The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc., or SFWA is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. While SFWA is based in the United States, its membership is open to writers worldwide. The organization was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight under the name Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. The president of SFWA as of July 1, 2021 is Jeffe Kennedy.
Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a pair of mirrored letter Bs back to back. The firm's early editors were Stanley Kauffmann and Bernard Shir-Cliff.
The Hugo Award for Best Fanzine is given each year for non professionally edited magazines, or "fanzines", related to science fiction or fantasy which has published four or more issues with at least one issue appearing in the previous calendar year. Awards were also once given out for professional magazines in the professional magazine category, and since 1984 have been awarded for semi-professional magazines in the semiprozine category; several magazines that were nominated for or won the fanzine category have gone on to be nominated for or win the semiprozine category since it was established. The Hugo Awards have been described as "a fine showcase for speculative fiction" and "the best known literary award for science fiction writing".
The Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The award is available for editors of magazines, novels, anthologies, or other works related to science fiction or fantasy. The award supplanted a previous award for professional magazine. The Hugo Awards have been described as "a fine showcase for speculative fiction" and "the best known literary award for science fiction writing".
Elizabeth Jones Ballantine, better known as Betty Ballantine, was an American publisher, editor, and writer. She was born during the Raj to a British colonial family. After her marriage to Ian Ballantine in 1939, she moved to New York where they created Bantam Books in 1945 and established Ballantine Books in 1952. They became freelance publishers in the 1970s. Their son, Richard, was an author and journalist specializing in cycling topics.
Martin Harry Greenberg was an American academic and speculative fiction anthologist. In all, he compiled 1,298 anthologies and commissioned over 8,200 original short stories. He founded Tekno Books, a packager of more than 2000 published books. He was also a co-founder of the Sci-Fi Channel. Greenberg was also an expert in terrorism and the Middle East. He was a longtime friend, colleague and business partner of Isaac Asimov.
Ellen Datlow is an American science fiction, fantasy, and horror editor and anthologist. She is a winner of the World Fantasy Award and the Bram Stoker Award.
Charles Nikki Brown was an American publishing editor, the co-founder and editor of Locus, the long-running news and reviews magazine covering the genres of science fiction and fantasy literature. Brown was born on June 24, 1937, in Brooklyn, New York. He attended City College until 1956, when he joined the military at age 18; Brown served in the United States Navy for three years. Following his discharge from navy service, he went to work as a nuclear engineer but later on changed careers and entered the publishing field; Brown became a full-time science fiction editor with Locus in 1975.
Jonathan Strahan is an editor and publisher of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. His family moved to Perth, Western Australia in 1968, and he graduated from the University of Western Australia with a Bachelor of Arts in 1986.
James Davis Nicoll is a Canadian freelance game and speculative fiction reviewer, former role-playing game store owner, and also works as a first reader for the Science Fiction Book Club. As a Usenet personality, Nicoll is known for writing a widely quoted epigram on the English language, as well as for his accounts of suffering a high number of accidents, which he has narrated over the years in Usenet groups like rec.arts.sf.written and rec.arts.sf.fandom. He is now a blogger on Dreamwidth and Facebook, and an occasional columnist on Tor.com. In 2014, he started his website, jamesdavisnicoll.com, dedicated to his book reviews of works old and new; and later added Young People Read Old SFF, where his panel of younger readers read pre-1980 science fiction and fantasy, and Nicoll and his collaborators report on the younger readers' reactions.
Bookspan LLC is a New York–based online book seller, founded in 2000.
Readercon is an annual science fiction convention, held every July in the Boston, Massachusetts area, in Burlington, Massachusetts. It was founded by Bob Colby and statistician Eric Van in 1987 with the goal of focusing almost exclusively on science fiction/fantasy/slipstream/speculative fiction in the written form. Past guests of honor have included authors such as Greer Gilman, Gene Wolfe, Octavia Butler, Samuel R. Delany, Karen Joy Fowler, Brian Aldiss, Nalo Hopkinson, Joe Haldeman, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Peter Straub, and China Miéville, and editors such as Ellen Datlow and David G. Hartwell. The convention also makes a point of honoring a deceased author as the Memorial Guest of Honor. In 2009, for instance, the guests of honor were the living writers Elizabeth Hand and Greer Gilman and the memorial guest of honor was Hope Mirrlees.
The 69th World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), also known as Renovation, was held on 17–21 August 2011 at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center (RSCC) in Reno, Nevada, United States. The Atlantis Casino Resort served as the headquarters/party hotel, with additional rooms supplied by the Peppermill Reno and Courtyard by Marriott.
The 49th World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), also known as Chicon V, was held on 29 August–2 September 1991 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Pyr was the science fiction and fantasy imprint of Prometheus Books, launched in March 2005 with the publication of John Meaney's Paradox. In November 2018 it was sold to Start Publishing.
Cat Rambo is an American science fiction and fantasy writer and editor. According to the official press biography from Macmillan Books, Cat uses they/them pronouns. Cat was co-editor of Fantasy Magazine from 2007 to 2011, which earned them a 2012 World Fantasy Special Award: Non-Professional nomination. They collaborated with Jeff VanderMeer on The Surgeon's Tale and Other Stories, published in 2007.
Gary K. Wolfe is an American science fiction editor, critic and biographer. He is an emeritus Professor of Humanities in Roosevelt University's Evelyn T. Stone College of Professional Studies.
The Hugo Award is an annual literary award for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year, given at the World Science Fiction Convention and chosen by its members. The Hugo is widely considered the premier award in science fiction. The award is administered by the World Science Fiction Society. It is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. Hugos were first given in 1953, at the 11th World Science Fiction Convention, and have been awarded every year since 1955.
SFScope is an online trade journal devoted to entertainment news concerning speculative fiction, science fiction, fantasy, and horror. It was founded by Ian Randal Strock in early 2007.
Liz Gorinsky is the publisher of Erewhon Books, a former editor for Tor Books, multiple Hugo Award nominee, and 2017 Hugo Award winner in the category of Best Editor.
