Lauren Beukes writes books, comics for DC Vertigo, movie scripts, TV shows and occasionally journalism. She won the Arthur C Clarke Award and The Kitschies Red Tentacle for Zoo City, a gritty phantasmagorical noir about magical animals, pop music, refugees, murder and redemption in the slums of inner city Johannesburg. She is currently adapting the novel as a screenplay for Oscar-nominated producer Helena Spring. Her debut novel, Moxyland is about a neo-corporate apartheid state, bio-engineered art, nano-branding, cell phones used for social control and terrorism. The Shining Girls, out May/June 2013 is about a time-travelling serial killer. She recently made her comics debut in the Fables universe with a Fairest mini-series called The Hidden Kingdom with art by Inaki Miranda. The six issue arc follows Rapunzel travelling to Tokyo to confront a dark secret from her past. She also writes for kids TV shows including Florrie's Dragons and Mouk and co-created South Africa's first half hour animated show: The Adventures of Pax Afrika. She's a recovering journalist, who has covered everything from wannabe teenage vampires to township vigilantes and directed a documentary, Glitterboys & Ganglands about South Africa's biggest female impersonation beauty pageant, which won Best LGBT at the Atlanta Black Film Festival. She lives in Cape Town, South Africa, with her husband and daughter.