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Note: Except as otherwise indicated, the information in these captions is current as of the opening of Noreascon 4, September 2004.
R. A. Lafferty (1914–2002) took up writing in his forties and formally retired when he reached 70, though manuscripts begun in earlier years continued to appear.  He paid little attention to commercial saleability or standard genre boundaries.  His eccentric approach to his material, stylistic flamboyance and traditionalist Roman Catholicism limited his audience, but his work has earned a high reputation among readers who have taken the trouble to master it.  He has been compared to the New Wave of the 1960’s in form and to G. K. Chesterton in content.  His first SF story was “Day of the Glacier” (Original Science Fiction Stories, 1960).  Over the next few years his unique voice emerged in such works as his Nebula-nominated stories “Slow Tuesday Night” (1965), “In Our Block” (1965), “Continued on Next Rock” (1970) and “Entire and Perfect Chrysolite” (1970) and his Hugo-winning short story “Euremia’s Dam” (1972).  Several collections of his short fiction have been published, including Nine Hundred Grandmothers (1970), Strange Doings (1972), Does Anyone Else Have Something Further to Add? (1974), Ringing Changes (1979, first published in Dutch!), Golden Gate and Other Stories (1982), Through Elegant Eyes (1983) and Lafferty in Orbit (1991).  His first novel was Past Master (1968), in which Sir Thomas More finds himself transported to a world that has modeled its society on his Utopia.  He wrote about 20 further novels, most of them with equally outré premises.  Among the more notable are Space Chantey (1968; Homer transfigured into space opera), the Nebula-nominated Fourth Mansions (1969), The Devil Is Dead (1971), Apocalypses (1977) and Annals of Klepsis (1983).  He received the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990.
Jay Lake began publishing professionally in 2001, with “The Courtesy of Guests”, and already has nearly 50 stories in print, including one of the 2004 Hugo Award nominees for Best Novelette, “Into the Sweet Gardens of Night”.  Some of them are collected in Greetings from Lake Wu (2003, with illustrations by Frank Wu – hence the title).  He also co-edits Polyphony, a semi-annual small press anthology series, now in its third volume.  He won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2004.
Lissanne Lake is a freelance illustrator with over 80 book covers to her credit for Doubleday, Harper Prism, TSR, Wizards of the Coast and other publishers.  She has furnished artwork for some 300 cards in half a dozen collectible card games, including Legend of the Five Rings, Doomtown, Rage, Middle Earth, Mythos, Legend of the Burning Sands and Galactic Empires.  She also illustrated The Buckland Romani Tarot Deck: In the Gypsy Tradition (2000).
Geoffrey A. Landis is a NASA scientist with over 240 papers in the fields of photovoltaics and astronautics to his credit.  His first story, “Elemental” (Analog, 1984), was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novella.  He has since published about 60 works of short fiction, one novel and a poetry collection, garnering a total of six Hugo and six Nebula Award nominations.  “A Walk in the Sun” (1991) and “Falling onto Mars” (2002) won Hugo Awards for Best Short Story.  His novel Mars Crossing (2000) was a Nebula Best Novel nominee.  Some of his shorter works are available in Myths, Legends & True History (1991) and Impact Parameter (2001).
Jody A. Lee became a professional artist in 1981, following her graduation from the Academy of Art College with a degree in Illustration.  She has painted book covers for most of the major SF publishers but now is most closely associated with DAW Books.  She has also illustrated children’s books by, among others, Lloyd Alexander and Madeleine L’Engle.  She has received 11 Chesley Award nominations and won the award for Best Paperback Cover in 1988.  Fine art prints of her work are available through Firebird Arts & Music.
Sharon Lee began selling stories in 1980, but the greatest part of her work has consisted of the Liaden Universe series, a collaboration with Steve Miller.  This space opera setting was introduced in Agent of Change (1988) and has now reached its ninth volume, Balance of Trade (2004).  The co-authors have also set a large number of short stories in the same venue, have written three non-Liaden novels, one of which, The Tomorrow Log (2003), is intended as the beginning of a new sequence, and edited an anthology, Low Port (2003).  Separately, she has published a mystery novel and served as president of the Science Fiction Writers of America.
Steve Leialoha is a comics artist who has contributed as a writer, inker and penciller to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman epic, Chronos, Spiderman, Howard the Duck, Dr. Strange, Warlock, Armageddon, Action Comics and Spider Woman, as well as to independent and underground titles.  He illustrated the graphic novel version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1997).
Fritz Leiber (1910–1992) was the son of a leading Shakespearean actor and silent movie star and himself worked as an actor and drama teacher for several years.  His first story, “Two Sought Adventure” (1939), introduced his most memorable characters, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, whose adventures in the city of Lankhmar and its environs he chronicled for over 50 years.  Beginning as sword-and-sorcery (a term that Leiber coined), the series gained subtlety, depth and humor as it went on.  The final volume, The Knight and Knave of Swords (1988), is regarded by some critics as the best heroic fantasy of all time.  “Ill Met in Lankhmar” (1970) won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novella.  His range extended far beyond Lankhmar, however.  His fantasies in contemporary settings, such as Conjure Wife (novella, 1943; expanded into a novel, 1953), “The Man Who Made Friends With Electricity” (1962) and Our Lady of Darkness (1977), were precursors of urban fantasy.  His first substantial science fiction work was Gather, Darkness (1943), in which rebels against a future tyranny disguise superscience as magic.  Two other SF novels, The Big Time (1958) and The Wanderer (1964), won the Hugo Award for Best Novel.  In all, he gained 12 Hugo and ten Nebula Award nominations, winning six Hugos and three Nebulas.  He also received a Special Hugo Award for the use of science fiction in advertising (1962), the Gandalf Grand Master Award (1975) and the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award (1976).  He was Author Guest of Honor at the 1951 and 1979 World Science Fiction Conventions.
Justin Leiber is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Houston specializing in the philosophy of mind.  His academic work includes such titles as Structuralism: Skepticism and Mind in the Psychological Sciences (1978), Can Animals and Machines Be Persons: A Dialogue (1986), An Invitation to Cognitive Science (1991) and Paradoxes (1993).  He is also the son of Fritz Leiber and has taken after his father by writing five novels.  The Sword and the Tower and The Sword and the Eye (both 1985) are fantasy, while Beyond Rejection (1980), Beyond Humanity (1987) and Beyond Gravity (1989) are science fiction explorations of the problems of identity and different modes of intelligence.
Jonathan Lethem published his first story, “The Cave Beneath the Falls”, in 1989.  “The Happy Man” (1991) was a nominee for the Nebula Award for Best Novelette.  His debut novel, Gun, With Occasional Music (1994), a blend of Dashiell Hammett and near-future paranoia, gained another Nebula nomination.  His later SF/noir novels include Amnesia Moon (1995), As She Climbed Across the Table (1997) and Girl in Landscape (1998).  His recent books, such as Motherless Brooklyn (1999) and The Fortress of Solitude (2003), are mainstream fiction, albeit highly original.  A collection of his short fiction, The Wall of the Sky, The Wall of the Eye (1996), received a World Fantasy Award.  Another story collection, Men and Cartoons, appeared in 2004.  The Disappointment Artist (2005) assembles his essays on popular culture and a memoir of his unconventional upbringing. [Updated, 8/1/05]
David D. Levine is a software engineer who sold his first story, “Wind from a Dying Star”, in 2001 and has since published about 20 more, gaining nominations for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2003 and this year.  His short story “The Tale of the Golden Eagle” is on this year’s Hugo Award ballot.  He also co-publishes, with Kate Yule, the well-known fanzine Bento.
Paul Levinson is Professor of Communications and Media Studies at Fordham University and the author of seven nonfiction books, including Digital McLuhan (1999), which was awarded the Lewis Mumford Award for Outstanding Scholarship.  He has been writing science fiction since 1991 and served a term as president of the Science Fiction Writers of America.  His novelettes “The Chronology Protection Case” (1995) and “The Copyright Notice Case” (1996) were Nebula Award nominees, while “Loose Ends” (1997) was nominated for the Hugo and Nebula Best Novella Awards.  His debut novel was The Silk Code (1999), a biological science fiction mystery featuring forensic scientist Phil D’Amato.  D’Amato reappears in The Consciousness Plague (2002) and The Pixel Eye (2003).  Borrowed Tides (2001) takes a different tack, set on a starship on a one-way voyage to Alpha Centauri.  His next novel, The Plot to Save Socrates, is scheduled for publication next year.
Shariann Lewitt started publishing SF with “St. Joey in Action” (Perpetual Light, 1982).  She wrote a fantasy novel, First and Final Rites (1984), before plunging into military science fiction, which gradually became heavily tinged with, or superseded by, cyberpunk.  Among her novels of this period, written under the name “S. N. Lewitt”, were Angel at Apogee (1987; the space pilot heroine finds herself sympathizing with rebels against her dictatorial father), Cyberstealth (1989), Blind Justice (1991), Cybernetic Jungle (1992) and Songs of Chaos (1993).  In Memento Mori (1995), she moved in new directions, examining the impact of a self-imposed quarantine on a highly cultured space colony. Interface Masque (1997) involved an alien plot to take over the Internet.  Her latest novel is Rebel Sutra (2000), about a world whose aristocracy maintains its position through genetic manipulation.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg sold her first story, “Operation High Time”, in 1969.  She concentrated primarily on Star Trek fan fiction for several years and was the founder of the Star Trek Welcommittee.  Her history of early Trek fandom, Star Trek Lives! (1975, with Sandra Marshak and Joan Winston) is a minor classic.  Her first professional novel was House of Zeor (1974), which introduced the Sime-Gen universe, locus of much of her later fiction.  The Simes and Gens are mutated human subspecies; the former feeds on the life force of the latter.  A second series, which began with Molt Brother (1982), traces the symbiosis between humans and an intelligent reptilian species.  The Dushau trilogy (Dushau (1985), Farfetch (1985), Outreach (1986)) depicts a multi-species revolt against a despotic galactic empire.  Her stories are notable for their portrayal of intense relationships across species lines, a characteristic that has won her a loyal readership.  She has recently been at work on a history of the tarot deck, the first installment of which was Never Cross a Palm with Silver (1997).
