Andrew Robinson writes animated shorts, comics, short fiction and other content for Blizzard Entertainment, one of the largest computer gaming companies in the world, supplementing and informing the universes around the games of World of Warcraft, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, and others. He has worked in film and television development and has written for over 30 series including Dragon Tales, Baby Loony Toons, two Spider-Man series, six Transformers shows, DC’s Young Justice, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He created Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters for Hasbro, and sold Faerborne to the SyFy Channel. He received an Emmy nomination for Transformers: Rescue Bots. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, two kids and two furry, whiskered murderers.

Angie Hodapp is the Director of Literary Development at Nelson Literary Agency. She holds a BA in English and secondary education from the University of Northern Colorado and an MA in English and communication development from Colorado State University. A graduate of the Publishing Institute at the University of Denver, she has worked in professional writing, editing, and education for more than twenty years. A frequent presenter at writing conferences and events, and the author of Query Craft and Do You Need a Literary Agent (plus a bunch of short stories and comic books for a couple video-game companies), she loves helping writers improve their craft and learn about the ever-changing world of publishing.

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Anne Sowards is an executive editor at Penguin Random House, where she primarily acquires and edits fantasy and science fiction for the Ace and Roc imprints. Some of the talented authors she works with include New York Times bestsellers Jim Butcher, Patricia Briggs, Jack Campbell, Rachel Caine, Anne Bishop, Taylor Anderson, Ilona Andrews, and Karen Chance.

Born in Wisconsin, Anne also lived in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Utah before settling in New York City. When she’s not reading, she listens to Kpop and spends way too much time playing video games. Follow her at http://twitter.com/AnneSowards.

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Beth Meacham has been a science fiction and fantasy editor for more than thirty years. She has worked for Ace Books, Berkley, and Tor, where she was editor-in-chief from 1985 through 1989. She now works as an Executive Editor for Tor from her home in Arizona.

Among the authors Beth has worked with are Piers Anthony, Kevin J. Anderson, Orson Scott Card, Cherie Priest, Mary Robinette Kowal, Karl Schroeder, Spencer Ellsworth, Cecelia Holland, Dean Ing, Jay Lake, Elizabeth Bear, Pat Murphy, Sarah Monette, Ken Scholes, Will Shetterly, John M. Ford, Michael Cassutt, Pat Murphy, Gordon R. Dickson, Greg Bear, Kim Stanley Robinson, Tim Powers, Mike Brotherton, William Gibson, David Brin, Pat Cadigan, Storm Constantine, Lisa Goldstein, Steven Gould, Randy Henderson, Nancy Kress, Melanie Rawn, Charles Sheffield, Judith Tarr, Jack Vance, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Jane Yolen.

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After writing for the early issues of Dragon Magazine in the 1970s Bill became one of the founders of and lead designer at Mayfair Games, a board and role play gaming company. He has continued his game design work creating a number of PC games and apps. Bill Fawcett & Associates has packaged over 350 books science fiction, fantasy, military, non-fiction, and licensed novels and series for major publishers. A packager for over 30 years, he has worked with numerous new authors who are now NY Times bestsellers and helped launched writing careers. Bill has worked with agents, on both game and media licensing and is senior staff on one of the nation’s largest conventions.

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As an author Bill has written or co-authored over a dozen books plus close to one hundred articles and short stories. The Fleet anthologies that he created with David Drake in the 80s was the first military science fiction shared world series. Bill has collaborated on several mystery novels including with Chelsea Quinn Yarbro including the Authorized Mycroft Holmes novels and the Madame Vernet Investigates mystery novels. As an anthologist Bill has edited or co-edited around 40 anthologies. Bill was the editor of Hunters and Shooters and The Teams, two oral histories of the SEALs in Vietnam.

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Among the non-fiction books Bill has written is Oval Office Oddities, thousands of odd facts, quotes, and just plain strangeness about the US Presidents, First Ladies, and White House. His other solo collections include The 100 Mistakes that Changed History and Trust Me and 100 Leadership Mistakes that Changed History.  His historical “Mistakes” series of often amused look at how the mistakes in history changed our lives include It Seemed Like a good Idea, It Looked Good On Paper (Engineering disasters) and You Did What. His military mistakes series include How To Lose A Battle, How To Lose a War, How To Lose WWII, How To Lose a War at Sea, and How To Lose the American Civil War.

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Claire Eddy is a senior editor at Tor/Forge Books and has been with the company for over 30 years. She began editing science fiction and fantasy early in her career and has worked with such authors as Jacqueline Carey, Sara Douglass and Juliet Marillier (and has just taken on New York Times bestselling author Sherrilyn Kenyon). While she still edits these genres, she has been able to indulge in some of her other passions and has over the years broadened her projects to include historicals, thrillers, and mysteries, working with such authors as Stuart Kaminsky, Bill Pronzini, Carole Nelson Douglas, and Jack Whyte.  

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She’s spent the better part of her adult life working with authors to make their stories and dreams be the best they can be, becoming that “third eye” and general nudge to accomplish this feat.

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Dan Wells is best known for his horror series I Am Not A Serial Killer, of which the first book is now an award-winning movie through IFC Midnight. His most recent work is Zero G, an Audible Original bestselling middle grade science fiction novel. His other novels include The Hollow City, Extreme Makeover, and two science fiction series: Partials and Mirador. He cohosts the Hugo-winning podcast for aspiring writers called Writing Excuses. He has written for television and the stage, he writes short fiction and game fiction, and he edited the anthology Altered Perceptions. Dan lives in northern Utah with his wife, 6 children, and more than 400 board games.

David Pomerico is the Editorial Director of Harper Voyager US, the science fiction, fantasy, and horror imprint at HarperCollins Publishers. Previously he worked as an editor at 47North and Del Rey. He’s particularly interested in stories that lean toward a commercial reader: fast-paced, action-packed, and plot-driven, but also in bringing out new and diverse voices, which is why the Voyager list has been actively adding writers like R.F. Kuang, S.A. Chakraborty, Nicky Drayden, Maggie Shen King, and Becky Chambers to provide stories that expand the science fiction and fantasy community. He’s a graduate of Binghamton University, and holds Masters degrees from Washington University in St. Louis and NYU. His office is full of toys, and while he considers himself a big nerd, he still hasn’t quite found the appeal of Doctor Who or Twin Peaks.

Executive Editor Diana Gill has edited a variety of books from science textbooks to fantasy novels. She moved to Morrow/Harper Voyager from W. H. Freeman in 1998, where she has overseen the US branch of Harper Voyager, HarperCollins’s global science fiction and fantasy imprint, for the last 11 years. She launched the careers of bestselling authors Kim Harrison, Vicki Pettersson, and Jocelynn Drake, with whom she still works. Other bestselling and acclaimed authors with whom she has worked include Jonathan Barnes, Brom, Trudi Canavan, C. Robert Cargill, Ian Douglas Richard Kadrey, Sarah Langan, Patrick Lee, Adam Mansbach, Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Mary Stewart, David Wellington and more. In 2013 she created a new advanced seminar for NYU’S MS in Publishing program on publishing and editing mystery, science fiction and fantasy, and horror. 

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Donald Maass is president of the Donald Maass Literary Agency in New York City, which he founded in 1980. His company represents more than 200 novelists and sells more than 200 novels every year to major publishers in the U.S. and overseas.

Don is the author of The Career Novelist, Writing the Breakout Novel, The Fire in Fiction, Writing 21st Century Fiction, and The Emotional Craft of Fiction. He blogs monthly about fiction craft on the popular online writers’ site Writer Unboxed.