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.

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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.  

‍

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.

‍

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. 

‍

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.

James Minz has been an editor in genre publishing for nearly twenty years, including as a Senior Editor with Baen Books (with previous stints at Del Rey and Tor). He has worked Catherine Asaro, Hal Duncan, Eric Flint, Terry Goodkind, Elizabeth Haydon, Nancy Kress, Elizabeth Moon, Mark Van Name, Frederik Pohl, John Ringo, Robert J. Sawyer, Travis S. Taylor, Harry Turtledove, David Weber, Jack Williamson, Gene Wolfe, and Timothy Zahn, among many, many others.

Jim is a passionate fan of football, science fiction and fantasy, and a sometimes Heisman Trophy impersonator, who has come a long way from West Bend, Wisconsin to his new post as Baen Senior Editor, with stops along the way at Bluejay Books (sort of), Tor, and Del Rey. Since he admits to being a mutant, he might have ended up with the X-Men, but he chose instead to hang out with even more bizarre beings in the world of SF and fantasy publishing, even starting his own corner of the Baen.com website, Minz’s Biergarten, which he will be operating with his own unique combination of talent and energy.

‍

Jeffery Deaver is an international number-one bestselling author. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into twenty-five languages, and several have been made into movies. The author of forty novels, three collections of short stories and a nonfiction law book, and a lyricist of a country-western album, he’s received or been shortlisted for dozens of awards. Jeff has been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention, the Strand Magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Raymond Chandler Lifetime Achievement Award in Italy. He is currently the president of the Mystery Writers of America.

‍

Joan Johnston is the top ten New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of more than 50 romance novels and novellas. She has more than 10 million copies of her books in print. Joan has a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Jacksonville University, an M.A. in Theatre from the University of Illinois, and a J.D. with honors from the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. She has been a director of theatre, drama critic, newspaper editor, college professor, and attorney on her way to becoming a full-time writer. She currently writes for an imprint at Random House.

Joan has more than 10 million books in print world-wide— including the New York Times bestsellersSISTERS FOUND, THE COWBOY, THE TEXAN, THE LONER, THE NEXT MRS. BLACKTHORNE and NO LONGER A STRANGER. THE PRICE represented a milestone in Johnston’s career as her first hardcover original.

Now the bestselling, award-winning author of fifty novels, many of which have appeared on the New York Times, USA TODAY and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists, Joan has an eclectic background. She was formerly an attorney with Hunton & Williams in Richmond, Virginia and Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Miami, Florida. Joan also worked as a newspaper editor and drama critic in San Antonio, Texas, as a director of theatre in Southwest Texas, and as a college professor, most recently at the University of Miami, Florida. Joan has a B.A. in theatre arts from Jacksonville University in Jacksonville, Florida, an M.A. in theatre from the University of Illinois in Urbana and received her J.D. with honors from the University of Texas at Austin School of Law.

‍

Jody Lynn Nye lists her main career activity as “spoiling cats.” She lives near Atlanta with three feline overlords, Athena, Minx, and Marmalade, and her husband, author and packager Bill Fawcett. She has published more than 50 books, including collaborations with Anne McCaffrey and Robert Asprin, and over 170 short stories.

Her latest books are Rhythm of the Imperium (Baen), Moon Tracks (with Travis S. Taylor, Baen), Myth-Fits (Ace), and Once More, with Feeling, a short book on revising manuscripts (WordFire). She teaches the annual Dragon Con Two-Day Writers Workshop in Atlanta, GA, and is the coordinating judge for the Writers of the Future Contest.

‍

Kate Runde is the Head of Acquisitions at Podium Audio. She has been in the author relations business for seventeen years. Prior to joining Podium, she served as the Director of Publicity for Vintage/Anchor Books at Penguin Random House, where she worked with hundreds of bestselling and award-winning authors on their communications strategies, book media campaigns, branding, and specialized, large-scale initiatives.

Kristin established Nelson Literary Agency, LLC, in 2002 and over the last two decades, she has represented over fifty-five New York Times bestselling titles and many USA Today bestsellers. Her clients include Shelby Van Pelt, Hugh Howey, Jamie Ford, Marie Lu, Stacey Lee, Ally Carter, Josh Malerman, Richard Chizmar, Swati Teerdhala, Sherry Thomas, Scott Reintgen.

Malerman’s Bird Box is a Netflix movie starring Sandra Bullock and Trevante Rhodes. In 2023, the first season released of Howey’s Silo on Apple+ TV based on his novels Wool, Shift, and Dust. Season 2 will release in fall 2024. Her goal as an agent is simple: she wants every client of hers to make a living solely from writing and 95% of her clients do just that.