Jane M. Lindskold and Roger Zelazny became pen pals while she was finishing her Ph.D. in English literature.  Her friendship with the famous author encouraged her to pursue her long-deferred dream of becoming a writer herself.  She began selling short stories in 1990.  Her first novel, Brother to Dreams, Companion to Owls (1994) was an urban fantasy whose autistic heroine has the ability to communicate with inanimate objects.  Her second book, Marks of Our Brothers (1995), was a science fiction tale of first contact with inscrutable aliens.  She completed two manuscripts left behind by Roger Zelazny, published as Donnerjack (1997) and Lord Demon (1999), and wrote a biography of Zelazny for the Twayne’s United States Authors series.  Her Firekeeper fantasy novels (Through Wolf’s Eyes (2001), Wolf’s Head, Wolf’s Heart (2002), The Dragon of Despair (2003), Wolf Captured (2004), Wolf Hunting (2006)) follow the adventures of a girl raised by magically enhanced wolves.  Independent of that series is The Buried Pyramid (2004), an historical fantasy set in Victorian era Egypt. [Updated, 3/12/06]
Barry B. Longyear ran a printing company before breaking into SF in 1978.  His first sale was “The Tryouts” (Asimov’s), but the story that instantly made his reputation was the classic “Enemy Mine” (Asimov’s, 1979), which won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novella.  He received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1980 and Hugo Best Novelette nominations for “Homecoming” (1979) and “Savage Planet” (1980).  His first book, Circus World (1980), consisted of linked stories set on a planet settled by a circus troupe.  He continued that series in two novels, City of Baraboo (1980) and Elephant Song (1981).  Much of his other early short fiction was collected in Manifest Destiny (1980) and It Came From Schenectady (1984).  His writing then suffered a hiatus caused by medical problems (fictionally recounted in the non-SF Saint Mary Blue (1988)).  He returned to literary activity with The Tomorrow Testament (1983), a sequel to Enemy Mine.  His later SF works include Sea of Glass (1987; the story of an illegal child in a world obsessed with the menace of overpopulation), Naked Came the Robot (1988), The God Box (1989), The Last Enemy (1997) and the story collection The Enemy Papers (1998).  In recent years, he has devoted much of his time to writers’ workshops and an on-line seminar for aspiring authors.  He was Toastmaster of the 1984 World Science Fiction Convention.
Jean Lorrah combines an academic career with her avocation of writing science fiction, horror and historical fantasy novels.  Most of her books fall into two series: Savage Empire, set in a fantasy realm modeled on the late Roman Empire, and Sime-Gen, a large-scale future history that begins after a biological catastrophe splits humanity into mutually hostile sub-species.  Savage Empire began with the novel of that name (1981) and continued for seven volumes through Empress Unborn (1988).  The first five have been combined and reprinted in Savage Empire: Dark Moon Rising (2004) and Savage Empire: Prophecies (2004).  Her contribution to the Sime-Gen universe (created by Jacqueline Lichtenberg) began with her debut novel, First Channel (1980, with Lichtenberg).  Three of the novels are collected in Sime-Gen: The Unity Trilogy (2003).  Among her other works are several Star Trek: The Next Generation tie-ins, two children’s fantasies based on the legend of the Loch Ness monster, and a vampire novel, Blood Will Tell (2001), which won the Lord Ruthven Assembly’s Best Novel Award.
Brian Lumley was stirred in his teens by enthusiasm for H. P. Lovecraft and wrote stories for Arkham House’s house organ, The Arkham Collector.  He did not, however, pursue a literary career until after his retirement from the British Army, in which he served for 22 years as a military policeman.  His early, Lovecraft-inspired stories were collected in his first book, The Caller of the Black (1971).  His first pair of novels, Beneath the Moors and The Borrowers (both 1974), were likewise set in the Cthulhu Mythos, which they reinterpreted by anthropomorphizing the contending forces of Order and Chaos.  He continued this development in his occult detective stories featuring Titus Crow, beginning with The Transition of Titus Crow (1975).  An omnibus volume, The Compleat Crow, was published in 1987.  His non-Crow works include fantastic historical fiction (Khai of Ancient Khem (1981; reissued in 2004 as Khai of Khem), sword-and-sorcery in a Lovecraftian setting (e. g., Hero of Dreams (1986) and Elysia: The Coming of Cthulhu (1989)), tales of supernatural conflict (e. g., the Psychomech trilogy (1984-85) and Demogorgon (1987; Satan’s offspring struggles to escape from paternal influence), and meldings of horror with espionage (the Necroscope and Vampire World series).  His copious short fiction, which mines traditional and nontraditional horror themes, is reprinted in Fruiting Bodies and Other Fungi (1993), Brian Lumley’s Mythos Omnibus (1997), The Whisperer and Other Voices (2001), Beneath the Moons and Darker Places (2002) and other collections, the most recent being Brian Lumley’s Freaks (2005).  Necroscope Avengers (2002) and a short fiction collection, Harry Keogh: Necroscope and Other Heroes! (2003), bring the Necroscope series to a conclusion after 14 volumes.  A useful reference for his fans is The Brian Lumley Companion (2003, with Stanley Wiater). [Updated, 8/1/06]
Carl Lundgren is a self-taught artist who got his professional start creating posters for rock-and-roll bands of the Sixties.  In the 1970’s he became a leading SF artist, painting over 300 book covers.  He was nominated for the Best Professional Artist Hugo Award in 1982.  Shortly thereafter, he gave up commercial work to concentrate on fine art.  He has been nominated for 12 Chesley Awards and has won four times.  His Carl Lundgren Art Studios sells prints of his paintings, poster reproductions and notecards.  He also accepts commissions for original oil paintings.  His autobiography bears the tongue-in-cheek, but accurate, title Carl Lundgren, Great Artist (1993).
James D. Macdonald earned a degree in Medieval Studies and served as an enlisted man and officer in the U.S. Navy before settling down to write science fiction.  He has written over 50 novels, most in collaboration with Debra Doyle, either under their own names or as “Robyn Tallis” or “Nicholas Adams”.  Their best known series is Mage Worlds, which mixes SF and fantasy in a saga about the reunification of a magically sundered galaxy.  The sequence began with The Price of the Stars (1992) and has continued through A Working of Stars (2002).  Much of his work, such as the Circle of Magic (with Doyle) and Horror High (as “Nicholas Adams”) series, is for young adults.
Loren J. MacGregor is a long-time California, Ohio (by correspondence) and Pacific Northwest fan, currently residing in Eugene, Oregon.  He was publisher and editor, with John D. Berry, of the Pacific Northwest Review of Books, a literary periodical with strong fannish roots, and pubbed the fanzines Talking Stock and Quota.  His book reviews have appeared in The New York Review of Science Fiction and area newspapers.  In 1987 he published The Net, a space opera centered on the rivalries of two interstellar merchant families, featuring body-change technology and an early vision of the Internet.
Don Maitz has been one of the masters of science fiction and fantasy art for over 25 years.  He got his start in the field with a black-and-white illo for an ad in Marvel Comics’ Kull and the Barbarians.  In 1981, he was first nominated for the Best Professional Artist Hugo Award in 1981 and has gained 20 nominations since then, winning the accolade in 1990 and 1993.  He also won the Best Original Artwork Hugo Award in 1990.  His fellow artists have honored him with 28 Chesley Award nominations and ten awards.  In addition to his numerous book covers, he produces limited edition prints, magazine illustrations, trading cards, record album and compact disk covers, posters, collectors’ plates and computer screen savers.  Outside the SF field, he is known for creating the eponym of Captain Morgan Spiced Rum.  His work has been described as “distinctive for its strong draftsmanship and rich color.  His compositions are bold and simple, usually featuring a single figure or small group in an ornate, atmospheric setting, often with a touch of sly humor”.  Two collections of his paintings have appeared: First Maitz: Selected Works by Don Maitz (1989) and Dreamquests: The Art of Don Maitz (1993).  He was Artist Guest of Honor at the 1997 World Science Fiction Convention.
Lydia Marano and Arthur Byron Cover co-founded Dangerous Visions, long one of Southern California’s preeminent SF bookstores (now converted to Web-only operations) in 1981.  In 1999 they branched out by starting Babbage Press, which brings SF, fantasy and horror classics back into print.  Authors published to date include James P. Blaylock, George R. R. Martin, Michael Reaves, S. P. Somtow and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro.  Among the press’s books was David Schow’s essay collection Wild Hairs, which won the International Horror Guild Award for Best Non-Fiction Book in 2001.  In addition to her bookselling and publishing labors, she has written two young adult mystery novels and worked on animation scripts for Disney and other studios.
Louise Marley is a classical singer who has performed with the Seattle Opera and gives regular recitals.  She also writes science fiction, much of it, oddly enough, centered on the future of music.  After graduating from Clarion West in 1993, she published her first novel, Sing the Light, in 1995.  Its psionic singers reappeared in Sing the Warmth (1996) and Receive the Gift (1997).  Her next book, The Terrorists of Irustan (1999), was very different, telling of a struggle for women’s rights on a harsh desert planet.  Her subsequent novels form a varied group: The Glass Harmonica (2001), set in the 18th and the 21st Centuries with a musical connection between, The Maquisarde (2002), in which a privileged near-future Parisienne becomes an underground fighter against an oppressive regime, and The Child Goddess (2004), whose young heroine may hold the secret of eternal life.
