Our Readers, Panelists and Performers are giving generously of their time and creative talents. Please let them know that you appreciate their efforts.
ALL of our Guests are GUEST STARS of the convention. This time around we are making no distinction between Guests of Honor and Guests, as each and every one of these authors, artists, editors and fans deserves equal recognition for their contributions.
AMAZINGCON GUEST STARS
Alma Alexander
Alma Alexander is a novelist, anthologist and short story writer. You can find out more about Alma and her books on her websites (www.AlmaAlexander.org or www.AlmaAlexander.com).
Michael Anderson
Michael is a Canadian writer of science fiction and fantasy living in Detroit. He is a slush reader for Amazing Stories, a regular SFWA volunteer, and the founder of WriteitWrong.com; a blog which curates resources aimed at helping those chasing the dream of becoming a traditionally published author.
RS Belcher
R. S. Belcher is author of the Golgotha series (The Six-Gun Tarot, The Shotgun Arcana, The Queen of Swords), the Nightwise series (Nightwise, The Night Dahlia), and The Brotherhood of the Wheel series, currently in development for television.
Marie Bilodeau
Marie Bilodeau is an Ottawa-based author who has published eight books and multiple short stories, and a performing storyteller. She’s won several awards and has been translated into French (Les Éditions Alire) and Chinese (SF World). More at: www.mariebilodeau.com.
James Cambias
James Cambias is a science fiction and fantasy writer and tabletop game designer.
R. Graeme Cameron
Graeme has been an active SF fan since 1968 to the point of winning two Aurora Awards and being inducted into the CSFFA Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Noted in the past for being a CUFF winner, his numerous fannish publications, his decades presenting the Elron Awards, two decades moderating Writers workshops at VCON, his stand-up comic performance as “Moog the Magnificent [Martian],” not to mention his co-performance of “The Sex Life of Godzilla” lecture on numerous occasions, he is currently the editor of the clubzine for the B.C. SF Association, a columnist for Amazing Stories (since 2013), publisher and editor of Polar Borealis Magazine (since 2016), and a member of both FAPA and eAPA. Graeme firmly believes the whole point of being a fan of SF is to have as much fun as possible.
Adam-Troy Castro
Adam-Troy Castro’s 27 books include the recent audio collection, And Other Stories (Skyboat Media). His novel Emissaries From The Dead won the Philip K. Dick Award, and he has been nominated for eight Nebulas, two Hugos, and three Stokers.
Noah Chinn
Noah Chinn is a freelance copy editor and novelist who also writes book reviews for Knights of the Dinner Table magazine. His next major project is a series of novels in a shared SF universe with romance writer Lauren Smith.
Jack Clemons
Jack Clemons is an SF author. He has a Master Degree in Aerospace Engineering and was an engineer and team leader on NASA’s Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle Programs. His non-fiction book, Safely to Earth: The Men and Women Who Brought the Astronauts Home, recounted his time on the NASA programs.
Rachel Cordasco
Rachel S. Cordasco is a translator and reviewer of Italian science fiction.
Dave Creek
Dave Creek is the author of the novels Chanda’s Awakening and Some Distant Shore. He’s also published the Great Human War trilogy, including A Crowd Of Stars, The Fallen Sun, and The Unmoving Stars. His short stories have appeared in Analog and Apex magazines, and various anthologies.
Mark Criley
Marc A. Criley began writing in his early 50s and has been published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Galaxy’s Edge, and elsewhere. He maintains kickin-the-darkness.com and tweets as @That_MarcC.
Jennifer Crow
Jennifer Crow writes science fiction, fantasy, and speculative poetry. She is a first reader of poetry for Amazing Stories magazine.
Julie E. Czerneda
For over twenty years, Canadian author/ former biologist Julie E. Czerneda has shared her curiosity about living things through her science fiction and fantasy. Julie has edited/co-edited numerous award-winning anthologies of SF/F. Visit www.czerneda.com for more.
Steve Davidson
Steve Davidson is a former fanzine publisher, games designer, interactive and multimedia technologies designer and developer working at AT&T and Bell Labs.
Vincent Di Fate
Vincent Di Fate is an award-winning artist specializing in science fiction, fantasy and realistic space art (hardware art) illustration. He was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame on June 25, 2011.
Steve Fahnestalk
Steve Fahnestalk is a film columnist for Amazing Stories and the author of a novel and a collection of short stories.
