Jason Henderson, author of Young Captain Nemo (Macmillan) and Alex Van Helsing (HarperCollins) is a regular speaker on media and entertainment. His popular podcasts “Castle Talk” and “Castle of Horror” feature interviews and discussion panels made up of best-selling writers and artists from all genres. His young adult series, Alex Van Helsing, was named by the Texas Library Association to the 2011 Lone Star Reading List. He also writes for games and comics. Henderson lives in Colorado with his wife and two daughters.

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New York Times bestselling author Alethea Kontis is a princess, storm chaser, and adventurer. She has authored over 20 books and 40 short stories, including AlphaOops: The Day Z Went First (Candlewick), Enchanted (HMH) and Prince Phillip’s Birthday Waltz (Disney). Alethea is the recipient of the Jane Yolen Mid-List Author Grant, the Scribe Award, the Garden State Teen Book Award, and two-time winner of the Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award. She has been twice nominated for both the Andre Norton Nebula and the Dragon Award. She was an active contributor to The Fireside Sessions, a benefit EP created by Snow Patrol and her fellow Saturday Songwriters in 2020. Alethea also narrates stories for multiple award-winning online magazines and contributes regular YA book reviews to NPR. Born in Vermont, she currently resides on the Space Coast of Florida with her teddy bear, Charlie. Find out more about Princess Alethea at aletheakontis.com

P. J. (Tricia) Hoover wanted to be a Jedi, but when that didn’t work out, she became an electrical engineer instead. After a fifteen year bout designing computer chips for a living, P. J. decided to start creating worlds of her own. She's the award-winning author of The Hidden Code, a Da Vinci Code-style young adult adventure with a kick-butt heroine, and Tut: The Story of My Immortal Life, featuring a fourteen-year-old King Tut who's stuck in middle school. When not writing, P. J. enjoys practicing kung fu, solving Rubik’s cubes, watching Star Trek, and playing too many video games.

For more information about P. J. (Tricia) Hoover, please visit her website www.pjhoover.com.

In Churl Yo has served as an editorial director and an award-winning creative consultant to several magazines during his career. He is currently Director of Production at SagaCity Media in Seattle, Washington, the editor of the science-fiction FuturePast Anthology series, and publisher at Castle Bridge Media. Amazing Stories called his debut novel Isonation “a fast-paced post-pandemic story where nothing turns out to be quite what it seems.” His new novel Austinites, a literary nostalgia-infused trip through 1990’s Austin, is available now.

A Colorado native, Sam Knight spent ten years in California's wine country before returning to the Rockies. When asked if he misses California he gets a wistful look in his eyes and replies he misses the green mountains in the winter, but he is glad to be back home.

His grandfather and mother are avid readers and Sam says his own passion started when he pressed his grandfather about what was so interesting. His grandfather handed him a book and he has been an avid reader ever since. He claims to have finished the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy in fourth grade and says he can still remember the look, feel, and smell of some of those early books. (He has been spotted sniffing books as he ruffles the pages.)

While doing research for a Western novel, Sam was not surprised to find out that, once upon a time, half of his family had been on the wrong side of the law. It stands to reason that when your great-great-grandfather was a marshal in Cripple Creek, Colorado, someone in the family had to be a horse thief. Sam was, however, surprised to find the family name had originally been McKnight and that the thieves had taken the 'Mc' part of the name with them. (Or the lawmen let them have it to distance themselves from that side of the family.) Having served a stint working in a correctional facility, he has often wondered if being a lawman runs in the blood. His great grandfather upheld the law in Mooreland, OK, as well as Springfield and Florence CO, among other places, with his grandfather occasionally deputized to assist.

When asked why he would want to become a writer, Sam recounts a time when he was in fifth grade. Illness stuck him in bed for two weeks with only books for companions. (This was a bit before video game phone implants were in common use.) He burned through the Xanth trilogy (back before it expanded into thirty some books), the Riddle of Stars trilogy, a couple of John Carter of Mars books, and several Pip and Flinx novels, relishing the moments when he would become so engrossed he would forget the ills of the physical. A thought floated through his mind at that time, about being able to return the favor to the authors who were providing so much to him. That thought never left and now he sincerely hopes anyone picking up one his stories can find something they were looking for.

As well having been Distribution Manager for WordFire Press, Senior Editor for Villainous Press, and doing miscellaneous things for various other small publishers, Sam is the author of six children’s books, four short story collections, three novels, and over five dozen short stories, including two media tie-ins: a Planet of the Apes story and a Wayward Pines story, both co-authored with Kevin J. Anderson. In 2017, based upon his experiences curating and editing five anthologies and numerous other stories, as well as being involved in the publication of over 400 titles in some way, Sam released Blood from Your Own Pen: A Practical Guide on Self-Editing and Common Mistakes.

Drop in and see what he is up to at SamKnight.com. If you have something you want to say, leave a comment, or contact him at Sam@SamKnight.com.