George R. R. Martin began his professional SF career in 1971 with “The Hero” (Galaxy).  In 1974, he won his first Hugo Award for “A Song for Lya”, whose heroine is a human convert to an alien, biologically grounded religion.  Many more honors have followed, including 15 Hugo and 13 Nebula Award nominations, with victories for “Sandkings” (1979, Hugo and Nebula Best Novelette), “The Way of Cross and Dragon” (1979, Hugo Best Short Story) and “Portraits of His Children” (1985, Nebula Best Novelette).  “The Pear-Shaped Man” (1987) won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novelette.  His novels have been various and versatile.  Dying of the Light (1977) takes place on a planet whose highly elliptical orbit takes it near its sun for a brief festival before heading back to darkness.  Windhaven (1982, with Lisa Tuttle) features humans who fly on artificial wings.  Fevre Dream (1982) brings new life (or unlife) to the vampire genre.  The Armageddon Rag (1982) is an apocalyptic (literally) take on the Sixties counterculture.  Tuf Voyaging (1986) combines ecological puzzles and a decaying galactic empire.  His short fiction is collected in GRRM: A Rretrospective (2003).  After a long period during which his attention turned to screenwriting (most conspicuously the TV series Beauty and the Beast) and editing (the Wild Cards series of shared-world superhero anthologies and the New Voices anthologies of work by new writers), he embarked on his largest literary enterprise to date, the multi-volume high fantasy novel Song of Fire and Ice.  The first three parts (A Game of Thrones (1996), A Clash of Kings (1998), A Storm of Swords (2000)) were each nominated for the Hugo, the Nebula or both.  The fourth, A Feast for Crows, appeared in 2005.  Finally, in addition to everything else, George is the founder of the Hugo Losers’ Party, one of the World Science Fiction Convention’s proudest and most lively traditions.  He was Author Guest of Honor at the 2003 World Science Fiction Convention. [Updated, 3/12/06]
Richard Matheson broke into SF with one of the most powerful debut stories ever, “Born of Man and Woman” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, 1950), told in first person pidgin English by a mutant child.  Editor Anthony Boucher initially assumed that the author had to be some famous mainstream litterateur “slumming” under a pseudonym.  Matheson soon produced more tales of equally high caliber, which were collected in Born of Man and Woman and Other Stories (1954).  In the same year, he published his first SF novel, I Am Legend, whose hero is the only human immune to a plague of vampirism.  His second novel, The Shrinking Man (1956), was made into the classic movie The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), for which he wrote the screenplay.  The film won the 1958 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and was the beginning of a fruitful screenwriting career, which included scripts for The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Rod Serling’s Night Gallery and many made-for-TV movies, among which was Duel (1971), Stephen Spielberg’s first significant film.  Hollywood did not distract him, fortunately, from writing fiction, and he is widely considered one of the major figures in modern fantasy and horror.  Among his notable works are Hell House (1971), Bid Time Return (1975; winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel and basis for the movie Somewhere in Time, for which he wrote the screenplay), What Dreams May Come (1978) and Earthbound (1982).  Richard Matheson: Collected Stories (1989), assembling 86 pieces published between 1950 and 1971, won both the World Fantasy and Bram Stoker Awards for Best Collection.  The first two volumes of an expanded, three-volume edition were published in 2003 and 2005.  His latest novels are Come Fygures, Come Shadowes (2003) and Woman (2005), whose premise is that the sexes can literally no longer co-exist.  He was Author Guest of Honor at the 1958 World Science Fiction Convention and received the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984. [Updated, 8/1/05]
Richard Christian Matheson has worked primarily as a film and television scriptwriter and producer but has also written fantasy and horror fiction.  His first story was “Graduation” (Whispers, 1977).  His novel Created By (1993) was a Bram Stoker Best First Novel nominee.  Several collections of his short stories have appeared, the most recent being Dystopia: Collected Stories (2000).  He occasionally collaborates with his father, Richard Matheson.  Pride (2002) is a chapbook showing the details of how two authors work together on a short story.
David Mattingly began painting and drawing as a child, under the influence of comic books and Edgar Rice Burroughs.  Grown up and with a degree from the Colorado Institute of Art in hand, he went to work for Disney Studios, ultimately become head of the matte department.  Movies in which he had a hand included Tron, The Black Hole, Dick Tracy, The Stand and many others.  While at Disney, he began freelancing his art work.  His first assignment was the album illustration for The Commodores’ Greatest Hits, and his first SF book cover was for Christopher Stasheff’s A Wizard in Bedlam (1979 ).  In 1983 he moved to New York to work full time as an artist and illustrator.  He has created over 500 book covers, working for all of the major science fiction and fantasy publishers and winning multiple awards, including two Magazine and Booksellers “Best Cover of the Year” awards and a Chesley Award for Best Cover Illustration (1992).  He has been nominated for Chesleys seven times.  During the last ten years, he has made extensive and innovative use of digital techniques.  The Encyclopedia of Fantasy describes his work as displaying “a richly embellished and brightly colored painting style; he is particularly adept at representing surface textures and intricate incidental detail”.  Examples can be found in Alternative Views, Alternative Universes: The Art of David B. Mattingly (1996).
Anne McCaffrey published her first story, “Freedom of the Race”, in 1953 but was only intermittently active as a writer until her debut novel, Restoree, appeared in 1967.  The same year saw “Weyr Search”, followed the next year by “Dragon Rider”.  The two, one a Hugo and the other a Nebula Award winner, formed the torso of Dragonflight (1968), the opening volume of the vastly popular and influential Pern series.  Set on a long-isolated colony of Earth, the Pern books are technically science fiction (all of the apparent magic has a scientific rationale) but have the flavor of fantasy.  Dragonflight and its sequel Dragonquest (1971) are discrete stories.  With The White Dragon (1978), the series became an open-ended saga.  There have been about 15 further volumes, including the young adult Harper Hall trilogy, and board game, computer game, art work, calendar, cookbook and other spinoffs.  The latest volume is Dragon’s Kin (2003, with her son, Todd J. McCaffrey).  Pern is far from being McCaffrey’s only interest.  She has written or co-written about 70 novels and 65 short stories.  A few of the more notable are Decision at Doona (1967), To Ride Pegasus (1973), Dinosaur Planet (1977), The Ship Who Sang (1979), The Crystal Singer (1982), Killashandra (1985) and The Rowan (1990).  Her most recent solo novel is Freedom’s Ransom (2002), the fourth volume in a space operatic series that began with Freedom’s Landing (1995).  She has frequently collaborated with other authors, among them Elizabeth Ann Scarborough (the Acorna series), Elizabeth Moon (Sassinak (1990) et al.) and Jody Lynn Nye (The Death of Sleep (1990) et al.).  She won the Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy Award in 1979 and was Author Guest of Honor at the 1994 World Science Fiction Convention.
Shawna McCarthy is an editor and agent.  She got her start in 1983 at Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, then became an editor at Bantam Books.  She was a founding editor of the Full Spectrum original anthology series in 1989.  Since 1994 she has edited the magazine Realms of Fantasy.  She has been nominated three times for the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor, winning in 1984.  Her work as a literary agent is carried on through The McCarthy Agency, which she founded in 1999.
Ashley McConnell began her career with two horror novels, Unearthed (1991), which was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel, and Days of the Dead (1992), then wrote five Quantum Leap tie-ins, becoming perhaps the most popular author in that niche.  She has also written books based on Highlander, Stargate and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Independently of television, she published the Demon Wars trilogy: The Fountains of Mirlacca (1995), The Itinerant Exorcist (1996) and The Courts of Sorcery (1996).  Her most recent novels are the Buffy-based These Our Actors (2002, with Dori Kogler) and a young adult Angel tie-in, Book of the Dead (2004).
Maureen F. McHugh sold her first, pseudonymous story (“All in a Day’s Work”, Twilight Zone Magazine) in 1988, then published half a dozen stories under her own name before shooting to prominence in 1992 with China Mountain Zhang (winner of the Tiptree Award) and the novella “Protection”, both of which were nominated for the Hugo and Nebula Awards.  She has followed up with three more novels, Half the Day Is Night (1994), Mission Child (1998, Nebula nominee) and Nekropolis (2002).  “The Lincoln Train” (1995) won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story and was nominated for the Nebula.  She received additional Hugo nominations for “The Cost To Be Wise” (199, Best Novella; also nominated for the Nebula) and “Presence” (2002, Best Novelette) and Nebula nominations for “Nekropolis” (1994, Best Novelette) and “Virtual Love” (1994, Best Short Story).  Thirteen of her short stories are collected in Mothers and Other Monsters (2005). [Updated, 8/1/05]
Dennis L. McKiernan was a Bell Laboratories engineer for three decades, working on missile defense systems and other high-tech projects.  While recuperating from a dirt bike accident, he wrote two multi-volume novels, which were published a few years later as The Iron Tower (1985) and The Silver Call (1987).  He now has 15 novels and story collections to his credit, of which the most popular are his Tales of Mithgar series, which began with The Eye of the Hunter (1992).  The series nominally concluded with Silver Wolf, Black Falcon (2000) but has been newly augmented by Red Slippers: More Tales of Mithgar (2004), a short story collection designed to “tie up loose ends”.  His most recent non-Mithgar book is Once Upon a Winter’s Night (2001), an exuberant retelling of the fairy tale “East of the Sun, West of the Moon”.
Patricia McKillip considered becoming a concert pianist before going into full-time writing, which she sees as an excuse for extended daydreaming.  Her first novel, The House on Parchment Street (1973), was for children.  Her next few books were also nominal juveniles but attracted an adult audience.  The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (1974) won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.  She has since written more than 20 other novels, almost all of them high fantasy.  Among the best known are The Riddle-Master of Hed (1976), Harpist in the Wind (1979; nominated for the Hugo Award), Nebula Best Novel nominees Winter Rose (1996; set in the contemporary world) and The Tower at Stony Wood (2001), Ombria in Shadow (2002; winner of the World Fantasy Award), In the Forests of Serre (2003), Alphabet of Thorn (2004) and Od Magic (2005).  Her short fiction is collected in Harrowing the Dragon (2005).  Her latest novel is Solstice Wood (2006), a sequel to Winter Rose. [Updated, 3/12/06]
Donna McMahon is a long-time Canadian fan and convention organizer who received an Aurora Award in 2002 for her on-line book reviewing.  In 2001, she published her first novel, Dance of Knives, set in a bleak, gang-ridden 22nd Century Vancouver.  A sequel, Second Childhood, is forthcoming.
Norma McPhee has a certificate in Early Education and works as a nanny to support her writing habit.  She has published two novels, Into the Fire (2001) and Walls of Ice (2004), that combine romance with space opera.  The former was a Romantic Times Magazine “top pick”.
Beth Meacham joined Ace Books as an editor in 1981 after co-authoring a novel (Nightshade, 1976, with Tappan King), reviewing for SF Review Monthly and working as a freelance editor.  In 1984, she became senior editor of the Tor Books science fiction line.  She later served as editor-in-chief for several years.  Since 1989 she has been executive editor.  She has edited books by a host of major names in the field, including Piers Anthony, Greg Bear, Orson Scott Card, Gordon R. Dickson, Tim Powers, Mike Resnick, Kim Stanley Robinson, S. P. Somtow, Jack Vance, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Jane Yolen.  Outside her work for publishing houses, she edited Terry’s Universe (1988), a collection of original stories in memory of Terry Carr, publishes occasional stories in anthologies and has co-authored four nonfiction books: Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials (1979), A Reader’s Guide to Science Fiction (1979), Di Fate’s Catalogue of Science Fiction Hardware (1980) and A Reader’s Guide to Fantasy (1982; nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Nonfiction Book).  She was a nominee for the Best Professional Editor Hugo Award in 1990 and 1993.
Shirley Meier co-authored the Fifth Millennium series with S. M. Stirling.  The five novels in the sequence, set in a fantasy world 5,000 years after a holocaust, are The Sharpest Edge (1986), The Cage (1989), Shadow’s Daughter (1991, by Shirley Meier alone), Shadow’s Son (1991) and Saber and Shadow (1992).
Chris Miller gave up a glamorous career in freelance typing to enter the publishing world.  She is now a science fiction editor at Avon Books.
Deborah Miller is a thoroughly Scottish writer, as shown by her Last Clansman trilogy (Talisker (2001), Dark Thane (2002), Lore Bringer (2004), written as “Miller Lau”), in which a man wrongly convicted of murder in Edinburgh is given the chance to redeem himself on an alien world with the aid of a ghostly ancestor.  She has also written a small number of short stories and is working on a new series of novels, to be titled Swarmthief.
