Geoffrey Charles Ryman is a Canadian writer of science fiction, fantasy, slipstream and historical fiction.
Patricia Oren Kearney Cadigan is a British-American science fiction author, whose work is most often identified with the cyberpunk movement. Her novels and short stories often explore the relationship between the human mind and technology. Her debut novel, Mindplayers, was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award in 1988.
Vernor Steffen Vinge was an American science fiction author and professor. He taught mathematics and computer science at San Diego State University. He was the first wide-scale popularizer of the technological singularity concept and among the first authors to present a fictional "cyberspace". He won the Hugo Award for his novels A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), A Deepness in the Sky (1999), and Rainbows End (2006), and novellas Fast Times at Fairmont High (2002) and The Cookie Monster (2004).
WisCon or Wiscon, a Wisconsin science fiction convention, is the oldest, and often called the world's leading, feminist science fiction convention and conference. It was first held in Madison, Wisconsin in February 1977, after a group of fans attending the 1976 34th World Science Fiction Convention in Kansas City was inspired to organize a convention like WorldCon but with feminism as the dominant theme. The convention is held annually in May, during the four-day weekend of Memorial Day. Sponsored by the Society for the Furtherance and Study of Fantasy and Science Fiction, or (SF)³, WisCon gathers together fans, writers, editors, publishers, scholars, and artists to discuss science fiction and fantasy, with emphasis on issues of feminism, gender, race, and class.
Kij Johnson is an American writer of fantasy. She is a faculty member at the University of Kansas.
Nemonymous was an experimental short fiction publication that labeled itself a "megazanthus". It was published and edited in the United Kingdom from 2001–2010 by D.F. Lewis.
Terri Windling is an American editor, artist, essayist, and the author of books for both children and adults. She has won nine World Fantasy Awards, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and the Bram Stoker Award, and her collection The Armless Maiden appeared on the short-list for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award.
Ellen Klages is an American science, science fiction and historical fiction writer who lives in San Francisco. Her novelette "Basement Magic" won the 2005 Nebula Award for Best Novelette. She had previously been nominated for Hugo, Nebula, and Campbell awards. Her first (non-genre) novel, The Green Glass Sea, was published by Viking Children's Books in 2006. It won the 2007 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction. Portable Childhoods, a collection of her short fiction published by Tachyon Publications, was named a 2008 World Fantasy Award finalist. White Sands, Red Menace, the sequel to The Green Glass Sea, was published in Fall 2008. In 2010, her short story "Singing on a Star" was nominated for a World Fantasy Award. In 2018 her novella Passing Strange was nominated for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature.
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.
Lavie Tidhar is an Israeli-born writer, working across multiple genres. He has lived in the United Kingdom and South Africa for long periods of time, as well as Laos and Vanuatu. As of 2013, Tidhar has lived in London. His novel Osama won the 2012 World Fantasy Award—Novel, beating Stephen King's 11/22/63 and George R. R. Martin's A Dance with Dragons. His novel A Man Lies Dreaming won the £5000 Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize, for Best British Fiction, in 2015. He won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 2017, for Central Station.
Janus was a feminist science fiction fanzine edited by Janice Bogstad and Jeanne Gomoll in Madison, Wisconsin, and closely associated with that city's science fiction convention, WisCon. It was repeatedly nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine ; this led to accusations that if Janus had not been feminist, it wouldn't have been nominated. Eighteen issues were published under this name from 1975 to 1980; it was succeeded by Aurora SF.
Nisi Shawl is an African-American writer, editor, and journalist. They are best known as an author of science fiction and fantasy short stories who writes and teaches about how fantastic fiction might reflect real-world diversity of gender, sexual orientation, race, colonialism, physical ability, age, and other sociocultural factors.
Lucy A. Snyder is an American science fiction, fantasy, humor, horror, and nonfiction writer.
Gregory Frost is an American author of science fiction and fantasy, and directs a fiction writing workshop at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. He received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa. A graduate of the Clarion Workshop, he has been invited back as instructor several times, including the first session following its move to the University of California at San Diego in 2007. He is also active in the Interstitial Arts Foundation.
Susan Joan Wood was a Canadian literary critic, professor, author and science fiction fan and editor. She was born in Ottawa, Ontario.
The role of women in speculative fiction has changed a great deal since the early to mid-20th century. There are several aspects to women's roles, including their participation as authors of speculative fiction and their role in science fiction fandom. Regarding authorship, in 1948, 10–15% of science fiction writers were female. Women's role in speculative fiction has grown since then, and in 1999, women comprised 36% of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's professional members. Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley has been called the first science fiction novel, although women wrote utopian novels even before that, with Margaret Cavendish publishing the first in the seventeenth century. Early published fantasy was written by and for any gender. However, speculative fiction, with science fiction in particular, has traditionally been viewed as a male-oriented genre.
Andrea Hairston is an African-American science fiction and fantasy playwright and novelist. Her novel Redwood and Wildfire won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award for 2011. Mindscape, Hairston's first novel, won the Carl Brandon Parallax Award and was short-listed for the Philip K. Dick Award and the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. Hairston was one of the Guests of Honor at the science fiction convention Wiscon in May 2012.
Liz Gorinsky is a publisher and editor of speculative fiction, founder and former 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.
Centipede Press is an American independent book and periodical publisher focusing on horror, weird tales, crime narratives, science fiction, gothic novels, fantasy art, and studies of literature, music and film. Its earliest imprints were Cocytus Press and Millipede Press.
Monica Valentinelli is an Italian-American game designer, author, essayist, editor, and game developer. She studied at University of Wisconsin–Madison, and holds a B.A. in English with a Creative Writing Emphasis. She started working in the hobby games industry in 2005. She is the author of several roleplaying games and supplements, as well as short stories and essays, and is an anthologist as well. Since 2016 she has been an industry speaker and Guest of Honor at several game conventions.