She is currently looking for literary/commercial novels that tackle timely issues or complicated relationship dynamics, high concept, character-driven novels with one foot squarely in genre, absolutely delightful and emotional engaging novels that can be read over and over again, character-driven novels in the thriller, speculative or science fiction and fantasy realm, historical novels that feature a narrative voice and story that is under-represented in history, young adult novels that pack a serious or a delightful emotional punch.

When she is not busy selling books, Kristin plays tennis, pickle ball, and golf. She also enjoys playing Bridge (where she is the youngest person in her club), and can often be found hiking in the mountains with her husband.

Loren L Coleman is an author of over two dozen military science fiction and fantasy novels, with additional credits in anthologies and writing for several computer games. He is best known for his work in BattleTech, a long-standing shared universe about to see it’s fortieth anniversary, and the relaunch of The Age of Conan. Loren is also the owner/publisher of Catalyst Game Labs (as well as a handful of smaller design and development studios) which has done groundbreaking work on publishing through crowdsourcing. His handbook, Crowdfunding Your Fiction, A Best Practices Guide, continues to be a reference manual for writers entering the space.

Lucienne Diver is a literary agent with The Knight Agency with over twenty-seven years’ experience, specializing in science fiction, fantasy, mystery/suspense, romance, and young adult fiction. Her authors have been honored with the Hugo, Nebula, Prometheus, Endeavor, National Readers’ Choice, Colorado Book, and Philip K. Dick Awards, among others, and have appeared on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists. Further information is available on The Knight Agency website: www.knightagency.net, her author site: www.luciennediver.com and her blog: www.luciennediver.net. You can also follow her on Twitter @luciennediver.

‍

Mark Coker founded Smashwords in 2008 to make it fast, free and easy for any writer, anywhere in the world, to self-publish an ebook.

Today, Smashwords has grown to become the world’s largest distributor of self-published ebooks representing 120,000 authors and small independent presses around the world who publish and distribute over 400,000 books with Smashwords. Many Smashwords authors have hit the USA Today and New York Times bestseller lists. Smashwords distributes globally to major retailers and library providers including Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, OverDrive, Scribd, Gardners UK, Baker & Taylor Axis 360 and more.

Mark is the author of three free ebooks which teach ebook publishing best practices – The Smashwords Style Guide, The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide and The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success. These books have been downloaded over 800,000 times and have become essential reference guides for many of the world’s most successful authors.

Follow Mark on Twitter @markcoker. Mark blogs at http://blog.smashwords.com and is a regular contributing columnist for Publishers Weekly and Huffington Post.

‍

Paul Stevens joined the Donald Maass Literary Agency in 2016, and worked there until the end of 2022. Before that he worked as an editor for 15 years, primarily at Tor Books, where he edited science fiction, fantasy, and mystery.

Paul represented Joseph Brassey, Leigh Butler, Kat Clay, Jeremy Finley, Iain Hannay Fraser, Agnes Gomillion, Sean Grigsby, LJ Hachmeister, Alyc Helms, Leanna Renee Hieber, Kel Kade, Dan Koboldt, Michael Livingston, Elle Andrews Patt, Stephen S. Power, and Kevin Singer.

Paul is an Ohio native and a graduate of the Ohio State University. He grows carnivorous plants. You can often find him hanging about on the walls at nearby climbing gyms.

‍

Rhea Lyons is an agent at Hannigan, Salky, Getzler, looking to represent writers from a range of disciplines, from adult fiction, to popular nonfiction, to children's and young adult—anything that encourages readers to look at the world around them with fresh eyes. She loves plot-driven commercial fiction, and science fiction, female-centric horror, fantasy, and romance told in an accessible, entertaining voice, and anything with a speculative bend. She is also interested in narrative nonfiction, especially books that blend history, science, and pop culture.

Seanan McGuire is the author of more than forty traditionally published books, a fact which becomes much more impressive (and much less believable) when you factor in the part where her first book came out in 2009. Under her own name and the pseudonym “Mira Grant,” she has been translated into languages around the globe, and has won some of the highest awards in science fiction, including the Campbell, Hugo, Locus, and Nebula Awards. She lives in the Pacific Northwest, sharing her creepy murder house with an assortment of dolls, Maine Coon cats, and books. Keep up with her at seananmcguire.com.

