KEVIN J. ANDERSON has published 130 books, 54 of which have been bestsellers. He is best known for his Star Wars, X-Files, and Dune novels; his Saga of Seven Suns series; and his humorous horror series featuring Dan Shamble, Zombie PI. Rush fans know him best for the steampunk fantasy novel Clockwork Angels, developed and written with Neil Peart, based on the Rush concept album. He and Peart adapted the novel to a full graphic novel published by BOOM! Studios with artwork by Nick Robles, and in 2015 they published an ambitious companion novel, Clockwork Lives, which expands on the characters and the world of Clockwork Angels.
Kevin has edited numerous anthologies, including the Five by Five and Blood Lite series. He and his wife, Rebecca Moesta, are the publishers of WordFire Press, with over 200 titles in print and eBook format. He also wrote and produced two prog-rock CDs based on his Terra Incognita fantasy trilogy, which were performed by Roswell Six, featuring legendary rock performers from Dream Theater, Kansas, Saga, Asia, Shadow Gallery, and Sass Jordan.
RON COLLINS is an award-winning author whose most recent publication, Saga of the God-Touched Mage, spent a couple months at the top of Amazon’s Dark Fantasy bestseller list. Ron has been a Rush fan since he was a kid playing air guitar in his basement. He has contributed nearly one hundred stories to premier science fiction and fantasy publications, including Analog, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar and Elemental Magic collections. He is a Writers of the Future prizewinner, and in 2000, CompuServe readers named his story “The Taranth Stone” their best novelette of the year. You can find his collected science fiction in Picasso’s Cat & Other Stories, and his collected fantasy in Five Magics. His website is Typosphere.com. His Twitter handle is @roncollins13.
LARRY DIXON’s thirty-two-year career in science fiction and fantasy includes novels, short stories, and nearly three hundred convention guest appearances worldwide, and he is one of the premiere black-and-white book illustrators in America. Larry’s been a firefighter, race car driver, falconer, raptor rehabber, editor, stormspotter, concept artist, mentor, and charity worker. Larry’s well-known knack with birds of prey led to his work on the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films as Weta Digital’s Great Eagles expert. Most recently, he’s done creature design for Disney. Larry Dixon is a race marshall for several high-tech international racing series, including the FIA WEC, Tudor, Lamborghini Trofeo, ALMS, and Formula 1.
DAVID FARLAND is a New York Times–bestselling author who has won numerous awards, including several Best Novel of the Year awards in fields as diverse as historical fiction, science fiction, and young adult fiction. He is the lead judge for one of the world’s largest writing contests and has helped discover and mentor such #1 New York Times bestselling authors as Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn), James Dashner (The Maze Runner), and Stephenie Meyer (Twilight). Dave has also worked as a screenwriter and movie producer. He is currently writing the final installment of his popular Runelords fantasy series, and has recently been hired to produce the first of the Runelords movies through L.A.B. Studios.
RICHARD “RICK” FOSTER retired in February 2013 after serving as chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services since 1995. Foster has testified before Congress on numerous occasions and has made more than two hundred other presentations on Medicare, Medicaid, national health insurance, and Social Security issues. Rick has received a number of awards, including the UMBC Outstanding Alumnus of the Year in 1997, the Presidential Meritorious Executive Award in 1998 from President Clinton, the Presidential Distinguished Executive Award in 2001 from President Bush, and the College of Wooster Distinguished Alumni Award in 2006. In 2007 through 2012, the readers of Modern Healthcare voted Mr. Foster one of the 100 most influential persons in health care in the U.S.
He has enjoyed forty-four years of marriage with his wife, Nancy, and they have traveled to England, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria. Rick has been a lifelong car enthusiast, and he raced with the Sports Car Club of America for ten years, winning the Mid-Atlantic Road Racing Series Championship in 1986 and 1987 in the Spec Racer class.
BRIAN HODGE is one of those people who always has to be making something. So far, he’s made ten novels and is working on three more, as well as 120 shorter works and five full-length collections. His first collection, The Convulsion Factory, was ranked by critic Stanley Wiater among the 113 best books of modern horror.
He lives in Colorado, where he also likes to make music and photographs, loves everything about organic gardening except the thieving squirrels, and trains in Krav Maga and kickboxing, which are useless against the squirrels.
Recent works include In the Negative Spaces and The Weight of the Dead, both standalone novellas; Worlds of Hurt, an omnibus edition of the first four works in his Misbegotten mythos; an updated edition of Dark Advent, his early post-apocalyptic epic; and his next collection, The Immaculate Void.
BrianHodge.net.
MERCEDES LACKEY was born in Chicago, Illinois, on June 24, 1950. The very next day, the Korean War was declared. It is hoped that there is no connection between the two events. She was raised mostly in the northwestern corner of Indiana, attending grade school and high school in Highland. She graduated from Purdue University in 1972 with a Bachelor of Science in Biology. This, she soon learned, along with a paper hat and a nametag, will qualify you to ask “Would you like fries with that?” at a variety of fast-food locations.
