Category: Author Guest (Page 5 of 7)

Jennifer R. Povey

Born in Nottingham, England, Jennifer R. Povey (she/her) now lives in Northern Virginia, where she writes everything from heroic fantasy to stories for Analog. She has written a number of novels across multiple sub-genres. She is a full member of SFWA. Her interests include horseback riding, Doctor Who, and attempting to out-weird her various friends and professional colleagues. Find her on Facebook at facebook.com/jrpovey/, Mastodon at @NinjaFingers@universeodon.com, or Bluesky at @NinjaFingers.

Jennifer’s novel, Kyx, is a finalist for this year’s Webster Award.

Angela Pritchett

Angela is an award-winning, master-level cosplayer and educator. She started sewing from a very young age when her sense of style and love of dressing up like movie and TV show characters made her father and grandmother realize that “this child needs to learn how to sew.”

With over twenty years of experience in the world of cosplay, special FX makeup, and film, Angela has focused on introducing new people to costuming/cosplay and FX makeup, helping create a fun and safe environment for all. When not working on cosplays, she has designed and created costumes and makeups for stage and screen. She loves the process of bringing a thought on a piece of paper to life. Angela also enjoys writing (several short stories and two cookbooks), directing (she has won numerous awards for her short film directing, as well as for her acting), and dressing up her two pugs—Jimmy and Dezzy.

Angela can be seen in a plethora of films and on TV, including Plan 9, The Porkchop Trillogy, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and the JG Wentworth commercial.

She has been a cosplay guest, judge, contest runner, and instructor at many conventions across the US. Her costumes have been featured in The Washington Post, CosMode, and multiple coffee table costuming/cosplay books. You can find her online on Instagram @Angalese or on TikTok @AngelaPlaysUkulele.

Evan Ratke

Evan Ratke was born and raised in the suburbs of Richmond, VA. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Sociology from Longwood University and a Postgraduate Diploma in Arctic Studies from the University of Iceland. Somewhere between exams, papers, and an awkward attempt at a social life, he started work on what would eventually become his first novel, Dragoon, released in 2018. His sequel novels, Chloe and Corday, followed in 2019 and 2022 respectively. Ratke is an active runner and lives in Richmond. He is currently exploring new writing projects, including his fourth novel.

Kate Ressman

Kate is old enough that she doesn’t like to tell people. She’s been writing since elementary school and currently has three novels and a short story collection. She’s got a Master’s in Psychology, and a Master’s in Leadership and Management. A science fiction and fantasy fan with just enough trivia in her brain to be dangerous. In her day job she works with CAFM (Facilities) software. She lives in DC with her family and an invisible cat.

Gray Rinehart

Gray Rinehart is a writer, an editor, a singer/songwriter, and a retired Air Force officer. He is the only person to have commanded a USAF satellite tracking station, written speeches for Presidential appointees, devised a poetic form, and had music on The Dr. Demento Show. He is currently a contributing editor (the “Slushmaster General”) for Baen Books.

Gray writes science fiction and fantasy stories, among which is the lunar colonization novel Walking on the Sea of Clouds. His short fiction has appeared in Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, and multiple anthologies. He has also written an eclectic mix of nonfiction books: A Church More Like Christ; Elements of War; and, Quality Education. In addition, he has written and released three albums which feature science-fiction-and-fantasy-inspired music; the most recent is Taking You Out to See the Stars.

During his unusual Air Force career, Gray fought rocket propellant fires, refurbished space launch facilities, “flew” Milstar communications satellites, drove trucks, encrypted nuclear command and control orders, commanded the largest remote tracking station in the Air Force Satellite Control Network, and did other interesting space-related things.

Gray’s alter ego is the Gray Man, one of several famed ghosts of South Carolina’s Grand Strand. His website is graymanwrites.com.

Chris Semtner

The curator of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, VA, Christopher P. Semtner has curated numerous critically acclaimed exhibits for the Poe Museum in addition to exhibits for the Library of Virginia, the Science Museum of Virginia, and other venues. He has written several articles and chapters in addition to six books about Poe, visual art, and cryptography. Semtner regularly speaks on dark and mysterious subjects in venues from the Library of Congress to the Steampunk World’s Fair and as far away as Japan. He has also appeared on Poe documentaries in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan. As a visual artist, Semtner has exhibited his paintings internationally, and they can be found in both private and public collections.

