Guests

Kage Baker has over a period of years for the Living History Centre has been playwright, bit player, director, teacher of Elizabethan English for the stage, stage manager and educational program assistant coordinator. Author of three books selected by the FACT Reading Group, In the Garden of Iden, Sky Coyote and Mendoza In Hollywood, in addition to her more recent efforts The Graveyard Game and Black Projects, White Knights, numerous short stories and novelettes and the forthcoming The Anvil of the World (Tor, Summer 2003). An avid gardener, birdwatcher, and Jethro Tull fan, she currently lives in beautiful Pismo Beach, Clam Capital of the World.

Willie Siros, co-founder (with Robert Taylor) of ArmadilloCon and chair of the first three ArmadilloCons and co-chair of ArmadilloCon 15, not to mention LoneStarCon 1, the 1985 North American Science Fiction Convention. An escapee from El Paso, Texas, formerly a para-librarian at the Univeristy of Texas Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, who developed it's speculative fiction collection, presently runs the for now virtual bookstore Adventures in Crime and Space and has had made numerous appearances at lesser conventions around the world such as WorldCon, World Fantasy and Bouchercon. Willie currently resides in the hills above Barton Springs Pool and Zilker Park in Austin.

Not technically proficient enough to achieve financial independence by threatening governments with ill-conceived doomsday devices, Aaron Allston makes his living as a novelist and game designer. His most recent work includes Rebel Dream and Rebel Stand (entries in the Star Wars: New Jedi Order series; published 2002), and Sidhe-Devil (sequel to Doc Sidhe; published June 2001), an urban fantasy that combines traits of Celtic mythology with those of the 1930s pulp adventure magazines. Upcoming work includes Mongoose Among Cobras, science fiction action/adventure, and Champions, a game supplement in the Hero System role-playing line. Allston lives in the Austin, TX area with numerous friends and animals.

A native New Yorker and former biologist, Anne Lesley Groell, our Editor Guest, has been working in science fiction and fantasy publishing for just over ten years-although she has been a devotee of the genre far longer. She worked for two and a half years at Avon Books, then moved on to Bantam Spectra, where she is now a Senior Editor, working with such authors as George R.R. Martin, Connie Willis, Kim Stanley Robinson and Robin Hobb. In addition, she has also published three fantasy novels of her own for Roc: Anvil Of The Sun, Bridge Of Valor, and Cauldron Of Iniquity (now all unfortunately out of print).

John Picacio is a freelance illustrator who uses painting and the collage and assemblage of mixed media to communicate about the world around him. He is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin's School of Architecture (BArch '92). Since 1996, his illustration and design work has continued to grace the covers and interiors of major books, magazines, and other media. Clients include Random House/Del Rey, Viking Children's Books, Golden Gryphon Press, Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Night Shade Books, Subterranean Press, Cemetery Dance Publications, Realms of Fantasy Magazine, Hispanic Magazine, Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine, The San Antonio Current, and The Empire Theatre Company of Chicago. He received the 2002 International Horror Guild Award (Best Artist) and is a two-time winner in the book division of Spectrum: The Best In Contemporary Fantastic Art. He lives and works in San Antonio, Texas.

Vernor Vinge, multiple award winner and Professor Emeritus of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, San Diego State University, has included cool technical ideas in his writing from the first, starting with his The Witling, followed by True Names (a book often shared and discussed by computer scientists after it was first published - at times hard to get and now seems to be a report on what has happened with the internet), Tatja Grimm's World , A Fire Upon the Deep (1993 Hugo Award), A Deepness in the Sky (2000 Hugo Award, 2000 John W. Campbell Memorial Award, 2000 Prometheus Award), and Fast Times at Fairmont High (The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge) (2002 Hugo Award), not to mention the Across Real Time series and numerous short stories. We should also consider his non-fiction writing on the technological singularity.