Steve Miller was active in science fiction fandom in the Baltimore area before moving to Maine and devoting his efforts to writing.  With Sharon Lee, he has co-authored nine novels and numerous shorter works set in the Liaden Universe.  This space opera setting was introduced in Agent of Change (1988).  The latest volume is Balance of Trade (2004).  The co-authors have also written three non-Liaden novels, one of which, The Tomorrow Log (2003), is intended as the beginning of a new sequence, and edited an anthology, Low Port (2003).  Separately, Steve has written many articles and reviews, as well as a couple of game tie-ins.
Betsy Mitchell came to New York after two years as a reporter for the Omaha World-Herald.  She served as managing editor of Analog, senior editor at Baen Books and associate publisher at Bantam Spectra, then founded Warner Books’ Aspect science fiction line.  In 2002 she became editor-in-chief of Del Rey Books.  Authors whom she has discovered include Roger McBride Allen, David Feintuch, Nalo Hopkinson and Elizabeth Moon.  She is the editor of several original anthologies, including Alien Stars: Free Lancers (1987) and Full Spectrum 4 (1993, with Lou Aronica and Amy Stout), which received the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology.
L. E. Modesitt, Jr. graduated from college “under the delusion that poetry was considered respectable and that fantasy and science fiction were not, a mistake he now attributes to youthful enthusiasm”.  After selling a handful of poems, he turned to SF, which he had been reading since boyhood.  His first published story was “The Great American Economy” (Analog, 1973).  At editor Ben Bova’s urging, he concentrated on writing novels and now has 40 to his credit.  His first was The Fires of Paratime (1982), which recasts the Norse god Loki as a science fiction hero.  His longest running series is Recluce, which began with The Magic of Recluce (1991) and reached its twelfth volume with Wellspring of Chaos (2005).  It is notable for presenting a rigorously worked-out fantasy world that confronts realistic political and ecological issues.  The author’s acquaintance with both derives from his mundane career as a Congressional staffer and official of the Environmental Protection Agency.  Ecology is central to his two SF series: The Forever Hero (Dawn for a Distant Earth (1987) et al.), portraying the ecological destruction of the planet, and Ecolitan Matter (The Ecological Envoy (1987) et al.), which examines the impact of man-made disaster on interstellar politics.  His fantasy series, The Corean Chronicles (Legacies (2002), Darknesses (2003), Scepters (2004), Alector’s Choice (2005), Cadmian’s Choice (2006)), traces the aftermath of the collapse of a worldwide empire.  A stand-alone novel, The Eternity Artifact (2005) describes the impact on far future mankind of the discovery of what may be the first ever alien civilization. The sixth Corean Chronicles novel, Soarer’s Choice, will be published later this year. [Updated, 3/12/06]
Rebecca Moesta became an SF fan as soon as she learned how to read but did not try writing until 1991, when she began working with Kevin J. Anderson.  Together they have written 14 Star Wars novels for young readers, as well as a number of other stories and novels.  On her own, she has authored three more Star Wars juveniles, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer novel Little Things (2002) and a novelization of the Starcraft computer game.  She is also a photographer, computer artist and writer of nonfiction on science-related topics.
Thomas F. Monteleone started writing book reviews for Amazing in 1972 and sold his first story, “Wendigo’s Child”, the following year.  Seeds of Change, the first of his more than 20 novels, appeared in 1975.  His earliest work reprised straightforward science fiction themes, such as sentient computers (The Time-Swept City, 1977), parallel worlds (The Secret Sea, 1979), the recovery of technology after a holocaust (Guardian, 1980) and first contact with aliens (the Dragonstar series, with David Bischoff).  Two short stories from this period, “Breath’s a Ware That Will Not Keep” (1976) and “Camera Oscura” (1977) received Nebula nominations.  In the early 1980’s, he turned to dark fantasy and horror with strong, generally unorthodox religious themes.  Night Things (1980) and Night-Train (1984) were his first ventures in that direction.  The best known is Blood of the Lamb (1993), in which a cabal of Jesuits plots to clone a new Messiah.  It won the Bram Stoker Award and aroused controversy for its cynical portrayal of religious leaders.  His short fiction is collected in Dark Stars and Other Illuminations (1981) and Rough Beasts and Other Mutations (2003), and his essays and commentary in The Mothers and Fathers Italian Association (2003).  He has edited eight science fiction and horror anthologies, including the five volumes of the Borderlands series.  His recent novels, best characterized as supernatural thrillers, include The Resurrectionist (1995; about a corrupt politician who can revive the dead), Night of Broken Souls (1997), The Reckoning (1999) and Eyes of the Virgin (2002).
Elizabeth Moon began her writing career with a high-tech Analog story, “ABCs in Zero-G” (1986), but first became widely known for fantasy.  Her debut novel, Sheepfarmer’s Daughter (1988), made use of her Marine Corps experience in depicting the adventures of a saintly woman warrior whose adventures continued in Divided Allegiance (1988), Oath of Gold (1989), Surrender None (1990) and Liar’s Oath (1992).  She then shifted her attention to science fiction, often with a military cast, writing a pair of novels with Anne McCaffrey, then Hunting Party (1993), the first of the Familias Regnant saga.  This series, featuring the machinations of a semi-private mini-galactic empire, accompanied by much swashbuckling action, reached its seventh volume in Against the Odds (2000).  A quieter note is struck by Remnant Population (1996), a Hugo Award nominee in which a lone woman copes with isolation on a planet abandoned by its human colonizers.  The Speed of Dark (2002) goes in yet another direction.  Its protagonist is an autistic genius who must decide whether he wishes to undergo medical treatment that promises to grant him “normality” but may destroy what makes him unique.  It was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award and won the Nebula Award for Best Novel.  Her short fiction is collected in Lunar Activity (1990) and Phases (1997).  Trading in Danger (2003) began a new space-adventure series featuring a young, female interstellar merchant.  It continues in Marque and Reprisal (2004) and Engaging the Enemy (2006). [Updated, 3/13/06]
Michael Moorcock is one of the leading figures in modern fantasy, credited with remaking sword-and-sorcery and contributing significantly to subgenres ranging from urban fantasy to steampunk.  He produced his first, hand-drawn fanzine before he turned 13 and became a contributor to, then editor of, Tarzan’s Adventures in 1957, while yet in his teens.  Sojan (1977) collects his precocious early work.  He began writing for British SF magazines in the early 1960’s.  His first SF novel was The Sundered Worlds (serialized, 1962-63), which introduced the “Multiverse”, an infinite set of occasionally intersecting parallel universes that forms the background for the greater part of his later writing.  Within the Multiverse, his grand theme is the “Eternal Champion”, who contends, often obscurely or ambiguously, for the forces of Order against ever-threatening Chaos.  The leading exemplars of the Champion are Elric of Melnibone, a kind of inverted Conan the Barbarian (introduced in Stormbringer (serialized, 1963-64)), and Jerry Cornelius, the London hipster who parodies Elric in The Final Programme (1968) and its numerous, complexly woven sequels.  Notable works on the fringes of or outside these sequences include Behold the Man (1969; an expansion of his 1967 Nebula-winning novella), Gloriana (1978; winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel), The War Hound and the World’s Pain (1981), Mother London (1988; an homage to the city that plays so large a role in his works) and the far future Dancers at the End of Time trilogy.  From 1964 through 1971, he edited New Worlds, Britain’s leading SF magazine, where he played a major role in promoting such “New Wave” writers as Brian Aldiss, J. G. Ballard, Samuel R. Delany and Thomas M. Disch.  His latest novels, both set within the Elric saga are The Skrayling Tree: The Albino in America (2003) and The White Wolf’s Son (2005).  He was Author Guest of Honor at the 1997 World Science Fiction Convention. [Updated, 8/1/05]
John Moore sold his first story, “Sight Unseen”, to Aboriginal SF in 1986.  In 1993 he published Slay and Rescue, a comic fantasy featuring the travails of Prince Charming, who finds it burdensome to be perpetually on call to extricate damsels from distress.  He then got a full-time engineering job and wrote short fiction for various magazines and anthologies, including New Destinies, Realms of Fantasy and Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine.  His novel went out of print until a German publisher picked it up for its light fantasy line, leading to publication in other languages.  A sequel, The Unhandsome Prince (2004) was published in Russian and Czech before its English edition appeared.  His newest novel is Heroics for Beginners (2004), which has overtones of Harry Potter parody. [Updated, 8/1/05]
Daniel Keys Moran began publishing SF with “All the Time in the World” (Asimov’s, 1982), which he expanded into his first novel, The Armageddon Blues (1987).  His next novel, Emerald Eyes (1987), inaugurated the Continuing Time series, a future history with elements of cyberpunk, in which a dwindling breed of telepaths struggles to maintain its way of life.  It is projected for 33 volumes, but so far only two more have appeared: The Long Run (1989) and The Last Dancer (1993).  He also wrote The Ring (1989), a novelization of Wagner that converts music into space opera.  His most recent novel is Terminal Freedom (1997, with his sister Jodi Moran).
Harry O. Morris published the legendary fanzine Nyctalops (1970-1991).  Devoted to fantasy in the tradition of H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, it was nominated five times for the World Fantasy Award for Best Non-Professional Work.  In 1973 he co-founded Silver Scarab Press, a publisher of both fiction and scholarly works.  By then, most of his time was already devoted to his career as an artist.  He has painted numerous book covers for both small presses and major houses, as well as publishing several art portfolios.  He was a World Fantasy Award nominee for Best Artist in 1988, 1989, 1993 and 1994.
John A. Morrison is an artist specializing in three-dimensional forms, for which he won a Chesley Award in 1989.  
Pat Morrissey is an artist who has been exhibiting at conventions for 15 years and selling professionally for ten.  Her art has appeared on the covers of books by Anne McCaffrey, Orson Scott Card, Esther Friesner and other SF authors, as well as in role playing games and on Magic: The Gathering cards.  Her non-SF clients include the Hartford and Baltimore Science Centers.
James Morrow worked as an English teacher, independent television producer, cartoonist and textbook author before publishing his first SF novel, The Wine of Violence (1981), a tale of conflict between sharply divergent human societies settled on an alien world.  Like most of his later work, it was steeped in religious and ethical concerns, though without the Vonnegut-like absurdist and satirical touches that are evident in This Is the Way the World Ends (1986; portraying the trial of humanity’s last survivors by their never-to-be-born descendants), Only Begotten Daughter (1990; about Christ’s sister Julie Katz) and Towing Jehovah (1994: God’s corpse is found floating in the Atlantic Ocean).  All three of these novels received Nebula nominations, and Towing Jehovah was also nominated for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.  He has published two sequels to Towing Jehovah: Blameless in Abaddon (1996) and The Eternal Footman (1999).  His short fiction output has been moderate in quantity but distinguished in quality: “Bible Stories for Adults, No. 17: The Deluge” won the 1988 Best Short Story Nebula Award, while “City of Truth” was the 1992 Nebula Best Novella winner.  His collection Bible Stories for Adults (1996) was a World Fantasy Award Best Collection nominee.  A new collection of his short fiction is The Cat’s Pajamas & Other Stories (2004).
