|
Harlan Ellison
has been confirmed as a Guest of Honor. Ellison is one of the most prolific
and revered writers of our day with his work spanning the publishing,
television and film industries.
Harlan Ellison was recently characterized by The New York Times
Book Review as having “the spellbinding quality of a great nonstop
talker, with a cultural warehouse for a mind.” The Los Angeles
Times suggested, “It’s long past time for Harlan Ellison
to be awarded the title: 20th century Lewis Carroll.” And the
Washington Post Book World said simply, “One of the great living
American short story writers.”
He has written or edited 75 books; more than 1700 stories, essays, articles,
and newspaper columns; two dozen teleplays, for which he received the
Writers Guild of America most outstanding teleplay award for solo work
an unprecedented four times; and a dozen movies. He won the Mystery Writers
of America Edgar Allan Poe award twice, the Horror Writers Association
Bram Stoker award six times (including The Lifetime Achievement Award
in 1996), the Nebula three times, the Hugo 2 times, and received the Silver
Pen for Journalism from P.E.N. Not to mention The World Fantasy Award,
the British Fantasy Award, the American Mystery Award, two Audie Awards,
the Ray Bradbury Award, and a Grammy nomination for Spoken Word recordings.
Return to top
Though perhaps
best known for her recurring role as Tara on the hit television series
“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” from 1999-2001, Amber Benson
is also an accomplished film actress. She has appeared in such films as
“Imaginary Crimes,” “Bye Bye, Love,” and “The
Crush.”
In 2003, Christopher Golden and Amber Benson teamed up with the BBC and
Cosgrove Hall to create an animated horror/adventure online series called
Ghosts of Albion. Christopher and Amber created and wrote the tale,
which Amber also directed. They
followed up with “Astray,” a novella, then finalized a book
deal for a series of Ghosts of Albion novels. Amber is also the
author of “Chance,” a movie she not only wrote but starred in,
directed and produced. The movie also features fellow Buffy alumnae James
Marsters, who played Spike on the show.
Return
to top
Tom Piccirilli
is the author of 13 novels including A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN, THE NIGHT
CLASS, A LOWER DEEP, GRAVE MEN, and the forthcoming NOVEMBER MOURNS. He's
been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award and is the winner of three
Bram Stoker Awards. You can learn more about him and his work here.
Return to top
A writing teacherand
author specializing in the horror genre, Mort Castle has written
and edited fourteen books and around 500 short stories and articles. His
novels and collections include Cursed Be the Child, The Strangers,
Moon on the Water and Nations of the Living, Nations of the
Dead. He has produced an audio CD of one of his stories, Buckeye
Jim in Egypt, and is the author of the essential reference work for
aspiring horror writers, Writing Horror. Mort has won numerous
writing awards, and he has had several dozenstories cited in ìyearís bestî
compilations in the horror, suspense,fantasy, and literary fields.
Return to top
Linda Addison
has been with the writer’s group Circles In The Hair (CITH) in New
York City since 1990...out of the world forever...catching orphan stars
in raven wings...barely old enough for galaxies...one of many and the
only one to write these words, spin these dreams into a cloak of what-if
for the whirling Dancers.
She spends her days writing computer programs and nights writing such
strange things.
Linda’s poetry collection, Consumed, Reduced to Beautiful Grey
Ashes, published by Space & Time in 2001, received a Bram Stoker
Award June 8, 2002 in the Poetry Collection category.
Return to top
With more than twenty
books to his credit, Joe R. Lansdale is the champion Mojo storyteller.
He’s been called “an immense talent” by Booklist; “a
born storyteller” by Robert Bloch; and The New York Times Book
Review declares he has “a folklorist’s eye for telling detail
and a front-porch raconteur’s sense of pace.” He’s won
umpty-ump awards, including five Bram Stoker horror awards, a British
Fantasy Award, the American Mystery Award, the Horror Critics Award, the
“Shot in the Dark” International Crime Writer’s award,
the Booklist Editor’s Award, the Critic’s Choice Award, and
a New York Times Notable Book award. He’s got the most decorated
mantle in all of Nacogdoches!
Joe Lansdale lives in Nacogdoches, Texas, with his wife, Karen, writer
and editor.
Return to top
Award-winning author,
consultant, screenwriter, and creator and host of the DARK DREAMERS television
series, Stanley Wiater has been acclaimed as "the world's
leading authority on horror filmmakers and authors" (Radio/TV Interview
Report), "the master journalist of the dark genres" (World of
Fandom), and "the top horror journalist in North America for the
past twenty-five years" (Rue Morgue). His award-winning books--and
more than 700 interviews, articles, short stories, profiles, comic book
scripts, reviews, and essays--have been translated into ten languages.
Return to top
Jack Ketchum is the
pseudonym for a former actor, singer, teacher, literary agent, lumber
salesman, and soda jerk — a former flower child and baby boomer who
figures that in 1956 Elvis, dinosaurs and horror probably saved his life.
His first novel, Off Season, prompted the Village Voice to publicly scold
its publisher in print for publishing violent pornography. He personally
disagrees but is perfectly happy to let you decide for yourself. His short
story The Box won a 1994 Bram Stoker Award from the HWA and his story
Gone won again in 2000, and he has written eleven novels, the latest of
which are Red, Ladies' Night, and The Lost. His stories are collected
in The Exit At Toledo Blade Boulevard, Broken on the Wheel of Sex, and
Peaceable Kingdom.
Return to top
Allen K.
is one of the most prolific artists in his field, having published more
than 2,500 illustrations for hundreds of genre publications, including
Isaac Asimov’s SF magazine, “The Magazine of Fantasy
& SF,” “Cemetery Dance,” “Whispers,” “Fantasy
Tales,” “Weird Tales,” “The Horror Show,” “The
Robert Bloch Companion,” and many others.
