Our Sponsors

Brigid Ashwood - www.brigidashwood.com

Brigid Ashwood's art could be described as Contemporary Figurative Mythic Surrealism. But the artist prefers to qualify her work this way: " I paint steampunk bugs, clockwork dolls, fairytales & vinyl toys. I seek to reinterpret mythic and fairytale worlds and heroines' for a new audience"

A modern artist exploring classic themes through a Sci-Fi lens; Brigid's influences and technique is well rooted in traditional mediums such as oil paint and silverpoint.  She also works in the luminous tones of the digital palette; merging the labored craft of portraiture with the flexibility of modern mediums. Brigid's work is collected internationally and has been featured in exhibits around the country as well in books and international magazines. Her originals are collected by notable authors, musicians, actors and CEOs. Brigid's images have been licensed for a variety of products sold worldwide. She resides in Maryland in a 246 year old house with her husband & daughter, and four aggravating yet lovable pets.

Kristy 'Illusioner' Gilbert - theillusioner.com

Friend, lover .. wait, this isn't poetry. Illy (rhymes with silly) was born Kristy Gilbert some few years ago and always thought she was a writer. She wrote feverishly through the 80's during high school. She was an avid fan of Science Fiction in general and action TV shows in particular. Yes, she watched He-Man, the A-Team, GI Joe, Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica because she liked them, not just to appease the little brothers! After high school, she went on to become a travel agent, a wife, a mother, an ex-wife and finally discovered the magic of Digital Art in July of 2004. She'd tried Poser the year before but gave up because it didn't make sense. A good friend took the time to explain the basics and that was the start. Illusioner never looked back.

Julia spent the first eighteen years of her life in an isolated farming community of just over 600 people. While that might have led some to sit and stare at the cows all day, she started drawing as soon as she could wield a crayon. By the time first grade rolled around, barely a sheet of paper would pass by without being covered with fantasy and fairytale drawings.

Twenty-two years later, she still finds herself firmly rooted in dark, “realistic” fantasy; with sci-fi, steampunk, sequential comic, and manga-styled work also making appearances. Most of her work is a combination of traditional and digital methods, with a heavy emphasis on digital painting. She has attended artist alleys at conventions since 2002 – from Chicago to Boston to Atlanta - and her art has won numerous awards online and through various art shows.

Brian McCulloch - mccullochart.com

Shawn "Scott" Smith - www.luckycreature.com

Smith is a comic book writer, creature painter and a dabbler in the creative arts. He is also the creator of Peas webcomic, and founded con-news.com in 2007, the leading daily news site devoted to fandom conventions across the country. All of his adventures are documented on his website at www.luckycreature.com

Jessica C. White - www.heroesandcriminalspress.com

I'm a printmaker, bookbinder, papermaker, and zinester. I create images with children and animals that attempt to make sense of uncertainties in our world today, similar to the way animals were used in folktales and ancient mythologies. Much of my exploration revolves around good versus evil, right and wrong, justice, and wonder.

I like mosses and ferns, staring out of windows, walking through the woods, ghosts, visiting old cemeteries, antique medicine bottles, and books with pictures. I dislike walking on things I can see through, bare walls, and skipping breakfast. I always check twice to be sure that the mail I put in the box really fell down the chute.

I publish handcrafted books under the imprint Heroes & Criminals Press. You can see my work at www.HeroesAndCriminalsPress.com.

David Bartell - www.davidbartell.us

David Bartell has a bachelor's degree in Astrophysics from the University of Virginia, and a Masters certificate in project management from George Washington University. He has sold a number of stories in magazines, most notably in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, making him a button-sporting member of the Analog MAFIA ("Members Appearing Frequently In Analog".) He won the AnLab award for best short story (with Ekaterina Sedia), and has had three lead stories in recent years. He has short stories in the anthologies Gods and Monsters, Jigsaw Nation, and the new Warrior Wisewoman 2. He also writes a lot of fantasy.

David is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), a member of the Washington Science Fiction Association (WSFA), and a certified scuba divemaster. He has dabbled professionally in photography and film.  His photos SF con photos are legendary, and have ended up on blogs, official web sites, trading cards, suspicious Google searches, and sadly, obits.

He networks on LinkedIn and Facebook, and YouTube (subscribe to WyrdNet), so if you're on those, search and befriend. Beware his camera - you may end up on a WyrdNet card yourself!

He lives in Northern Virginia

Jim Bernheimer - www.jimbernheimer.com

By day, Jim Bernheimer works as a network administrator and makes his  home in Chesapeake, Virginia.  He's married to the lovely Kim and has two daughters driving him crazy (Laura and Marissa). In his spare time, he enjoys writing science fiction and fantasy.  He has two novels published through Gryphonwood Press and a published short story  collection.

