by Anne Rice
Anderson serves as a judge in the Writers of the Future contest.
He is also participating in the The Stellar Guild series published by Phoenix Pick. The series pairs bestselling authors like Anderson with lesser known authors in science fiction and fantasy to help provide additional visibility to them.
JOHN BETANCOURT is a writer of science fiction, fantasy and mystery novels as well as short stories. He has worked as an assistant editor at Amazing Stories and editor of Horror: The Newsmagazine of the Horror Field, the revived Weird Tales magazine, the first issue of H. P. Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror (which he subsequently hired Marvin Kaye to edit), Cat Tales magazine (which he subsequently hired George H. Scithers to edit), and Adventure Tales magazine. He worked as a Senior Editor for Byron Preiss Visual Publications (1989-1996) and iBooks. He is the writer of four Star Trek novels and the new Chronicles of Amber prequel series, as well as a dozen original novels. His essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in such diverse publications as Writer's Digest, The Washington Post, and Amazing Stories.
MICHAEL DAVID BIEGEL was born in Detroit and raised in Northern New Jersey. He attended Syracuse University and spent one year after college working for a South Florida ad agency. Since 1985 he’s been working as a freelance illustrator. His client list includes The Metropolitan Opera Guild, Avon Books, Scholastic Magazine, World Hunger Year, Milton Bradley Co. and more.
Aside from illustration, music is integral in Biegel’s life, as is his commitment to family and friendships. He cannot forget the Maine coast and its calling. It is the same sound he hears in the snow covered mountains of Vermont. In one of these two places he would like to bring his crow-quill pen to settle down with and ultimately call home.
JOHN BRUNNER was a prolific British author of science fiction novels and stories. His 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar, about an overpopulated world, won the 1969 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel, and the BSFA award the same year. The Jagged Orbit won the BSFA award in 1970.
MATTHEW J. COSTELLO is the author or coauthor of numerous novels and nonfiction works. His articles have appeared in publications including the Los Angeles Times and Sports Illustrated. He scripted Trilobyte's bestselling CD-ROM interactive dramas The 7th Guest and its sequel The 11th Hour, as well as many other videogames.
Along with F. Paul Wilson, Costello created and scripted FTL Newsfeed, which ran daily on the Sci-Fi Channel from 1992-1996. His television credits also include shows on The Disney Channel, PBS, the BBC, and many others. In 2005 his novel Beneath Still Waters was adapted into a film by director Brian Yuzna.
His latest suspense novel, Nowhere, was published in 2007. Costello also wrote Island of the Skull (Pocket Books), an original prequel to Peter Jackson's film, King Kong.
Costello's work for children include the book series The Kids of Einstein Elementary, published by Scholastic, and Magic Everywhere (Random House), as well as games including Aladdin’s Mathquest (Disney), A Cartoon History of the Universe (Putnam) and two math games based on the hit PBS show Cyberchase. He is designer of role-playing and board games, including Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Batman, Lone Wolf & Cub, and many others.
Recently, Costello worked on Rage, a post-apocalyptic action-adventure game for id Software and wrote its novelisation, as well as a new game for Eidos with Neil Richards and Swedish developer Avalanche.
RICK HAUTALA is the author of nine novels, including Dark Silence, Little Brothers, Cold Whisper, and Nightstone. He has had nearly 30 short stories published in anthologies such as Night Visions 9, Cold Blood, and Stalkers, and magazines such as Cemetery Dance and Horror Show. He served one term as vice president of Horror Writers of America, and lives in southern Maine with his wife and three children.
BRIAN HODGE is the author of five novels, including Nightlife, Deathgrip, and The Darker Saints, all from Dell/Abyss. He is currently at work on his next, Prototype, a grimly existential look at psychosociochromosomal mutation. His short fiction has appeared in numerous unsavory magazines and anthologies, including Book of the Dead, Final Shadows, Under the Fang, Solved, and Borderlands 2. An avowed gothic/industrial music enthusiast, he has yet to beat an addiction to Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream. Donations are appreciated.
NINA KIRIKI HOFFMAN has been pursuing a writing career for ten years and has sold more than 80 short stories, three short story collections, a novel (The Thread that Binds the Bones), one novella (Unmasking), and one collaborative young adult novel (Child of an Ancient City with Tad Williams). So far.
GEOFFREY A. LANDIS is a Hugo and Nebula award winning writer, and also a research physicist. His first short story collection, Myths, Legends, and True History, appeared in 1991 as volume 26 of the Pulphouse Publishing Author’s Choice series. He is a scientist at the NASA Lewis Research Center, currently working on developing scientific instruments to be flown on a future probe to Mars. He is the author of over a hundred scientific papers in the fields of solar energy, semiconductor physics, and space flight, and holds a handful of patents on advanced solar cell designs.