Jen Frankel
Jen Frankel is the author of the Blood & Magic series (forthcoming from Final Girl Press) and the vegan zombie satire Undead Redhead. Her short fiction has appeared across North America, including in the Pop Seagull anthology Robotica. You can find her at Amazon and at www.jenfrankel.com; her Instagram/Twitter are @jenfrankelauthor/@jenfrankel
JM Frey
J.M. Frey is the author of nine novels, a screenwriter, and a professional smartypants. She appears in podcasts, documentaries, and on television to discuss all things geeky through the lens of academia. Her debut novel Triptych was nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards, and garnered a place among the Best Books of 2011 from Publishers Weekly, and her 2019 novel A Woman of the Sea was honoured with a Watty Award. www.jmfrey.net | @scifrey
Adam Gaffen
Adam Gaffen started with Amazing as a SF/Literature blogger when the platform was relaunching. He has been writing fiction for years, but only for his own entertainment until very recently. Now, with the release of his first major novel, The Cassidy Chronicles, he hopes to devote more time to making an impact in the SciFi world. He lives in Maine with his wife, Michaela, five dogs, and six cats.
DL Gardner
DL Gardner writes fantasy fiction for young and young at heart folks who like a tall tale and a fast moving adventure. She is the winner of two Book Excellence Awards for her series, Best Urban fantasy at the Imaginarium Convention and six Screenplay awards her story Dylan.
JF Garrard
JF Garrard is the founder of Dark Helix Press, Co-President of Canadian Authors Association’s Toronto Branch, Deputy Editor for Ricepaper Magazine, Festival Coordinator for LiterASIAN (Toronto) and Assistant Editor for Amazing Stories magazine. She is an editor and writer of speculative fiction (Immersion, Futuristic Canada, Trump Utopia or Dystopia Anthology, The Undead Sorceress) and non-fiction.
David Gerrold
David Gerrold has been writing professionally for half a century. He created the tribbles for Star Trek and the Sleestaks for Land Of The Lost. His most famous novel is The Man Who Folded Himself. His semi-autobiographical tale of his son’s adoption, The Martian Child, won both the Hugo and the Nebula Awards, and was the basis for the 2007 movie starring John Cusack and Amanda Peet.
Sean Grigsby
Sean Grigsby is a professional firefighter in central Arkansas, where he writes about lasers, aliens, and guitar battles with the Devil…when he’s not fighting dragons.
Elizabeth Hirst
Elizabeth Hirst is a Canadian horror author, graduate of the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop Class of 2006, and an Assistant Editor of Amazing Stories Magazine. Her writing on LGBT themes in horror fiction has appeared on Tor.com and The Scariest Part, and her most recent novel, The Face in the Marsh, is available from Renaissance Press. Find her on Twitter and Instagram as @hirst_author, and blogging at http://elizabethhirstblog.wordpress.com.
Chip Houser
Chip Houser’s short fiction has been published in Bourbon Penn, The Arcanist, Daily Science Fiction, New Myths, and many other markets. He was a co-editor of Weird Dream Society: An Anthology of the Possible & Unsubstantiated. His collection Dark Morsels is forthcoming from Red Bird Chapbooks. Chip is currently a first reader for Amazing Stories.
Andrew Hudson
Andrew Dana Hudson is a speculative fiction writer and sustainability researcher. His stories have appeared in Slate Future Tense, Lightspeed Magazine, Vice Terraform, MIT Technology Review, Grist, Little Blue Marble, The New Accelerator, and more, as well as various books and anthologies. His nonfiction writing has appeared in Slate, among others. He is a member of the cursed 2020 class of the Clarion Workshop. Andrew has a masters degree in sustainability from Arizona State University, where he is a fellow at the Center for Science and the Imagination. He has previously worked in journalism, political consulting, and healthcare innovation. He also serves as an associate editor at Holum Press, which publishes Oasis, a Phoenix-based journal of anticapitalist thought.
G. Scott Huggins
G. Scott Huggins is the author of A Doctor To Dragons and his writing has appeared on Escape Pod and Podcastle. You can read his ramblings and rants at The Logoccentric Orbit.