Allen's art has been published since 1973, but he did not start to submit
it to the professional markets until 1982, when his first professional
sale was to Asimov's SF.
Allen is currently a member of The Association of Science Fiction and
Fantasy Artists and has won numerous awards in the past. A couple of these
include the L. Ron Hubbard Illustrators of the Future Award and for 8-10
years in a row, Allen won Best Artist and other categories for the
Small Press Writers and Artists Organization
A collection of his drawings will be published in the near future, with
an introduction by Brian Lumley. Allen is a former U.S. Marine infantryman
and a decorated Vietnam war veteran, including a Purple Heart; and he
is a rabid collector of genre books and magazines, possessing nearly 20,000
items of the sort.
He is self-taught and prefers working with pen and ink, which allows him
to create incredible detail. He has also just started to work in colors
with wondrous results. Allen is married, has two children, and lives in
Upper Darby, PA
Return to top
Thomas F.
Monteleone, who was educated by Jesuits, holds degrees in Psychology
and Literature. He has written over twenty novels. He has edited several
anthologies, including the prestigious horror and dark fantasy series,
‘Borderlands’. Monteleone is one of the founders of Borderlands
Press, which produces limited editions of high-quality works of imaginative
fiction.
A regular on the college lecture circuit, he speaks with humor and acerbity
on nearly every topic under the sun. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Return to top
Award-winning
filmmaker Mick Garris began writing fiction at the age of twelve.
By the time he was in high school, he was writing music and film journalism
for various local and national publications, and during college, edited
and published his own pop culture magazine. He spent seven years as lead
vocalist with the acclaimed tongue-in-cheek progressive art-rock band,
HORSEFEATHERS.
His first movie business job was as a receptionist for George Lucas’s
Star Wars Corporation, where he worked his way up to running the remote-controlled
R2-D2 robot at personal appearances, including that year’s Academy
Awards ceremony. Garris hosted and produced "The Fantasy Film Festival"
for nearly three years on Los Angeles television, and later began work
in film publicity at Avco Embassy and Universal Pictures. It was there
that he created "Making of…" documentaries for various
feature films.
Steven Spielberg hired Garris as story editor on the AMAZING STORIES series
for NBC, where he wrote or co-wrote 10 of the 44 episodes. Since then,
he has written or co-authored several feature films (*BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED,
THE FLY II, HOCUS POCUS, CRITTERS 2) and teleplays (QUICKSILVER HIGHWAY,
VIRTUAL OBSESSION, THE OTHERS), as well as directing and producing in
many media: cable (Showtime’s PSYCHO IV: THE BEGINNING), features
(CRITTERS 2, SLEEPWALKERS), television films (QUICKSILVER HIGHWAY, VIRTUAL
OBSESSION), series pilots (THE OTHERS, LOST IN OZ), and network miniseries
(THE STAND, THE SHINING, STEVE MARTINI’S THE JUDGE). His independent
feature film version of Stephen King’s RIDING THE BULLET, which Garris
adapted (and produced and directed) from King’s e-book phenomenon,
was released in October, 2004, and he is currently in production on DESPERATION,
which King adapted himself, and which Garris is producing and directing
as a three-hour ABC feature for television.
A LIFE IN THE CINEMA is his first book,
though he has had stories published in several magazines and anthologies.
He has recently completed his second book—and first novel—DEVELOPMENT
HELL: THE NINE LIVES OF A HOLLYWOOD PLAYER.
Garris lives in Studio City, California, with his wife, Cynthia, an actress,
musician, composer and muse.
Return to top
Tim Lebbon
– In His Own Words:
I was born in London in 1969, lived in Devon until I was eight, and the
next twenty years were spent in Newport. My wife Tracey and I then did
a Good Thing and moved back to the country, and we now live in the little
village of Goytre in Monmouthshire with our kids Ellie and Daniel. It’s
a lovely place – pub, shop, chip shop, school – and we’re
very happy here. Two minutes’ walk in any direction and we’re
in the countryside, and the area has featured, intentionally or not, in
much of my writing.
I’ve been writing ever since I can remember. The first story I recall
actually finishing was when I was nine years old. It involved a train
hijacking (yeah, a train has about ten thousand doors and is probably
the hardest moving vehicle to hijack … but I was nine years old!),
and one of the hijackers being clumsy enough to drop his gun. Naturally
my hero found the gun and went on a killing spree. Die Hard on the 10:17
from Paddington.
In my teens I began about nine million novels, and finished none of them.
They varied from World War Two action adventures to '70s style disaster
novels. Some had spooky elements, some did not, and it wasn’t until
I was twenty that I wrote my first horror story, Black Heart. I still
have it somewhere … and I suspect it will remain hidden away forever!
My first published story was in the UK indie magazine Psychotrope in 1994,
and in 1997 Tanjen published my first novel Mesmer. Since then I’ve
had a dozen books published in the UK and US by Night Shade Books, PS
Publishing, Leisure Books, Cemetery Dance and many others, with more due
soon. Check out the Bibliography section for details.
My inspirations are many and varied … Machen to Masterton, King to
Kafka, Barker to Banks, Clark to Clarke, Bradbury to Ballard, Piccirilli
to Priest … and many more which I’m sure creep in without me
noticing.
2004 will see an exciting (and daunting) changing point in my life when
writing will change from a hobby into, hopefully, a career. There’s
plenty of exciting things on the horizon – new book deals, film options
and other stuff.
Return to top
|