In 1985, her first book was published. In 1990, she met artist Larry Dixon at a small Science Fiction convention in Meridian, Mississippi, at a television interview organized by the convention. They began working together from that time on, and were married in Las Vegas at the Excalibur chapel by Merlin the Magician (a.k.a. the Reverend Duckworth) in 1992.
They moved to their current home, the “second weirdest house in Oklahoma,” also in 1992. She has many pet parrots and the house is never quiet. She is approaching one hundred books in print, and some of her foreign editions can be found in Russian, German, Czech, Polish, French, Italian, Turkish, and Japanese. She is the author, alone or in collaboration, of the Heralds of Valdemar, Elemental Masters, Secret World Chronicles, 500 Kingdoms, Diana Tregarde, Heirs of Alexandria, Obsidian Mountain, Dragon Jousters, Bedlam Bards, Shadow Grail, Dragon Prophecy, Elvenbane, Bardic Voices, SERRAted Edge, Doubled Edge (prequel to SERRAted Edge), and other series and standalone books.
Mercedes Lackey is a race marshall for several high-tech international racing series, including the FIA WEC, Tudor, Lamborghini Trofeo, ALMS, and Formula 1.
TIM LASIUTA is a Canadian writer whose first introduction to Rush came through a garbled eight-track of 2112 in a Chevy Nova. “We are the Priests . . . click . . . of the temples of Syrinx.” The rest is history, or the future.
His work can be found in the Innisfail Province, Comic Buyers’ Guide, Mad Magazine, Graphic Classics (“The Hold Up,” “Nosferatu”), and in Moonstone Books’ Zorro, Lone Ranger, Green Hornet, and Captain Midnight anthologies. He has penned Brushstrokes with Greatness: The Art of Joe Sinnott, Misadventures of a Roving Cartoonist, and Collecting Western Memorabilia with an upcoming volume for Hermes in the offing.
In addition to working as a writer, he hosted Comic Zone, an internet radio show, and is on the board of the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York.
He has been married to Karen for twenty-eight years and they have four children.
TimLasiuta.weebly.com.
FRITZ LEIBER is a classic SF and fantasy author best known for his Lovecraftian horror and his swords-and-sorcery epics, particularly the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser cycle. Some of his best known books are The Swords of Lankhmar, the science fiction disaster novel The Wanderer, the satirical A Spectre Is Haunting Texas, his late short fiction, and the fine horror novel Our Lady of Darkness. Leiber’s story “Gonna Roll the Bones” was part of the seminal science fiction anthology Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison.
Grace Under Pressure was the album that converted MARK LESLIE into a Rush fan. From there, he moved to Signals, then sequentially from the band’s first album up through every one ever since. He remembers how excited he was to discover the short story “Drumbeats” that Neil Peart and Kevin J. Anderson co-wrote in the 1990s, and which he republished in Tesseracts Sixteen: Parnassus Unbound, a collection of speculative stories inspired by art, literature, music, and culture. Mark writes Twilight Zone–style fiction, horror, and thrillers, and his first published horror story, “Phantom Mitch,” earned him Honorable Mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror. Mark’s fiction books include One Hand Screaming, Evasion, and I, Death. Mark also writes non-fiction explorations of the paranormal, the latest of which is Tomes of Terror: Haunted Bookstores & Libraries. “Some Are Born to Save the World” is Mark’s second published short story inspired by “Losing It.” Mark’s dark-humor story about a ghost who can no longer properly haunt (“Hereinafter Referred to as the Ghost”) was published in Tesseracts Seventeen in 2013.
DAVID MACK is the New York Times–bestselling author of thirty novels, including the Star Trek Destiny and Cold Equations trilogies. He developed the Star Trek Vanguard series with editor Marco Palmieri. His first original novel was the critically acclaimed supernatural thriller The Calling.
Beyond novels, Mack’s writing credits feature more than a dozen pieces of short fiction and span several media, including television (episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), film, and comic books. He also co-authored Bryan Anderson’s Iraq War memoir, No Turning Back: One Man’s Inspiring True Story of Courage, Determination, and Hope.
Mack’s latest published novels include Star Trek: Seekers #3: Long Shot and 24: Rogue, and his novelette “Hell Rode with Her” is featured in the anthology Apollo’s Daughters.
His upcoming works include the short story “The Ghost Rider” in horror and dark-fantasy anthology Out of Tune, Vol. 2; a new series of original novels set to kick off with The Midnight Front, a World War II–era fantasy adventure; and a new Star Trek novel that will be part of Pocket Books’ salute to the fiftieth anniversary of Star Trek: The Original Series.
DavidMack.pro.
JOHN MCFETRIDGE has enjoyed wide critical acclaim for his Toronto series novels. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere was named a book of the year by Quill & Quire and Tumblin’ Dice was an Amazon.ca Editors’ Pick. His new series features Constable Eddie Dougherty and is set against actual historical events in Montreal during the turbulent 1970s. The first Eddie Dougherty novel, Black Rock, was published in 2014 and the second, A Little More Free, was published in fall 2015.
John began his career in 1996 with the CBC feature-length radio drama Champions, which tells the story of Jackie Robinson breaking baseball’s color line with the Montreal Royals. John was a story editor for the CTV/CBS television show The Bridge. A graduate of Concordia University and the Canadian Film Centre, John lives in Toronto with his wife and two sons.