Fraser Sherman

Born in England, Fraser Sherman wound up spending most of his life in Northwest Florida. He’d be there still if he hadn’t fallen in love and moved to Durham, NC to marry his dream woman. They’re still together, with two dogs and two cats added to the family.

Fraser has published more than thirty short stories, six film reference books, and several hundred articles as a reporter. In 2022 he published The Aliens Are Here, a book on extraterrestrials in films and TV; Undead Sexist Cliches, about the stupidity of misogynist arguments; and the steampunk novel Questionable Minds. In 2023 he released a collection of historical fantasy short stories, 19-Infinity through his Behold the Book imprint; in 2024 two of his stories appeared in the collaborative anthology The Ceaseless Way. He also freelances with Chapel Hill’s The Local Reporter.

Away from his computer he likes bicycling, comic books, fantasy novels, history books, vegetarian cooking, baking bread, and triumphing over insomnia.

David Simms

David Simms now lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia with his family after escaping decades of New Jersey and Massachusetts. A psychology teacher and college professor, counselor, music therapist, and ghost tour guide, he has survived a long tenure in the Slushpile band on lead guitar after co-founding the Killer Thriller Band with several best-selling ITW, SFWA, and HWA authors. He gives workshops on using music to help students of all ages to learn and de-stress, getting teens to write, and combating burnout for teachers in schools.

His novels include Pierce the Veil (thriller), Fear the Reaper (historical thriller) Ameri-Scares: New Jersey – Curse of the Barrens (middle grade horror), Dark Muse (YA/MG dark fantasy) all through Crossroads Press. His latest release is an entry into the Cemetery Dance anthology You’re Not Alone in the Dark (a collection of author’s struggles with mental health).

Finally, when he wishes to escape the world, he reads and reviews books for Cemetery Dance Magazine, Monster Librarian, and Publishers Weekly.

Alan Smale

Alan Smale writes alternate history, historical fantasy, and hard SF. His novella of a Roman invasion of ancient America, “A Clash of Eagles”, won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, and his novels set in the same universe, Clash of Eagles, Eagle in Exile, and Eagle and Empire (2015-2017) are available from Del Rey. His “Roman baseball” collaboration with Rick Wilber, The Wandering Warriors, came out from WordFire Press in 2020. Hot Moon, his alternate-Apollo “technothriller with heart”, set entirely on and around the moon, was launched by Caezik SF & Fantasy in 2022, and the sequel Radiant Sky was released November 12, 2024. Alan has sold over fifty stories to Asimov’s and other magazines and anthologies, and his short story “Gunpowder Treason” earned him a second Sidewise Award in 2022. His non-fiction essays have appeared in Lightspeed, Journey Planet, and Galaxy’s Edge.

Alan grew up in Yorkshire, England, and earned degrees in Physics and Astrophysics from Oxford University. Until recently he performed astronomical research at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and served as director of an astrophysical data archive. He also sings bass with high-energy vocal band The Chromatics, and is co-creator of their educational AstroCappella project, spreading astronomy through a cappella in schools across the country.

Wayland Smith

Wayland Smith is the pen name for a native Texan who has lived in Massachusetts, New York, Washington DC, and presently makes his home in Virginia. His rather unlikely list of jobs includes private investigator, comic book shop owner, ring crew for a circus (then he ran away from the circus and joined home), deputy sheriff, writer, and freelance stagehand. Wayland’s novels so far include In My Brother’s Name, Tools of the Trade, Cadre Clash, and Old Gods and New Drugs, the first two books in the Wildside series. He has short stories in the anthologies Cat Ladies of the Apocalypse, HeroNet Files, Vol. 1, SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror, and Misfits of Magic, among many others. He has spoken on panels at Worldcon, DragonCon, DC AwesomeCon, MystiCon, BaltiCon, Philcon, and RavenCon. A black belt in shao lin kung fu, he is also a fan of comic books, reading, writing, and various computer games (I’ll shut 7 Days to Die down in one more hour. Really). He lives with a beautiful woman who was crazy enough to marry him, and the spirits of a few wonderful dogs that have passed on.

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