be running online on both…