STEVEN SAVILE has written for Doctor Who, Torchwood, Primeval, Stargate, Warhammer, Slaine, Fireborn, Pathfinder, Arkham Horror, Rogue Angel, and other popular game and comic worlds. He won the International Media Association of Tie-In Writers Award for his novel Shadow of the Jaguar, and the inaugural Lifeboat to the Stars Award for Tau Ceti (coauthored with Kevin J. Anderson). Writing as Matt Langley, his young adult novel Black Flag is a finalist for the People’s Book Prize 2015. His latest books include Sherlock Holmes and the Murder at Sorrow’s Crown, published by Titan, Sunfail, an apocalyptic thriller published in the U.S. by Akashic Books, and Parallel Lines, a brand new crime novel coming from Titan in 2016.
BRAD R. TORGERSEN is a full-time healthcare tech geek during the day, a United States Army Reserve Chief Warrant Officer on the weekend, and an award-winning science fiction writer at night. He was a triple nominee for the Hugo, the Nebula, and the Campbell awards in 2012, and is a winner of the Writers of the Future Award, the AML Award, and is a three-time winner of the Analog magazine AnLab Readers’ Award. Married for twenty-two years, Brad resides in the Intermountain West.
GREG VAN EEKHOUT writes books and stories for ages spanning from middle-grade readers to adults. His works of science fiction and fantasy include the novels Norse Code, Kid vs. Squid, and The Boy at the End of the World. His Daniel Blackland trilogy (California Bones, Pacific Fire, and Dragon Coast) is about wizards who gain their powers by eating the bones of dragons and griffins from the La Brea Tar Pits. His work has been nominated for the Nebula, Andre Norton, and Locus awards. He has not missed a Rush tour since Power Windows. WritingAndSnacks.com. Twitter: @gregvaneekhout.
DAYTON WARD is the New York Times–bestselling author or coauthor of nearly thirty novels and novellas, often working with his best friend, Kevin Dilmore. His short fiction has appeared in more than twenty anthologies, and he’s written for magazines such as Kansas City Voices, Star Trek, and Star Trek Communicator, as well as the websites Tor.com, StarTrek.com, and Syfy.com. Until recently, Dayton was a software developer, having discovered the private sector and the perpetual fear of outsourcing after spending eleven years in the U.S. Marine Corps. When asked, he’ll tell you he joined the military soon after high school because he’d grown tired of people telling him what to do all the time. Whoops. Though Dayton lives in Kansas City with his wife and daughters, he’s a Florida native and maintains a torrid long-distance romance with his beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Visit him on the web at DaytonWard.com.
MICHAEL Z. WILLIAMSON is a longtime Rush fan, and guitarist and occasional bassist, who realized he was marginal at instruments and much better with words. He is an American who was inadvertently born a native of the U.K., which he corrected in front of a U.S. District judge right before enlisting in the USAF. Also a veteran of the U.S. Army, he mostly writes about planet-killing explosions and futuristic technoninjas, but occasionally dabbles in fantasy, satire, and contemporary action adventure. He has written fifteen books, parts of some others, and dozens of short stories and articles. His works have been nominated for several awards and translated into a few languages other than English. As a consultant, he’s worked with productions for Discovery, National Geographic, Science Channel, and the Outdoor Channel, as well as private clients and occasional government agencies. When not writing, he’s a bladesmith, gunsmith, and armorer for relaxation.
DAVID NIALL WILSON has been writing and publishing horror, dark fantasy, and science fiction since the mid-eighties. An ordained minister, once president of the Horror Writers Association, and multiple recipient of the Bram Stoker Award, his novels include Maelstrom, The Mote in Andrea’s Eye, Deep Blue, the Grails Covenant Trilogy, Star Trek Voyager: Chrysalis, “Except You Go Through Shadow,” This Is My Blood, Ancient Eyes, On the Third Day, The Orffyreus Wheel, Vintage Soul, My Soul to Keep & Others, Kali’s Tale, Heart of a Dragon, The Second Veil, The Parting, Nevermore: A Novel of Love, Loss & Edgar Allan Poe, Killer Green & Crockatiel, the newest novel in the new series OCLT. David has also coauthored the Stargate Atlantis novel Brimstone, with Patricia Lee Macomber, and Hallowed Ground, with Steven Savile. He has over 150 short stories published in anthologies, magazines, and five collections. His work has appeared in and is due out in various anthologies and magazines. David lives and loves with Patricia Lee Macomber in Hertford, NC, with their daughter Katie, and occasionally their genius college daughter Stephanie; three sons serving in the USN, Will, Zach, and Zane; their ridiculous Pekingese Gizmo; their spaz of a Cocker Spaniel, Callie; their not-so-vicious cat, Sid; a never-to-become-a-coat chinchilla named Pook Daddy; and various other creatures. David is CEO and founder of Crossroad Press, a cutting-edge digital publishing company specializing in electronic novels, collections, and non-fiction, as well as unabridged audiobooks. Visit Crossroad Press at store.crossroadpress.com.