Sam Moskowitz (1920–1997), one of the foremost figures in SF fandom, was a self-made scholar in the science fiction and fantasy field.  He started reading SF pulps in his immigrant father’s candy store, moved quickly into lettercols and fanzines, and chaired the first World Science Fiction Convention in 1939.  He later memorialized pre-World War II New York City fandom in a book with the slightly grandiose title, The Immortal Storm (1954).  His greatest contribution to SF scholarship was his historical research into early SF periodicals, which brought to light many neglected writers and examined the treatment of important themes and social issues, including religion, racism, anti-semitism and sexual roles.  Published in various magazines from the late 1950’s onward, his articles were collected in Explorers of the Infinite (1963), Seekers of Tomorrow (1966) and Strange Horizons (1976).  Also historically important are a two-volume history of proto-SF in 19th Century San Francisco, an edition of Olaf Stapledon’s lesser known writings, and anthologies of pulp SF, to which he contributed lengthy introductions: Science Fiction by Gaslight: A History and Anthology of Science Fiction in the Popular Magazines, 18911911 (1968), Under the Moons of Mars: A History and Anthology of the Scientific Romance in the Munsey Magazines, 19121920 (1970) and The Crystal Man: Landmark Science Fiction (1973).  In 1981 he received the Science Fiction Research Association’s Pilgrim Award for his historical contributions.  He also wrote a few stories of his own and edited many anthologies and critical reprints of classic novels.  In 1953 he taught the first college level science fiction course, at City College of New York – quite an achievement for someone who never went to college himself.
Lee Moyer is a Web site designer and fantasy artist with numerous book, magazine and game illustrations to his credit for clients as diverse as McGraw Hill, Ziff Davis, the National Zoo, the National Museum of Natural History, Black Entertainment Television, Atlas Games and the Chaosium.
Kevin Andrew Murphy combines a career in designing role playing games with his writing.  His first published story, “Cursum Perficio” (1993), was sold as a collateral result of his work on an RPG based on George R. R. Martin’s Wild Cards series.  He has since written a variety of short fiction, several novels set in gaming universes, such as House of Secrets (1995), and Drums of Chaos (2002), the completion of an unfinished work left behind by Jo Clayton.  His latest project is the Fathom series, based on the cult comic book.  The first two volumes are The World Below (2002) and Tides of Destiny (2003).
Pat Murphy attended the Clarion Workshop in 1978 and sold her first story, “Nightbird at the Window” in 1979.  A novel, The Shadow Hunter (1982), was obscurely published and received little notice.  Her second book, The Falling Woman (1986), whose archeologist heroine can see the stories behind artifacts, won the 1987 Best Novel Nebula Award.  In the same year, she gained the Best Novelette Nebula for “Rachel in Love”, about a chimpanzee whose intelligence has been artificially enhanced.  Her work has gained a total of three Hugo Award and five Nebula Award nominations.  In addition, her novella “Bones” won the World Fantasy Award in 1990.  Much of her early short fiction is collected in Points of Departure (1990), which won a Philip K. Dick Award.  She is also the author of seven books on patterns in nature and science projects for children, which grew out of her work for the Exploratorium, San Francisco’s hands-on science museum.  Her latest novel is Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell (2001), the third in a sequence (the others are There and Back Again by Max Merriwell (1999) and Wild Angel by Mary Maxwell (2000)) strangely linked by a set of imaginary pseudonyms.
Real Musgrave is a sculptor and illustrator, whose whimsical “pocket dragons” are popular among both fantasy afficionados and the general public .  He drew his first dragon when he was five years old.  In 1974 he founded his own commercial art studio, which sold his fantasy prints.  One of these, showing a tiny dragon peeking out of its owner’s pocket, was the forerunner of the figurines.  His drawings, etchings and paintings have gained six Chesley Award nominations. He also served for 14 years as official artist of the Texas Renaissance Festival.
P. G. Nagle is an historical novelist who has published a small number of SF stories.  Her four published novels (Glorieta Pass (1999) et al.) center on the Civil War in the far West, but she reports that she has a major fantasy project in preparation.
Kim Newman is a popular British television personality and movie reviewer, as well as a writer of sophisticated fantasy.  He wrote his first (never published) novel at age 15 and, after several years in the theater and cabaret, began selling SF and horror stories in the early 1980’s.  His first books, published in 1985, were nonfiction of stfnal interest:  Ghastly Beyond Belief: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of Quotations (with Neil Gaiman) and Nightmare Movies: A Critical History of the Horror Film since 1968.  His first published novel was The Night Mayor (1989), notable for its Virtual Reality film noir setting.  After producing a series of Games Workshop tie-ins under the name “Jack Yeovil”, he established his literary reputation with Anno Dracula (1992), an alternate unhistory novel in which Dracula thwarts his pursuers, marries Queen Victoria and establishes vampire dominion over Great Britain.  The book won awards from the Dracula Society, the Lord Ruthven Assembly and the International Horror Critics Guild.  The Bloody Red Baron (1995) and Judgement of Tears (1998, a/k/a Dracula Cha Cha Cha) carry the tale forward through World War I and into the 1960’s.  He also wrote The Quorum (1994), a horror novel, and Life’s Lottery (1999), an “adult role-playing” novel.  His short fiction has been collected in The Original Dr. Shade and Other Stories (1994), Unforgivable Stories (2000), Where the Bodies Are Buried (2000) and Dead Travel Fast (2004). [Updated, 8/1/05]
Patrick Nielsen Hayden has been prominent in fandom since the mid-1970’s.  He was twice nominated for the Best Fan Writer Hugo Award (1986 and 1987), edited many fanzines, including the Hugo-nominated Izzard (with Teresa Nielsen Hayden), was TAFF delegate (also with Teresa) in 1985 and co-founded The New York Review of Science Fiction, a perennial Hugo contender.  He works as an editor at Tor Books, where he manages the science fiction line.  Since 1996, he has edited the annual Starlight anthologies of original SF stories.  He has been nominated four times for the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden is a consulting editor with Tor Books.  She has been nominated for Hugo Awards for Best Fanzine (Izzard, co-edited with Patrick Nielsen Hayden, 1984) and Best Fan Writer (1984 and 1991).  A collection of her essays, Making Book, appeared in 1994 and was a Best Non-Fiction Book Hugo Award nominee.
Steve Niles is the author of two hard-boiled/horror detective novels featuring supernatural sleuth Cal McDonald:  Savage Membrane and Guns, Drugs and Monsters (both 2002).  Most of his work is in the comics and graphics novel fields.  He founded Arcane Comix, which adapted stories by Richard Matheson, Harlan Ellison, Clive Barker and others to graphic form.  He writes the monthly Criminal Macabre (Dark Horse Comics) and Dark Days (IDW Publishing) and has contributed to, among many others, Spawn: The Dark Ages, Hellspawn and 9/11: Artists Respond.  Among his recent graphic novels are 30 Days of Night (2003) and Wake the Dead (2004).
Jack Nimersheim is a computer columnist with 27 books and over a thousand articles, columns, reviews and essays to his credit.  Nonetheless, he has found time to write SF short stories, beginning with “A Fireside Chat” (Alternate Presidents, 1992).  Much of his fiction is collected in Something Old, Something New (1995), Graffiti from the Subways of My Mind (1996) and A Whole in the Space of Time (1998).  He was a 1994 nominee for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.
Larry Niven inaugurated his Known Space series with his first story, “The Coldest Place” (If, 1964) and swiftly became one of the most renowned “hard SF” writers.  His debut novel, World of Ptavvs (1966), and his second, A Gift from Earth (1968), introduced further facets of the Known Space universe but were overshadowed by Ringworld (1970), set on one of the most gigantic fictional artifacts ever conceived.  While continuing his journeys through Known Space in such books as Protector (1973), The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton (1976), The Ringworld Engineers (1979), The Ringworld Throne (1993), Ringworld’s Childeren (2004) and the shared world Man-Kzin Wars subseries, Niven explored other themes in A World Out of Time (1976), The Integral Trees (1984) and its sequel The Smoke Ring (1987; portraying a culture that lives on mammoth trees orbiting in the gas envelope of a neutron star) and The Magic Goes Away (1977; magical resources are depleted by profligate wizards).  He also became a frequent collaborator, most notably with Jerry Pournelle, with whom he wrote The Mote in God’s Eye (1974; a seemingly primitive society threatens to destroy a galactic empire), the spectacular disaster novel Lucifer’s Hammer (1977), the alien invasion saga Footfall (1985) and several other novels.  In a different vein, he collaborated with Steven Barnes on Dream Park (1981), a murder mystery in a virtual reality theme park, and its sequels.  He has earned 19 Hugo Award and eight Nebula Award nominations, winning the Hugo and Nebula Best Novel Awards for Ringworld, Best Short Story Hugos for “Neutron Star” (1967), “Inconstant Moon” (1972) and “The Hole Man” (1975) and Best Novelette Hugo for “The Borderland of Sol” (1976).  Some of his short fiction and miscellaneous writings are collected in Scatterbrain (2003).  His latest novels are Burning Tower (2005, with Jerry Pournelle) and Building Harlequin’s Moon (2005, with Brenda Cooper).  A new story collection, Draco’s Tavern (2006), consists of tales about the strange patrons of an interstellar pub.  He was Author Guest of Honor at the 1993 World Science Fiction Convention. [Updated, 3/13/06]
William F. Nolan has published 75 books and several hundred stories and articles in his five decade writing career.  While his work includes mysteries, Westerns, biographies, auto racing journalism, screenplays, television scripts, comic books, poetry and political ghostwriting, he is most closely identified with science fiction, fantasy and horror.  Before turning pro, he had an active career as a fan. He co-founded the San Diego Science Fantasy Society, edited the The Rhodomagnetic Digest and The Ray Bradbury Review (for which he wrote the first Bradbury biography in 1951), and co-chaired the 1952 Westercon.  His first professional sale was “The Joy of Living” (If, 1954).  His first SF book was a collection, Impact 20 (1963), combining fiction and nonfiction, which was followed by his most famous tale, Logan’s Run (1967, with George Clayton Johnson).  He later wrote (without a co-author) two sequels, Logan’s World (1977) and Logan’s Search (1980).  He has edited many anthologies, including Dark Universe (2002), a World Fantasy Award nominee.  His short fiction and poems are collected in Have You Seen the Wind? (2003), Ships in the Night and Other Stories (2003; non-SF) and Wild Galaxy: Selected Science Fiction Stories (2005). [Updated, 8/1/05]
Jean-Pierre Normand has been a professional science fiction and fantasy illustrator for the past twenty years, with well over 100 book and magazine covers to his credit.  He has won five Aurora Awards for artistic achievement.