The #1 New York Times bestselling author, Sherrilyn Kenyon, who is proud of her  mixed Cherokee heritage, lives a life of extraordinary danger… as does any woman with three sons, a husband, a menagerie of pets and a collection of swords that all of the above have a major fixation with. But when not running interference (or dashing off to the emergency room), she’s found chained to her computer where she likes to play with all her imaginary friends. With more than twenty-five million copies of her books in print, in over one hundred countries, she certainly has a lot of friends to play with too.

‍

In the past three years, her books have claimed the coveted #1 bestselling spot sixteen times. This extraordinary bestseller continues to top every genre she writes. Her current series include: The Dark-Hunters, The League, Chronicles of Nick and Beladors. Since 2004, she has placed more than 50 novels on the New York Times list in all formats including manga.

‍

Her Lords of Avalon novels have been adapted by Marvel and her Dark-Hunter novels are now a New York Times bestselling manga published by St. Martins. Coming soon in manga, the Chronicles of Nick.

‍

Steve Feldberg is VP, Audible Originals Publishing. Over the past 12 years, he has been deeply immersed in bringing great works of contemporary and classic science fiction and fantasy to audio. He has also been the driving force behind a wide range of audio-original projects written by John Scalzi, Jack Campbell, Paolo Bacigalupi, Larry Correia, and many more leading authors. Steve is especially proud that his original projects have earned the participating authors a Hugo Award plus a Hugo and a Nebula nomination.

New York Times Bestselling Author Todd J. McCaffrey — “a modern master of the craft” — has over 2.5 million words in print in 40 books including 8 in the classic Dragonriders of Pern® series, 6 in the epic space opera Canaris Rift series, 3 in the Steam World series, and two in the middle grade LA Witch series (with more to come).  Besides collaborating with the late SFWA Nebula Grandmaster, Anne McCaffrey, Todd has also collaborated with the award-winning Winner Twins, producing twenty books in the epic steampunk fantasy quick-read Twin Soul series, as well as The Magpie’s War — the first book in the Pan’s Children series.  He is the author of numerous shorter works including two collections — The One Tree Of Luna and Dare To Be Mighty. He grew up in science fiction and fantasy, earning his first typewriter when he was twelve. He holds degrees in art and engineering, is a licensed pilot, and an Army veteran.

Toni Weisskopf is an American science fiction editor and the publisher of Baen Books. She has been nominated four times for a Hugo Award. She has won the Phoenix Award, the Rebel Award, and the Neffy Award for best editor.

Tracy has worked as a supermarket stockboy, a movie projectionist, a theater manager, a glass worker, a television assistant director, and a drill press operator in a genealogy center. It was in 1981 — between jobs and wanting to buy shoes for his children — that he approached TSR about buying two of his modules . . . and ended up with a job instead. That job lead to his association with Margaret Weis and their first publication together: the Dragonlance Chronicles.

Since that time in 1985, they have jointly authored over forty book titles. Tracy’s first two solo novels, “Requiem of Stars” and “The Immortals” were published in the spring of 1996.

More recently, Tracy and his wife Laura have been able to fulfill a long-time dream; they once again are writing together. Their first joint novel, MYSTIC WARRIOR, was published in 2004 and they look forward to a long and exciting career together.

Tracy & Laura Hickman began teaching seminars and workshops on creative writing at the Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers conference at Brigham Young University. In 2010, they began offering their writing course online at their Scribe’s Forge website. Their course includes both online download course materials as well as live video webinars with Tracy personally conducting the sessions.

‍

Vaughne Hansen was an early reader, reading her first books before attending pre-school. From the start, fantasy and science fiction were, in her mind, what constituted "real books." After receiving her BA in Classical Language and Literature, Vaughne enjoyed exploring different avenues before going to work for Virginia Kidd in 1989.  

Over the years she and her colleagues have worked with some of the most interesting authors in the field including, Kage Baker, Ted Chiang, Alan Dean Foster, Ursula K. Le Guin, Anne McCaffrey, and Gene Wolfe. Her favorite parts about being an agent are being able to read the works of her favorite authors before they are published and getting down to the nitty-gritty during contract negotiations. She is delighted to be able to be working with Christine Cohen and Will Reeve on the ongoing preservation of Virginia Kidd's legacy of the Virginia Kidd Agency, continuing the tradition of representing quality fiction.  The Agency is still located at Arrowhead, the house in which Virginia Kidd and James Blish lived and worked in Milford PA.  Arrowhead is now owned by the National Park Service and supported by the Arrowhead Science Fiction Foundation and the Virginia Kidd Agency.

‍

Victoria Gerken is a publishing industry veteran having worked in various jobs at Alfred A. Knopf (Random House, Inc) and is now the Publisher at Podium Audio.

‍