Walidah Imarisha
Walidah Imarisha is an educator, writer, public scholar and spoken word artist. She has co-edited two anthologies including Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories From Social Justice Movements. Imarisha’s nonfiction book Angels with Dirty Faces: Three Stories of Crime, Prison, and Redemption won a 2017 Oregon Book Award. She is also the author of the poetry collection Scars/Stars.
For six years, she presented statewide as a public scholar with Oregon Humanities’ Conversation Project on topics such as Oregon Black history, alternatives to incarceration, and the history of hip hop. Imarisha has taught in Stanford University’s Program of Writing and Rhetoric, Pacific Northwest College of the Arts’ Masters in Critical Studies Program, Portland State University’s Black Studies Department, and Oregon State University’s Women Gender Sexuality Studies Department.
Imarisha’s website is www.walidah.com
Photo credit: Pete Shaw
Rebecca Inch-Partridge
Rebecca Inch-Partridge works as a freelance editor, specializing in speculative fiction. She lives in Auburn, CA where she leads several critique groups for Gold Country Writers, including a science fiction group. She’s been critiquing manuscripts for over 20 years and loves helping authors form diamonds from lumps of coal.
MD Jackson
MD Jackson is a Canadian Science fiction, fantasy and horror illustrator and artist. His artwork has appeared on book covers from Pulpwork Press, Rogue Blades Press and Rage Machine Books among others, and his black and white illustrations have appeared in many publications including Amazing Stories Magazine. His work has been featured on various websites including Darkworlds Quarterly, a website that he designed and currently maintains as webmaster. He was the former co-publisher and art director of Darkworlds Quarterly Magazine, a non-fiction online publication. He is a former columnist for the Amazing Stories Magazine Website. He also writes fiction under the pen-name Jack Mackenzie.
T. B. Jeremiah
T. B. Jeremiah is a writer, illustrator and graphic designer, and spends what free time she has drawing pictures of monsters. Previously she’s been a janitor, history instructor, and nonprofit marketing monkey.
Paula Johanson
Paula Johanson is a writer and editor of both fiction and non-fiction books. A long-time member of SF Canada, she has been nominated twice for the national Prix Aurora Award for Canadian Science Fiction.
Pauline Baird Jones
Pauline Baird Jones is the USA Today bestselling author of books that combine a variety of speculative (and some non-speculative) genres.
Daniel M. Kimmel
Daniel M. Kimmel is 2018 recipient of the Skylark Award, presented by the New England Science Fiction Association. His Jar Jar Binks Must Die…and other observations about science fiction movies was a Hugo finalist. His latest novel is Time on My Hands: My Misadventures in Time Travel
Kathy Kitts
Dr. Kathy Kitts, a former geology professor, served on the science team for the NASA Genesis Discovery Mission. Her latest short story collection, Getting What You Need, is available on Amazon.
Mary Soon Lee
Mary Soon lee is a fantasy and science fiction author of both stories and poetry. She has won the Elgin Award and the Rhysling Award.
Paul Levinson
Paul Levinson, PhD, is Professor of Communication & Media Studies at Fordham University in NYC. His science fiction novels include The Silk Code (winner of Locus Award for Best First Science Fiction Novel of 1999), Borrowed Tides, The Consciousness Plague, The Pixel Eye, The Plot To Save Socrates, Unburning Alexandria, and Chronica.
Sally McBride
Sally McBride’s short stories and novellas have appeared in such magazines as Asimov’s, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, Northern Frights, Tesseracts, On Spec, and many anthologies. Her novels Indigo Time (Five Rivers Publishing) and Water, Circle, Moon (Masque Books) are available from the publishers, Amazon and other venues.
Judy McCrosky
Judy McCrosky is the author of five novels and two short collections that span genres and styles. Her publications include literary works, science fiction, fantasy, romance, and non-fiction.
Jack McDevitt
Stephen King describes McDevitt as “the logical heir to Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke.” Twelve of his 22 novels have been Nebula finalists. Seeker won the award in 2006. He’s also won the John W. Campbell and the Robert Heinlein awards. The IAU has named an asteroid for him.
Shirley Meier
Shirley Meier has been writing professionally since 1984. Her latest book, Shadow of a Soul on Fire has received rave reviews. Her current passions are horseback riding and fine art…and dying her hair weird colours.