Andre Norton (1912–2005) was originally the pen name (but later become the legal name) of Alice Mary Norton, one of the luminaries of science fiction and fantasy.  A librarian by profession, she began writing historical and espionage fiction in the early 1930’s.  Her first SF story, “The People of the Crater” (Fantasy Book, 1947), appeared under the name “Andrew North”, which she used intermittently side by side with “Andre Norton”.  For the next two decades, she was a prolific SF novelist.  Much of her output was nominally for young readers, but it attracted a wide adult following.  Astounding’s long-time book reviewer, P. Schuyler Miller, was a fervent admirer.  Her first SF novel, Star Man’s Son, 2250 A.D. (1952), presaged much of her later work, in which protagonists, usually young, struggle to come to terms with a universe that possesses depth as well as breadth.  Among her books from this period are The Stars Are Ours! (1954), Star Guard (1955), Plague Ship (1956), The Time Traders (1958), Galactic Derelict (1959), Storm Over Warlock (1960), Quest Crosstime (1965), Moon of Three Rings (1966) and Forerunner Foray (1973).  In the late 1960’s, she embarked on a “second career” as a fantasy writer. Witch World (1963) was the first book in what has become her longest running and best known series, combining elements of SF, high fantasy and sword-and-sorcery.  She later admitted other writers to this shared universe, turning it into a joint saga.  In all, she published over 130 books, the last [insert title] completed just before her death.  Her short fiction was relatively rare.  Much of it is collected in The Many Worlds of Andre Norton (1974) and The Book of Andre Norton (1975).  She received both the SFWA Grand Master Award and the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.  Shortly before she died, the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy was established in her honor.  She was Author Guest of Honor at the 1989 World Science Fiction Convention. [Updated, 8/1/05]
Jody Lynn Nye started as a writer of “choose your own adventure” games set in Anne McCaffrey’s Pern and Piers Anthony’s Xanth.  She then began collaborating with the two famous authors, with whom she produced Piers Anthony’s Visual Guide to Xanth (1989) and The Dragonlover’s Guide to Pern (1989).  The Death of Sleep (1990) was the first of several novels with McCaffrey.  She started on her solo career with Mythology 101 (1990), about Little People who live beneath a university library.  The series reached its fifth volume, Advanced Mythology, in 2001.  She has written both fantasy (such as The Magic Touch (1996), Waking in Dreamland (1998) and The Grand Tour (2000)) and science fiction (Taylor’s Ark (1993), Medicine Show (1994) and her Ship series with McCaffrey).  She also has a couple of dozen short stories to her credit.  She has teamed up with Robert Asprin to launch a new Myth Adventures series.  The first four volumes are Myth-Told Tales (2003) Myth-Alliances (2003), Myth-Taken Alliances (2004) and Class Dis-Mythed (2005).  Myth-Gotten Gains is scheduled for publication in September 2006.  Her most recent solo novels are The Lady and the Tiger (2004), about a planet that harbors a mysterious secret, and Strong-Arm Tactics (2005), the start of a new series centering on a misfit unit of a futuristic military force. [Updated, 3/13/06]
Claudia O’Keefe wrote Black Snow Days (1990), about bioengineering and nuclear holocaust, and has edited several anthologies, of which Ghosttide: Tales of Horror, Dark Fantasy and Suspense (1993) is of stfnal interest.
Dennis J. O’Neil has been a comics writer and editor for over 20 years.  Graphic novels to which he has contributed include Batman: Scar of the Bat (2000), Daredevil: Love’s Labors Lost (2002) and Green Lantern Hero’s Quest (2003).  He currently oversees Batman for DC Comics.  He is the author of The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics (2001).
Charles Oberndorf has published three very different novels.  Sheltered Lives (1992) depicts the dire consequences of desperate measures to contain a super-virulent form of AIDS.  Testing (1993) is a short novel set on a world where moral purity is rigidly enforced.  Foragers (1996) takes place during an interstellar war.  He published short stories in Full Spectrum (1988) and Full Spectrum 2 (1989).
Margaret Organ-Kean began selling her watercolors at local fairs while still a teenager and eventually decided to pursue a career in art instead of becoming a lawyer.  She works primarily in watercolor and pen-and-ink but has lately begun making use of computer graphics.  Her work appears in science fiction magazines, children’s books and games like Magic: The Gathering.
Keith Parkinson is a fantasy artist whose credits include book covers for volumes by C. J. Cherryh, Orson Scott Card, Anne McCaffrey, Terry Goodkind, David Eddings and others.  He has been nominated eight times for Chesley Awards and received the award for best hardcover jacket illustration in 1988 and 1989.  From the earliest stage of his career, he has been closely associated with the computer gaming industry.  He has designed computer games and produced a large portion of the art used in EverQuest.  Currently he is art director of Sigil Games Online.  Selections of his art work are available in Knightsbridge: The Art of Keith Parkinson (1996), Spellbound: The Keith Parkinson Sketchbook (1998) and Kingsgate: The Art of Keith Parkison (2004).
Fiona Patton lives on 75 acres of scrubland in Ontario, works as a counselor for the developmentally handicapped, and writes fantasy novels.  The four published so far (The Stone Prince (1997), The Painter Knight (1998), The Granite Shield (1999), The Golden Sword (2001)) recount the adventures of a royal family gifted – and afflicted – by a two-edged psychic power.
Diana L. Paxson has published 20 novels and over 70 short stories, all fantasy and many inspired by ancient Norse mythology.  Her first novels, Lady of Light (1982) and Lady of Darkness (1983), led off her Chronicles of Westria, set in a post-holocaust California where magical arts are more potent than technology.  Her later works include The White Raven (1988; the story of Tristan and Iseult retold), the Wodan’s Children trilogy featuring Sigfrid and Brunhild (The Wolf and the Raven (1993), The Dragons of the Rhine (1995) and The Lord of Horses (1996)), another trilogy on the life of the Irish hero Fionn MacCumhal (with Adrienne Martine-Barnes), the Avalon series (with Marion Zimmer Bradley), The Serpent’s Tooth (1991; a version of King Lear), and a four-volume novel about King Arthur, The Hallowed Isle (1998-99).  In addition to writing, she designs period costumes and composes music for the folk harp.  She has released a tape, titled “The Wandersong”, of music based on her Westria universe.  Her latest publication is Taking Up The Runes: A Complete Guide To Using Runes In Spells, Rituals, Divination, And Magic (2005). [Updated, 8/1/05]
Steve Perry has published over 40 SF and fantasy titles.  His first story was “With Clean Hands” (Galaxy, 1977) and his first novel The Tularemia Gambit (1981), which added hard-boiled detective elements to its SF mix.  After a pair of collaborations with Michael Reaves, he wrote The Man Who Never Missed (1985), the opening volume of the Matador series.  Its debonair hero undermines a military dictatorship by making it look inept and ridiculous.  Much of his other output has consisted of media tie-ins, such as Star Wars novels (solo and with Michael Reaves) and the Men In Black novelization, and contributions to multiple-author series, among them five Conan novels and six books in Tom Clancy’s Net Force.  He also writes short stories, non-fiction articles, animated TV scripts and SF book reviews for the Portland Oregonian.  His latest novel is Windowpane (2003), a nostalgic fantasy in which an aging hippie attempts to conjure back “the spirit of the Sixties”.
Jeremiah Phipps published a story with an Arthurian theme, “Hell-Bent for Leather”, in Grails: Quests of the Dawn (1994).
Frederik Pohl embarked on his SF career while still in his teens, as a member of New York City’s legendary Futurian Society.  His first published story, “Before the Universe”, co-written with fellow Futurian C. M. Kornbluth, appeared in Super Science Stories in 1940.  Within a few months he had been hired to edit Super Science and its companion Astonishing Stories.  After those magazines folded, he became a literary agent, representing many of the leading names in the field until his habit of lending money to authors made that vocation unremunerative.  From 1961 through 1969 he edited Galaxy and If, winning three Best Professional Magazine Hugo Awards for the latter.  He also edited numerous anthologies, most notably the pioneering Star Science Fiction volumes (1953-59), which were among the first anthologies to contain only original stories.  From the early 1950’s, he devoted greater time to writing SF, having abandoned his long-time ambition to produce the definitive mainstream novel on the advertising industry.  Instead, he and Kornbluth co-wrote the classic tale The Space Merchants (1953), followed by several other collaborative novels.  His other major collaboration was with Jack Williamson, with whom he wrote the Starchild trilogy (The Reefs of Space (1964), Starchild (1965), Rogue Star (1969)), the Saga of Cuckoo duo (The Farthest Star (1975) and Wall Around a Star (1983)), Land’s End (1988) and The Singers of Time (1991).  The best known of his many solo novels is Gateway (1977), which won the Hugo, Nebula and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards and inaugurated his Heechee series.  Her has received nine Hugo and nine Nebula Award nominations.  In addition to Gateway’s double victory, he won the 1976 Best Novel Nebula Award for Man Plus and the 1986 Best Short Story Hugo Award for “Fermi and Frost”.  His nonfiction includes an autobiography, The Way the Future Was (1978), and Chasing Science: Science As a Spectator Sport (2000).  In 1992 he received the Nebula Grand Master Award.  He was Author Guest of Honor at the 1972 World Science Fiction Convention.