Landis’s science fiction and poetry have appeared in most of the SF magazines and several anthologies, including the Year’s Best Science published (The Amulet, and Dark Journey) both of which will be published in Germany.
BYRON PREISS is the editor of the books The Planets, The Universe, The Microverse, and The Dinosaurs: A New Look at a Lost Era, which was featured in Life magazine. He has collaborated with Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Ray Bradbury, and edited the Grammy Award winning The Words of Gandhi. His monograph on The Art of Leo & Diane Dillon was a Hugo Award nominee. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University. He died unexpectedly in 2005.
WILLIAM RELLING JR. was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1954. Over the years, he has worked as a carnival ride operator, supermarket clerk, produce truck driver, summer camp counselor, street crew worker, busboy, janitor, purveyor of fine wines and spirits, musician, hospital orderly, patio furniture salesman, magazine editor, high school teacher, and college instructor. In 1976-77 he lived on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in western South Dakota.
Reiling moved to the Los Angeles area in 1978 (with the Colin Sphinctor Band) and has been there ever since. He has published more than a score of short stories in everything from Omni to Cavalier, as well as three novels: Bruio in 1986, New Moon in 1987, Silent Moon in 1990. In addition to working on two new novels and a short story collection, Reiling recently broke into movie writing with a screenplay adaptation of Frank Lauria’s novel Blue Limbo. He is collaborating on an original stage musical for children titled Rainbow Pie (in partnership with composer Timothy Bruneau) and a full-length play titled A Saloon at the Edge of the World (in partnership with poet Joseph Coulson). Married since 1978, he lives with his wife and son in a part of L.A. known as Silver Lake (see Jackson Browne’s first album). His heroes include Groucho Marx, Albert Schweitzer, Albert Brooks, E.B. White, Ozzie Smith, Pete Townshend, and the Lone Ranger.
ANNE RICE Anne Rice (born Howard Allen Frances O'Brien; October 4, 1941) is an American author of gothic fiction, Christian literature, and erotica. She is perhaps best known for her popular and influential series of novels, The Vampire Chronicles, revolving around the central character of Lestat. Books from The Vampire Chronicles were the subject of two film adaptations, Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles in 1994, and Queen of the Damned in 2002.
LARRY TRITTEN is a veteran free-lance writer (Scriptor horribilis). His science fiction and horror have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Amazing Stories, the Universe anthology, Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine, Pulphouse and other genre sources. Some of his other publishing credits include The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Playboy, Harper’s, Travel & Leisure, Penthouse, Spy, and Redbook.
LAWRENCE WATT-EVANS was born and raised in Massachusetts, fourth of six children, in a house full of books. He taught him
self to read at age five in order to read a comic book story called “Last of the Tree People,” and began writing his own stories a couple of years later.
Upon reaching adulthood, he began trying to sell his writing, as well as trying a few other jobs—as a locksmith, bottle-washer, ladder assembler, cattle farmer, cook, bagboy, comic book dealer, and other things.
Eventually a fantasy novel, The Lure of the Basilisk, actually sold. Several more novels and dozens of stories have now made it into print, covering a wide range of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. He’s also sold articles, poems, comic book scripts, and more, and is recognized as an expert on horror comics of the 1950s. His short story, “Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers,” won the Hugo in 1988. “The Name of Fear,” a fictional explanation of just what the connection is between the historical Dracula and vampires, appeared in The Ultimate Dracula. Award, the Chicago Foundation for Literature Award, two Nebulas, and two World Fantasy Awards.
Writing for over 35 years, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro has worked in a wide variety of genres, from science fiction to westerns, from young adult adventure to historical horror. She is the author of over 70 novels and numerous short stories. She is probably best known for her series of historical horror novels about the vampire Count Saint-Germain. She also has published numerous volumes in a popular series of channeled wisdom from the entity Michael in the Messages from Michael series.
Yarbro's contribution to the horror genre has been recognised in a variety of ways: she was named a Grand Master at the World Horror Convention in 2003, and in 2005 the International Horror Guild named her a "Living Legend." She has also received the Knightly Order of the Brasov Citadel from the Transylvanian Society of Dracula. In 2009 the Horror Writers' Association presented Yarbro with the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award. Additionally, two of her novels, The Palace (1979) and Ariosto (1980) were nominated for the World Fantasy Award, neither winning.
