Guest of Honor – Kevin J. Anderson

Kevin J. Anderson has published 125 books, more than 50 of which have been national or international bestsellers. He has written numerous novels in the Star Wars, X-Files, and Dune universes, as well as a unique steampunk fantasy novel, Clockwork Angels, based on the concept album by the legendary rock group Rush. His original works include the Saga of Seven Suns series, the Terra Incognita fantasy trilogy, the Saga of Shadows trilogy, and his humorous horror series featuring Dan Shamble, Zombie PI. Anderson and his wife Rebecca Moesta are the publishers of WordFire Press.

Guest of Honor – Shannon Hale

Shannon Hale is the New York Times best-selling author of 15 children’s and young adult novels, including the popular Ever After High trilogy and multiple award winners The Goose Girl, Book of a Thousand Days, and Newbery Honor recipient Princess Academy. She also penned three books for adults, beginning with Austenland, which is now a major motion picture starring Keri Russell. She co-wrote the hit graphic novels Rapunzel’s Revenge and Calamity Jack and illustrated chapter book The Princess in Black with husband Dean Hale. They live with their four small children near Salt Lake City, Utah.

David Farland

David Farland is an award-winning, bestselling author with over 50 novels in print. He has won the Philip K. Dick Memorial Special Award for his science fiction novel On My Way to Paradise and over seven awards for his fantasy novel Nightingale. He is best known for his New York Times bestselling series The Runelords.

Farland has written for major franchises such as Star Wars and The Mummy. He has worked in Hollywood greenlighting movies and doctoring scripts. He has been a movie producer, and he has even lived in China working as a screenwriter for a major fantasy film franchise.

Mary Robinette Kowal

Hugo-award winning author, Mary Robinette Kowal is a novelist and professional puppeteer. Her debut novel Shades of Milk and Honey (Tor 2010) was nominated for the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Novel. In 2008 she won the Campbell Award for Best New Writer, while two of her short fiction works have been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story: “Evil Robot Monkey” in 2009 and “For Want of a Nail” in 2011, which won the Hugo that year. Her stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Asimov’s, and several Year’s Best anthologies, as well as in her collection Scenting the Dark and Other Stories from Subterranean Press.

Rebecca Moesta

Rebecca Moesta (pronounced MESS-tuh) wanted to be an author since she was twelve, and much of her writing focuses on teens. Her solo work includes novels in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Junior Jedi Knights series, short stories, nonfiction articles, and ghost writing. With husband Kevin J. Anderson, she wrote the Crystal Doors trilogy, fourteen Young Jedi Knights novels, six movie or game novelizations, lyrics for two Roswell Six rock CDs (ProgRock Records), a Star Trek graphic novel (DC/WildStorm), two Star Wars pop-up books, and original graphic novel Grumpy Old Monsters (IDW).

Moesta, who holds an MSBA from Boston University, has taught every grade level from kindergarten through junior college and spent two years teaching management courses to US Army NCOs in Europe. She is a mother, grandmother, final reader and copyeditor on her husband’s manuscripts, CEO of WordFire, Inc. (the company she and Anderson own), and co-publisher of WordFire Press.

Brandon Sanderson

Brandon Sanderson has published nine solo novels with Tor—Elantris, the Mistborn books, Warbreaker, The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, and the young adult fantasy The Rithmatist—as well as four books in the middle-grade Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians series from Scholastic. He was chosen to complete Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series; the final book, A Memory of Light, was released in 2013. His newest YA novel, Steelheart, was released by Delacorte in September 2013. Currently living in Utah with his wife and children, Brandon teaches creative writing at Brigham Young University.

Howard Tayler

Howard Tayler is the writer and illustrator behind Schlock Mercenary, the Hugo-nominated science fiction comic strip. He also co-hosts the Hugo and Parsec award-winning “Writing Excuses” podcast, a weekly ‘cast for genre-fiction writers, with Mary Robinette Kowal, Brandon Sanderson, and Dan Wells. They collaborated together to create the Shadows Beneath anthology.

Howard has written tie-in fiction for Privateer Press, and horror for the Space Eldrich anthologies. His most recent project is the Planet Mercenary RPG. Planet Mercenary is set in the universe of the Schlock Mercenary comic. You can find the comic online at schlockmercenary.com.

Howard lives in Orem, Utah with his wife Sandra, their four children, and one ungrateful, archetypally imperious cat.

Dan Wells

Dan Wells writes in a variety of genres, from dark humor to science fiction to supernatural thriller. Born in Utah, he spent his early years reading and writing. He is the author of the Partials series and the John Cleaver series. He has been nominated for both the Hugo and the Campbell Award, and has won two Parsec Awards for his podcast Writing Excuses.

Stacy Whitman

Stacy Whitman is the founder and publisher of Tu Books, an imprint of Lee & Low Books that publishes diverse middle grade and young adult fiction. Books she has edited include American Indian Youth Literature YA Award and Top Ten Quick Picks title Killer of Enemies by Joseph Bruchac, and Summer of the Mariposas by Guadalupe Garcia McCall, which received a starred review from School Library Journal and was listed on the Amelia Bloomer Project, School Library Journal’s Best of 2012 List, and the Lone Star Reading List. In 2013 Stacy founded the New Visions Award, which honors a new unpublished writer of color. The first New Visions Award winner was published in spring 2015, Ink and Ashes by Valynne Maetani, which garnered a starred review from Kirkus.

Stacy is a founding member of the CBC Diversity Committee and currently serves as a Publisher Liaison to We Need Diverse Books. She holds a master’s degree in children’s literature from Simmons College. You can find her on Twitter at @stacylwhitman.

Michelle Witte

Michelle Witte is an author and literary agent with Mansion Street Literary Management specializing in children’s fiction and nonfiction. She represents authors across the spectrum of children’s literature, from illustrated board and picture books to middle grade and young adult fiction and nonfiction. She began her career as a journalist, first reporting and then later copy editing for the Deseret Morning News in Salt Lake City, Utah. From there, she transitioned to a position as associate editor with nonfiction publisher Gibbs Smith, where she edited titles on a variety of topics, including children’s activity, humor, gift, cookbooks, and green living. Her published work includes the nonfiction humor books The Craptastic Guide to Pseudo-Swearing and The Faker’s Guide to the Classics, though her great love is writing young adult fiction. While she considers herself an international vagabond and will travel the world whenever given the chance, she presently makes Utah her home.