Jerry Pournelle earned Ph.D.’s in psychology and political science, worked as an engineer on the space program, managed political campaigns, co-authored the ground-breaking study The Strategy of Technology (1970, with Stefan T. Possony) and wrote two mainstream suspense novels before selling his first SF story, “Peace with Honor”, in 1971.  In 1973 he won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, gained a Hugo nomination for his novella “The Mercenary”, and published his first SF novel, A Spaceship for the King.  His early works introduced a future history centered on the rise, eclipse and revival of a galactic empire, which he elaborated over the years in West of Honor (1976), The Mercenary (1977), Go Tell the Spartans (1991, with S. M. Stirling) and, most famously, his collaboration with Larry Niven, The Mote in God’s Eye (1974), and its sequel The Gripping Hand (1993).  His partnership with Niven produced a number of other memorable novels: Inferno (1976), Lucifer’s Hammer (1977), Oath of Fealty (1981), Footfall (1985) and Fallen Angels (1992), the last noteworthy for its punning incorporation of real SF fans into the dramatis personae.  More recently the pair produced Pournelle’s only ventures into pure fantasy, The Burning City (2001) and Burning Tower (2005).  In addition to fiction, he wrote the popular speculative science column “A Step Farther Out” for Galaxy and Destinies (collected in book form in 1980) and has long been an active and controversial commentator on politics, computers and much else.  One of his lesser known enthusiasms is modern poetry.  He was Toastmaster of the 1984 World Science Fiction Convention and Author Guest of Honor at the 1999 NASFiC. [Updated, 8/1/05]
Richard Powers (1921–1996) was one of the premier SF artists from the early 1950’s until his death.  David Hartwell’s obituary summarized his impact: “Richard Powers was the most skilled and inventive artist to work in the science fiction field, ever. Aside from the fact that he did more paperback covers than any other illustrator in the 1950’s and 1960’s, dominating the entire look of paperback sf for two decades, what he did was to introduce the visual language of surrealism into sf illustration and expand its possibilities permanently. His technical range and skill are awe-inspiring and his visionary, suggestive images continued to evolve, even into his fifth decade as a professional in the field.”  He was initially tapped by Ian Ballantine to give a distinctive look to Ballantine Books and succeeded so well that, by the end of the 1950’s, almost every SF paperback cover looked like a Powers.  He also had an extensive non-SF career, painting covers for numerous mainstream books (e.g., Bernard Malamud’s The Natural) and record albums.  He was considered a master of seascapes, drew political cartoons, sculpted as a hobby and published a small body of poetry.  He was Artist Guest of Honor at the 1991 World Science Fiction Convention.
Tim Powers is one of the most vivid and inventive of modern fantasy writers.  His first two novels, published in 1976 (The Skies Discrowned and Epitaph in Rust), were straight SF that gave only hints of his later work.  He found his distinctive voice in The Drawing of the Dark (1979), which reveals the hidden, supernatural history behind the breaking of the Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683.  This theme of covert forces at work underneath the mundane world is central to all of his books, reaching its culmination in Declare (2001), whose hero grapples with the demon that animates the Cold War Soviet Union.  Three of his novels, Dinner at Deviant’s Palace (1985), Expiration Date (1995) and Declare, have been Nebula Best Novel nominees.  Two, The Anubis Gates (1983) and Dinner at Deviant’s Palace, were Philip K. Dick Award winners.  The Stress of Her Regard (1989) reflects his interest in the early 19th Century, presenting Byron, Keats and the Shelleys in an encounter with vampires.  On a lighter note is The William Ashbless Memorial Cookbook (2002, with James P. Blaylock), the favorite recipes of an imaginary pre-Victorian poet whom both authors have introduced into their books.  Last Call (1992), which won the World Fantasy Award, is the best novel ever written about Las Vegas.  In a feat of virtuosity, its sequel, Earthquake Weather (1997), is also the sequel to the independent Expiration Date.  He has written relatively little short fiction.  A selection is available in Night Moves and Other Stories (2000) and in The Devils in the Details (2003, with James P. Blaylock).
Terry Pratchett is the world’s best selling author of adult fiction that does not feature sex, blood or high-tech weaponry.  He sold his first story (“The Hades Business”, 1963) while still a teenager, but his career as a journalist limited his output for many years.  His first novel, The Carpet People (1971), was a fantasy for young readers, his second, The Dark Side of the Sun (1976), a parody of Larry Niven and other famous writers.  Strata (1981) was another parody, set in a flat “pocket universe”, and was the forerunner of his Discworld series, now comprising over 30 books with aggregate sales of ten million or so copies around the world.  Introduced in The Colour of Magic (1983), the Disc is borne on the backs of four elephants standing on a gigantic turtle that swims endlessly through space.  A powerful magical field makes light sluggish, technology improbable and wizards mad.  While remaining comic, the series has grown deeper and more varied as it has progressed.  Among the notable volumes are Equal Rites (1987), Mort (1987), Guards! Guards! (1989), Pyramids (1989; winner of British Science Fantasy Award), Small Gods (1992), Interesting Times (1994), Feet of Clay (1996), The Last Continent (1998), Carpe Jugulum (1999; winner of the Lord Ruthven Award), The Truth (2000), Night Watch (2002), Monstrous Regiment (2003), Going Postal (2004) and Thud! (2005).  He has also written Discworld juveniles: The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (2001, winner of the Carnegie Medal), The Wee Free Men (2003) and A Hat Full of Sky (2004), plus a picture book for very young children, Where’s My Cow? (favorite bedtime reading in Sam Vimes’ household).  He wrote fictional interludes for The Science of Discworld (2002, a Hugo nominee for Best Related Book) and two successor volumes.  There is also non-Discworld Pratchett, including Good Omens (1990, with Neil Gaiman) and Johnny and the Dead, which won the British Writers Guild Award for Best Children’s Book in 1992  His work has been the subject of an academic study, Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Literature (2000).  He was Professional Guest of Honor at the 2004 World Science Fiction Convention. [Updated, 3/13/06]
Marta Randall began her SF career with “Smack Run” (New Worlds 5, 1973).  Her first novel, Islands (1976), about a mortal in a world where no one else dies, was a Nebula nominee.  She published five more SF novels and a mystery (as by “Martha Conley”) and edited two New Dimensions anthologies (with Robert Silverberg), but in recent years has concentrated on teaching.  She served as vice president and president of the Science Fiction Writers of America between 1981 and 1984.  In 1982 and 1991, she was Toastmaster of the World Science Fiction Convention.
Bill Ransom wrote several volumes of poetry, for which he received Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nominations, before entering SF as a collaborator with Frank Herbert, with whom he co-authored The Jesus Incident (1978) and two other novels.  His first solo novel was Jaguar (1990), a complex tale of two planets connected by dreams.  ViraVax (1993) and Burn (1995) are near future thrillers about bioengineering harnessed to nefarious ends.  He has also published Learning the Ropes: A Creative Biography (1995), a collection of poems, stories and essays.
Alis A. Rasmussen initially wrote under her own name but switched about ten years ago to the pseudonym “Kate Elliott”.  His first novel, The Labyrinth Gate (1988), was a fantasy that took a pair of newlyweds to a parallel England ruled by a matriarchy.  She then turned to SF with the space operatic Highroad Trilogy (1990), whose distinguishing characteristic is strong attention to the musical tastes of future cultures.  As “Kate Elliott”, she has written both science fiction (the Jaran trilogy (1992–94), which she described as “Jane Austen Meets Genghis Khan”) and the fantasy Crown of Stars series, which began with the Nebula-nominated King’s Dragon (1997).  The sixth volume, In the Ruins, appeared in 2005. [Updated, 8/1/05]
Michael Reaves has over 400 teleplays to his credit, including scripts for Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Twilight Zone, Sliders, The Flash, Monsters, Batman: The Animated Series and Gargoyles.  His Batman work won an Emmy Award.  Despite the financial rewards of Hollywood, he finds his greatest creative satisfaction as an author of books.  He began publishing SF stories with “The Breath of Dragons” (Clarion 3, 1973).  The first of his 14 novels was a juvenile, I, Alien (1978).  It was followed by an heroic fantasy, Dragonworld (1979, with Byron Preiss), and a futuristic mystery, Darkworld Detective (1981).  The Shattered World (1984), set in a society spread over thousands of asteroids, was a British Fantasy Society Best Novel nominee.  He co-edited Shadows Over Baker Street (2003), an anthology of Sherlock Holmes–H. P. Lovecraft pastiches that included Neil Gaiman’s Hugo-winning “A Study in Emerald”.  His newest book is The Night People (2005), a collection of a dozen of his short stories.[Updated, 8/1/05]
Robert Reed won the Writers of the Future grand prize for his first published story, “Mudpuppies” (1986), and within a year was able to make a living from writing.  He has well over 100 short stories to his credit, of which five have nominated for Hugo Awards and one for a Nebula.  Eleven of his works of short fiction are collected in The Dragons of Springplace (1999).  A second collection, The Cuckoo’s Boys, is forthcoming.  His first novel, The Leeshore (1987), displayed what has become his trademark melding of exotic hard science concepts with careful attention to character and milieu.  He has since published ten more novels, including Black Milk (1989), Down the Bright Way (1991), An Exaltation of Larks (1995) and Marrow (2000; based on the Hugo-nominated novella of the same title and set in an alien artifact large enough to hold an entire planet in its center) Sister Alice (2003, a far future epic) and The Well of Stars (2005; sequel to Marrow). [Updated, 8/1/05]
Roger T. Reed is president of Illustration House, America’s leading gallery dedicated to the history of fine illustration.  With his father Walt, the gallery’s founder, he wrote The Illustrator in America, 1860-2000.  He is a member of  the Permanent Collection committee of the Society of Illustrators in New York and has served as a consultant to the Norman Rockwell Museum.  Located in the Chelsea district of New York City, Illustration House frequently features works by science fiction and fantasy illustrators.
William Relling, Jr. has been writing in the SF genre (primarily fantasy and horror) since 1983.  His first novel, Brujo (1986), about a reawakened Indian shaman, was followed by New Moon (1987), in which an immortal magician becomes a serial killer, and Silent Moon (1990), where demons control the world’s political elite (just fantasy – really!).  His short fiction is collected in the hard-to-find Infinite Man (1989) and the recent Along the Midway of the Carnival of Souls and Other Stories (2002).  He also writes mystery novels, most recently The Criminalist (2003).