James Chambers - www.jameschambersonline.com

James Chambers is the author of three story collections: The Engines of Sacrifice and Resurrection House, published by Dark Regions Press, and The Midnight Hour: Saint Lawn Hill and Other Tales. His tales of crime, horror, fantasy, and science fiction have appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines, including Allen K’s Inhuman; Bad Cop, No Donut; Bad-Ass Faeries; Bare Bone; Cthulhu Sex; The Domino Lady: Sex as a Weapon; Dragon’s Lure; The Green Hornet Chronicles; New Blood; and So It Begins.

He also wrote the comic book series Leonard Nimoy’s Primortals and The Revenant in Shadow House and is currently writing comic book stories for The Domino Lady and The Midnight Hour.

Elaine Corvidae - www.onecrow.net

Elaine Corvidae has been telling stories about faeries, elves, and dragons since she was a small child. Her dark fantasy novels have won numerous awards, including multiple Eppie Awards and Dream Realm Awards for Best Fantasy Novel. When she isn’t wandering the worlds of her imagination, she lives in Harrisburg, NC, with her husband and several cats.

Paul Dellinger

Paul Dellinger sold his first SF story in 1962, while in the service. He later adapted it into a play performed in 1970 at the Barter Theatre. He has published twenty or so more short stories over the years for magazines and anthologies, co-authored a non-fiction (believe it or not) book on UFOs, written and performed in a twice-a-week radio adventure series for a year, and written uncounted articles for newspapers and popular culture publications, many of the latter on old-time western (aka "alternate reality") movies. He and his wife, Maxine, live in Wytheville, Va. They have two grown children.

Tom Doyle

Greg Eatroff

Larry Hodges - www.larryhodges.org

Larry Hodges, of Germantown, MD, is an active member of SFWA with over 40 short story sales, over half of them since summer 2008. He's a graduate of the six-week 2006 Odyssey Writers' Workshop, the 2007 Orson Scott Card Literary Boot Camp, and the 2008 Taos Toolbox Writers' Workshop. He's a full-time writer with three books and over 1200 published articles in over 100 different publications. His best work is often humorous, including his recently completed novel, "Campaign 2100: Rise of the Moderates," a political dramedy that is now making the rounds at agents on its way to great glory and/or utter obscurity. He is a member of the USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame (Google it!), and once beat someone while using an ice cube as a racket.

Bob Sanders - www.mundania.com

Bob Sanders is Co-Founder and CEO of Mundania Press, a publisher that selects books based on the quality of writing, story, entertainment value, and sales potential. The press encourages first-time authors, as well as those who have been previously published and want to put their books back into print.

The Mundania Press LLC family of imprints consists of Mundania
Press, Phaze, Awe Struck, and Hardshell Word Factory, publishing most genres from Fiction to Non-Fiction.  Bob is an award winning ToastMaster and travels the country each year speaking to writers about publishing and marketing their works.

Steve White

Steve White was born in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1946 and served as a Naval Intelligence officer in the Mediterranean and in the Vietnam War Zone. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia Law School and an associate member of the Virginia Bar.

In addition to the best-selling “Starfire” military science fiction series with David Weber, he has written several popular science fiction adventure novels for Baen. They include the trilogy comprising The Disinherited, Legacy and Debt of Ages, which combine fast-paced space opera with Arthurian mythology. He has also written the galaxy-spanning adventure Prince of Sunset, and its sequel Emperor of Dawn, the secret-history science fiction novel The Prometheus Project, the high fantasy novel Demon’s Gate, and the time travel adventure Blood of the Heroes. His most recent novel is Saint Antony’s Fire, an alternate-history fantasy set in Elizabethan times.

He is now at work on a new novel in the “Starfire” series, this time in collaboration with Chuck Gannon. Steve works for a legal publishing company in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is married and has three daughters, the youngest of whom he and his wife found and adopted in Russia… but that’s another story.

Leona Wisoker - www.leonawisoker.com

Leona Wisoker is the author of the fantasy novel Secrets of the Sands, Book One of Children of the Desert.  Her work is fueled equally by coffee and conviction; she has been known to take over the entire dining room to deconstruct a difficult novel-in-progress. Addicted to eclectic research and reading since childhood, she often chooses reading material alphabetically rather than by subject or author. This has led her to read about aardvarks, birds, child-warriors, dragons, eggs, faeries, ghosts, horses, and many other random subjects.

Leona Wisoker's short stories have appeared in Futures: Fire to Fly, Alienskin, and Anotherealm; she has been working with Green Man Review for several years. She has lived in Florida, Connecticut, Oregon, New Hampshire, Las Vegas, Alaska, California, and Virginia; has experienced the alternate realities of Georgia, North Carolina, and Italy; and believes that "home is wherever my coffee cup is filled."

She lcurrently ives in Virginia with an extraordinarily patient husband and two large dogs.