Ron Miller
Ron Miller is a multiple award-winning speculative fiction artist and illustrator. He has also written science fiction books. (space artist, SF illustrator, author)
Petrea Mitchell
A mild-mannered computer programmer by day, Petrea Mitchell is also a lifelong fan of science fiction in all its forms. Mitchell contributes to the Amazing Stories web site andCon News, and irregularly publishes Picofarad, The Zine of Little Capacity.
MJ Moores
M.J. Moores is the author of the SFF series The Chronicles of Xannia. Her short works have appeared in various anthologies including: Brave New Girls III, Unbound II, Nefarium, and The Human Condition.
Will Murray
Ira Nayman
When he was growing up, Ira Nayman wanted to be Art Buchwald. He has been writing humour ever since. Idiotocracy for Dummies, his 11th collection of Alternate Reality News Service articles, and Good Intentions, his sixth novel published by Elsewhen Press, came out in 2019. He is currently the editor of Amazing Stories magazine.
Wendy Nikel
Wendy Nikel’s short fiction has been published by Analog, Nature, Futures, Podcastle, and elsewhere. Her time travel novella series, beginning with The Continuum, is available from World Weaver Press. For more info, visit wendynikel.com.
Julie Novakova
Julie Novakova, an award-winning Czech author of science fiction and detective stories, has published seven novels, one anthology, one collection and over thirty stories in Czech. Her work in English has appeared in Clarkesworld, Asimov’s, Analog and other magazines and anthologies. Find out more at www.julienovakova.com.
Malka Older
Malka Older is an author and humanitarian worker. She was named the 2015 Senior Fellow for Technology and Risk at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, and she has more than eight years’ experience in humanitarian aid and development. Infomocracy, released in 2016, is her first novel, and is the first in the series The Centenal Cycle], which also included Null States, released in 2017 and State Tectonics in 2018, which won a Prometheus Award in 2019.
Lloyd Penney
Lloyd Penney has been involved in SF for what seems forever. His interests in SF and editorial work were finally combined with Amazing Stories. He is a two-time Aurora Award winner.
Brad Preslar
Brad Preslar’s fiction has appeared in Analog, AE, and The Arcanist, On Spec and Ares Magazine. Find him on Twitter @bradpreslar and on the web at readbradpreslar.com.
Dave Ritter
Dan Ritter
Amber Royer
Amber Royer writes the Chocoverse comic telenovela-style foodie-inspired space opera series (Free Chocolate and Pure Chocolate available from Angry Robot Books).
Russ Scarola
“You haven’t learned something until you’ve created with it!” When not learning from his two adventure seeking boys, Russell Scarola is an artist, activist, loving support spouse, and a project-based teacher specializing in the intersections of art and science. Whether helping younger students or as a professor at Reed College and Sonoma State University, Russ has specialized in helping a wide variety of people connect with science and technology and share their personal hopes and fears through interactive community co-created projects (murals, kinetic sculptures, and recycled material installations) as well as students’ own works of fiction, poetry, and song. Russ believes in the power of story to push our boundaries even as we build bridges. Russ believes that the more voices and viewpoints empowered to help guide our human ingenuity, the better and more equitable our solutions will be. Russ holds masters degrees in Inorganic Chemistry from Northwestern University and ‘Intersections of Art and Science’ through the Hutchins Interdisciplinary ‘Action for Viable Future’ Program at Sonoma State University. He is a graduate of the 2006 Odyssey Writing Workshop with Jeanne Cavelos, a frequent writer and critiquer, and an active AEWRS for Amazing Stories.
Darrell Schweitzer
Veronica Scott
USA Today Best Selling Author Veronica Scott, a seven-time recipient of the SFR Galaxy Award, has written many science-fiction and fantasy romances. You can find out more about her and her books at veronicascott.wordpress.com.
Alex Shvartsman
Alex Shvartsman is a writer, anthologist, and translator from Brooklyn, NY. His translations of Russian language fiction can be found in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Apex, Samovar, and other places. His original fiction has appeared in Analog, Nature, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. His website is alexshvartsman.com.
Steven H Silver
Steven H Silver is a science fiction fan and bibliographer, publisher, author and editor. He has been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer twelve times and Best Fanzine five times.