Laura Resnick grew up in a writer’s household and therefore swore that she would never follow that profession.  Finding herself in Sicily, however, with limited job prospects and a large bank overdraft, she gave in to heredity.  Her first books were romances (under the name Laura Leone), but she turned to SF in 1991.  Her first story in the genre, “Avant Vanguard” (The Fantastic Adventures of Robin Hood), was followed by others, and she won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1993.  She has since published over 40 SF and fantasy short stories and a travelogue, A Blonde in Africa (1996).  Her debut novel was In Legend Born (1998), a high fantasy set on an island overshadowed by a goddess volcano.  The sequel, In Fire Forged (2003), was divided into two parts: The White Dragon and The Destroyer Goddess.  Her latest is Disappearing Nightly (2005). [Updated, 8/1/05]
Mike Resnick wrote voluminously for 15 years in many genres under many names (occasionally even under his own) before settling into an award-studded science fiction career in the early 1980’s.  He won his first Hugo Award for “Kirinyaga” (Best Short Story, 1988), which was also a Nebula Best Novelette nominee, and has since earned 23 Hugo nominations in fiction categories (plus two each for Best Professional Editor and Best Related Book) and 10 Nebula nominations.  In addition to “Kirinyaga”, his Hugo-winning stories are “The Manamouki” (Best Novelette, 1991), “Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge” (Best Novella, 1995), “The 43 Antarean Dynasties” (Best Short Story, 1998) and “Travels With My Cats” (Best Short Story, 2005).  “Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge” also won the Best Novella Nebula.  Africa is a major theme of his work.  He is the first SF writer to make serious use of that continent’s history and culture, which appears in many of his short stories and in such novels as the Nebula-nominated Ivory: A Legend of Past and Future (1988) and the Chronicles of a Distant World trio (Paradise (1989), Purgatory (1993), Inferno (1994)), which translates the post-independence histories of Kenya, Zimbabwe and Uganda into SF terms.  In addition to his fiction, he has helped create his own competition by writing several books about how to write, including two Hugo nominees: Putting It Together: Turning Sow's Ear Drafts Into Silk Purse Stories (2000) and I Have This Nifty Idea...Now What Do I Do With It? (2001).  His editing has been almost as prolific as his writing.  He has edited or co-edited more than 20 anthologies, giving a major boost to the alternate history subgenre with both serious (Alternate Presidents (1989), Alternate Warriors (1993), Alternate Tyrants (1997)) and less serious (Alternate Worldcons (1994), Alternate Skiffy (1997)) collections.  He was Toastmaster of the 1988 World Science Fiction Convention.  Among his latest books are The Return of Santiago (2003) and Once a Fan (2002), a selection of his fannish writings.  Dragon America, due out later this year, will begin an alternate history/fantasy series. [Updated, 9/1/05]
John Maddox Roberts writes science fiction, fantasy, and both contemporary and historical mysteries.  His first novel, The Strayed Sheep of Charun (1977), was a fast-paced depiction of Jesuit missionaries out to reform a medievalized planet.  Since then he has written nearly 40 novels.  His SF includes The Enigma Variations (1989; the travails of an amnesiac in a corporate-controlled near future), the Cingulum series of space operas (The Cingulum (1985), Cloak of Illusion (1985), The Sword, the Jewel and the Mirror (1988)), alternate histories (King of the Wood (1983) and Hannibal’s Children (2002)) and juveniles (Space Angel (1979) and Window of the Mind (1988)).  His Stormlands series, which began with The Islander (1990), can be read as either SF or fantasy, since magic is rationalized as lost technology.  He turned to sword-and-sorcery in his additions to the adventures of Conan the Barbarian (eight volumes in all, from Conan the Valorous (1985) through Conan and the Amazon (1995)), where the hero is less purely dependent on brute strength than Robert E. Howard’s prototype.  In recent years, he has turned from SF and fantasy to the historical SPQR series, which brings the police procedural to ancient Rome.  His other non-SF work includes the Gabe Treloar mysteries (e. g., Ghosts of Saigon (1995)).  His latest book is the ninth SPQR volume, The Princess and the Pirates (2005). [Updated, 8/1/05]
Jennifer Roberson is the author of 22 novels, mostly high fantasy but also including three mainstream historicals and a Highlander tie-in.  Her first book, Shapechangers (1984), inaugurated her Cheysuli series, which has continued through eight volumes, with at least three more planned.  Her other major series began with Sword-Dancer (1986).  The most recent volume is Sword-Sworn (1999).  Her historical novels include Lady of Sherwood (1992) and Lady of the Forest (1999), which treat the Robin Hood legend from Maid Marian’s point of view.  She has edited three anthologies.  Her novel The Golden Key (1996, with Alis A. Rasmussen and Melanie Rawn) was a World Fantasy Award Best Novel nominee.  Her non-writing vocation is breeding Cardigan Welsh Corgis.
Spider and Jeanne Robinson together wrote “Stardance” (1977), which won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novella and was the jumping off point for their novels Stardance (1979), Starseed (1991) and Starmind (1995).  The books drew on Jeanne’s experience as a dancer and choreographer.  She was in line for a space shuttle berth, to turn zero-gee dance into reality, when the Challenger disaster intervened.  Spider’s first story, “The Guy With the Eyes” (the start of the long-running “Callahan’s Cross-Time Saloon” series) appeared in 1973.  The next year he shared the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.  His debut novel was Telempath (1976).  The first four chapters, published separately as “By Any Other Name”, won the Best Novella Hugo Award.  His short story “Melancholy Elephants” (1982) was another Hugo winner, and he has one other nomination (for “Dog Day Evening” (1977)).  Aside from his fiction, he established a reputation as a perceptive critic with his “Galaxy Bookshelf” column (1975–77).  For the past several years, he has written an opinion column, “Future Tense” for the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail.  In all, his output includes a dozen novels and 15 short story collections.  His most recent books are Callahan’s Con (2003), Very Bad Deaths (2004), a comedy about a serial killer, and The Crazy Years: Reflections of a Science Fiction Original (2004), a collection of his newspaper columns and other opinion pieces.  He was Toastmaster of the 1992 and 2003 World Science Fiction Conventions. [Updated, 8/1/05]
Michaela Roessner won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1989, largely on the strength of Walkabout World (1988), a fantasy novel grounded in the spirit world of the Australian aborigines.  Her second book, Vanishing Point (1993), was vastly different: science fiction set in a post-holocaust California and featuring parallel worlds and virtual particle physics.  Feeling most at home with long forms, she has published only a handful of short stories, mostly in fairly obscure venues.  Her current project is an historical fantasy trilogy based on the life of Catherine de Medici, of which first two volumes, The Stars Dispose (1997) and The Stars Compel (1999), have already appeared.  In her spare time, she is a painter and mask-maker.
Bruce Holland Rogers is a prolific short story writer with two Nebula Awards to his credit (“Lifeboat in a Burning Sea” (Best Novelette, 1996) and “Thirteen Ways to Water” (Best Short Story, 1998)) out of his five nominations.  He won Bram Stoker Awards for “The Dead Boy at Your Window” (1998) and Wind Over Heaven and Other Dark Tales (2000).  He has also edited two anthologies, Bedtime Stories to Darken Your Dreams (1988) and Bones of the World (2001, with Jeffry Dwight) and written a nonfiction volume, Word Work: Surviving and Thriving as a Writer (2000).  His short fiction is collected in Flaming Arrows (2001; short-short stories) and Thirteen Ways to Water and Other Stories (2004).
Joel Rosenberg is a firearms instructor and expert on Minnesota gun laws, a background that he uses extensively in his fiction.  He started his professional science fiction career in 1982 with “Like the Gentle Rains” (Asimov’s).  His debut novel, The Sleeping Dragon (1984), led off his swashbuckling Guardians of the Flame series – part sword-and-sorcery, part parallel world tale, part parody – which has now reached ten volumes with Not Really the Prisoner of Zenda (2003).  His major SF series, The Metsada Mercenary Corps, follows the adventures of star-roving Jewish soldiers.  His other novels include a trio techno-thrillers set against the background of the War on Terror, The Last Jihad (2002), The Last Days (2003) and The Ezekiel Option (2005).  He began a new series with Paladins (2004), set in an alternate world where Mordred defeated “Arthur the Tyrant” and founded a world-ruling dynasty.  A sequel, Knight Moves, is in preparation. [Updated, 8/1/05]
David D. Ross wrote The Argus Gambit (1989) and The Eighth Rank (1991), both set in a near future Fortress America striving to recover from ecological disaster.  He works as a professional journalist and publishes two e-mail newsletters, The Curmudgeon Report and ThoughtCrime.  His reporting has won awards from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists.
Deborah J. Ross published her first two novels, one SF (Jaydium (1993)) and one fantasy (Northlight (1995)), and her early short stories as “Deborah Wheeler”.  She has since switched to using the name “Ross”.  In collaboration with Marion Zimmer Bradley, she began work on a new Darkover trilogy before Bradley’s death.  Set in the early period of the planet’s history, it consists of The Fall of Neskaya (2002), Zandru’s Forge (2003) and A Flame in Hali (2004). [Updated, 8/1/05]
Terry Rossio was co-writer and co-producer of the Hugo- and Nebula-nominated movie Shrek (2001).  His other screen credits include Little Monsters, Aladdin, The Puppet Masters, The Mask of Zorro, Antz, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Black Pearl and Shrek 2.  He runs a Web site full of counsel for aspiring screenwriters at www.wordplayer.com.
Milton Rothman (1919–2001) was co-founder of the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society (1935), chaired the first science fiction convention in North America (and perhaps in the world; priority is disputed) in 1936, was the first person to chair two World Science Fiction Conventions (1947 and 1953).  He was Fan Guest of Honor at the 1998 World Science Fiction Convention.  From 1938 on, he published short fiction regularly, usually under the name “Lee Gregor”, but his principal writing was in the field of science.  A nuclear physicist by profession, he authored both explanations of scientific principles for laymen and dissections of pseudo-science.  Among his books were The Laws of Physics (1963), Discovering the Natural Laws: The Experimental Basis of Physics (1972), A Physicist's Guide to Skepticism (1988) and The Science Gap: Dispelling the Myths and Understanding the Reality of Science (1992).
William Rotsler (1926–1997) was widely known for his fannish activities, particularly the cartoons that he drew for hundreds of fanzines.  He also had a noteworthy career as a pro writer.  His first story was “Ship Me Tomorrow” (Galaxy, 1970) and his first novel Patron of the Arts (1974), an expansion of the Hugo and Nebula-nominated novelette of the same name.  Later novels included To the Land of the Electric Angel (1976), which extrapolated Southern California into a dystopian future and furnished the background to his Zandra series, and Shiva Descending (1980, with Greg Benford). Much of his later work consisted of media tie-ins, including three collections of Star Trek short stories.  He was nominated for the Best Fan Artist Hugo Award 21 times and won in 1975, 1979, 1996 and 1997.  He was Fan Guest of Honor at the 1973 World Science Fiction Convention.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch began her SF writing career in 1987 (“Sing”, Aboriginal SF) and won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1990.  Her first novel, The White Mists of Power, appeared in 1991, as did her novella, “The Gallery of His Dreams”, which was a 1992 Hugo Award nominee.  By that time, she was already becoming well known as an editor, first at Pulphouse Publishing, which she co-founded with Dean Wesley Smith, and then as editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.  During her tenure at F&SF, she was nominated seven times for the Best Professional Editor Hugo Award, winning in 1994 and finishing second every other year.  Her fiction includes not only SF and fantasy but a substantial body of mystery and romance work, for which she has won Ellery Queen and Romance Times Reviewers’ Choice Awards.  She has gained four Hugo and four Nebula Award nominations for her SF writing, winning the Best Short Story Hugo in 2001 with “Millennium Babies”.  Her latest novel is Buried Deep (2005), the fourth volume in her Retrieval Artist series (following The Disappeared (2002), Extremes (2003) and Consequences (2004)) about a pair of Lunar detectives. [Updated, 8/1/05]
Gary Alan Ruse sold his first story, “Nanda”, to Analog in 1972 and followed it with a techno-thriller featuring a cybernetic spy dog (Houndstooth, 1975).  He published four other novels by 1988 but has in recent years written only short fiction.  He reportedly has a couple of new novels and several movie and television projects in the works.
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