Al Sirois
A.L. Sirois is a writer, developmental editor, graphic artist and a performing musician. His publication career began in 1974 with the appearance of the short-short story “War Baby” in Fantastic. (It would be called “flash fiction” nowadays.) He has gone on to have fiction in Isaac Asimov‘s Science Fiction Magazine, Fantastic, Amazing Stories, and Thema, and online at Electric Spec, Mystery Weekly, Every Day Fiction and Flash Fiction Online, among other publications. His story “In the Conservatory,” from Thema, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Other works include a children’s book, Dinosaur Dress Up (Tambourine Press / William Morrow), a graphic novel, THE ENDLESS INCIDENT (2014), a fantasy novel, THE BOHEMIAN MAGICIAN, published in 2017, and JERSEY GHOULS, a horror novel published in 2018 from Azure Spider. A sequel, PHILLY GHOULS, appeared in June of 2020. As an artist, he has hundreds of drawings, paintings and illustrations to his credit. Al has contributed comic art for DC, Marvel, and Charlton, and has scripted for Warren Publications. He wrote and drew “Bugs in the System” for witzend #12, the famous comics fanzine started by MAD artist Wally Wood. He lives in Rockingham County, North Carolina with his wife and occasional collaborator, author Grace Marcus. Together they are writing a Young Adult novel set in ancient Egypt.
Doug Smith
Douglas Smith is a multi-award-winning Canadian author; his fiction has been published in twenty-six languages and thirty-five countries. His books include the novel The Wolf at the End of the World, the collections Chimerascope and Impossibilia, and the writer’s guide Playing the Short Game: How to Market & Sell Short Fiction. Doug is a three-time winner of Canada’s Aurora Award and has been a finalist for the Astounding Award for Best New Writer (formerly the John W. Campbell Award), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Bookies Award, Canada’s juried Sunburst Award, and France’s juried Prix Masterton and Prix Bob Morane. His website is www.smithwriter.com and he tweets at twitter.com/smithwritr.
Rosemary Claire Smith
Rosemary Claire Smith wrote the interactive fiction game, T-Rex Time Machine. Her Analog stories and editorials include a Readers’ Award finalist. She’s also sold to Fantastic Stories, Stupefying Stories, Digital SF, and anthologies.
Susan SE Smith
SP Somtow
Somtow’s first career was as an avant-garde composer, but he took a twenty year detour and published about fifty books, including science fiction, horror, fantasy and “other.” He’s known for the Inquestor series, the Mallworld stories, and his Timmy Valentine trilogy, including Vampire Junction.
Bud Sparhawk
Bud Sparhawk’s short works frequently appear in Analog, F&SF, and other print magazines. Non-Parallel Universes is a collection of his self-proclaimed “best” short stories published in the last decade. His complete bibliography can be found at: http://budsparhawk.com.
Hugh Spencer
A two-time Aurora Award loser, Hugh’s books include Extreme Dentistry and Why I Hunt Flying Saucers & Other Fantasticals.
Richard Dean Starr
Richard Dean Starr is an entrepreneur, editor, screenwriter, and author of fiction, comics, and graphic novels. He is also a former journalist and film critic who has written for newspapers and magazines.
Allen Steele
Multiple Hugo, Nebula, Locus and other Awards winning author Allen Steele has been prolific since becoming a full-time SF writer in 1988. His novels include: the Coyote Trilogy (Coyote, Coyote Rising and Coyote Frontier), Orbital Decay, Time Loves a Hero, Galaxy Blues and Arkwright.
Jean Marie Stine
Jean Marie Stine is an editor, writer, anthologist, and publisher.
Kimberly Unger
Liz Westbrook-Trenholm
Liz Westbrook-Trenholm is an Aurora Award-winning short fiction writer whose stories appeared most recently in Shades Within Us (Laksa Media), Over the Rainbow (Exile) and Tesseracts 22 (Edge).
Erin Wilcox
The poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction of Pushcart Prize nominee Erin Wilcox appears in journals, magazines, radio broadcasts, and collections. She has also been an editor for almost 20 years.
Kermit Woodall
Born to two artists, Roy and Suzy Woodall. Kermit, today, is a professional website developer, and an occasionally published writer. He once co-owned a company that produced digital special effects software for television and film. He is married to the ever-patient Shealor, has a brilliant daughter Madeline, three grandkids, and three rather silly dogs. Their son Haydn died in an auto accident in 2015.
Brianna Wu
Brianna Wu is a video game developer, blogger and podcaster.
Frank Wu
Frank Wu is a science fiction and fantasy artist and filmmaker. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist four times.
