Keynote speaker: Tara Madison Avery
Tara Madison Avery is a cartoonist, publisher, and LGBTQ+ activist. Since 2015, she has been running the publishing imprint Stacked Deck Press which is devoted to comics and prose of queer interest. Avery has also been a board member of Prism Comics, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting queer comics, queer comics creators, and fandom throughout the United States, since 2012. As a cartoonist she has contributed stories to such award-winning anthologies such as Anything That Loves: Comics Beyond Gay and Straight and We’re Still Here: An All-Trans Comics Anthology.
Alex Washoe
Alex Washoe is a nonbinary writer of geeky romance and hopepunk.
Andrew Hodges
Antonia Aquilante has been imagining characters and plots for as long as she can remember and, at the age of twelve, decided she would be a writer when she grew up. After many years of career detours, she achieved that goal and is now the author of eleven LGBTQ fantasy romance novels. Her latest book is To Love the Dragon King, the first book in the Dragons of Ivria series.
Ashley Grant
Horror Author for the past couple of years, Bisexual, Author of Empty Cargo
Davy Kent is a copyeditor and developmental editor based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Davy specializes in expansive speculative fiction and all its various subgenre mash-ups, with a special focus on worldbuilding, characterization, and disability-related representation. He is an avid video gamer and has far too many loved shows and franchises to list—and can almost always be found listening to a diverse spread of music.
E. H. Lupton (she/they) lives in Madison, WI with her family. Her debut novel, Dionysus in Wisconsin, was shortlisted for the 2024 Lambda Literary Award in gay romance. Her second novel, Old Time Religion, appeared in 2024. Her poetry has been published in a number of journals, including Paranoid Tree, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, and House of Zolo’s Journal of Speculative Literature. She is also one half of the duo behind the hit podcast Ask a Medievalist. In her free time, she enjoys running long distances and painting. Find her website at ehlupton.com.
E.M. Anderson (she/they) is a queer, neurodivergent writer and the author of THE REMARKABLE RETIREMENT OF EDNA FISHER (Midnight Meadow, 2023) and THE KEEPER OF LONELY SPIRITS (MIRA Books, 2025), as well as several short stories. It is their doom to one day disappear in a forest after ignoring the warnings of the locals to stay away simply because she wanted to befriend the trees, or maybe find a cool rock. Until that fateful day, you can find E at Instagram, Facebook, and BlueSky at @elizmanderson.
When she isn’t being mock-kidnapped, taking shooting lessons, or cave swimming with bats, Goldie Award winner Elle Ire writes science fiction and paranormal romance featuring kickass women who fall in love with each other. Her tenth novel, SPEAK EZ, releases from Bywater Books at the end of 2024. Elle is represented by Naomi Davis at Bookends Literary Agency.
A trans femme author writing queer genre novels – from summery gothic to art deco fantasies.
Genevieve Clovis, of Clovis Editorial, is a speculative fiction editor, author, and writing coach. She specializes in developmental and stylistic editing for indie authors and publishers. Genevieve takes great joy in ensuring her clients’ novels are as monstrous and diabolical as intended. True to her story-gremlin nature, Genevieve runs a variety of online writer’s groups and can often be found lurking in her secondhand bookstore doling out books that are definitely not cursed.
Heather K O’Malley is a fifty-plus-year-old transgender lesbian who has been writing stories since fifth grade, lots of stories. Along the way she joined the Army, got injured, traveled the world, learned a number of languages, failed epically, found true love, went to a lot of schools, got a master’s in English, was an activist, taught, learned several martial arts, figured out how to cook, tried most everything, and became a proud grandmother. It has been exhausting.
Jessica Lucci is a poet, steampunk, and historical fiction author who writes about modern issues while maintaining historic integrity. All of her books feature multi-faceted LGBTQ+ main characters. Her new release, “Triangle House,” takes place in a re-imagined Chicago.
K. L. Mitchell was raised all over the South in a series of increasingly tiny towns until she finally joined the Air Force out of a desire for some Culture. She’s spent most of her professional life working on computers in one
capacity or another and occasionally manages to get them actually to work. She’s been writing for fun most of her life and for publication since about 2011.
She’s written for multiple websites and local publications and, in 2013, was a recurring columnist for the Kansas City Star. She lives with a gray cat named Molly and would like to be an astronaut when she grows up.
K.L. Noone teaches college students about superheroes and Shakespeare by day, and writes queer romance – frequently paranormal or with fantasy elements, and always with happy endings – when not grading papers or researching medieval outlaw life. They’ve been a Rainbow Award winner, a Queer Indie Book Award winner, and a Good Sex Awards runner-up in the Sexiest Consent category. They also like cats, craft beer, and the sound of ocean waves.
Gay writer, editor, composer, video producer, performer, public speaker living in Brooklyn, NY, with his husband. 5 published short stories, 2 published novels, and 1 award-winning poem debuting in September with NYC Poetry Magazine.
Michael G. Williams writes queer horror, sci-fi, and urban fantasy about outsiders finding their people, including A Fall in Autumn (Manly Wade Wellman Award), Perishables (Laine Cunningham Award), Through the Doors of Oblivion, and many short stories. Michael also co-hosts Arcane Carolinas, an award-winning podcast about the myths, legends, and modern weird in North and South Carolina. He lives in Durham, NC, with his husband and a variety of animals.
Molly Cernik
Molly Cernik came from the desert, and part of her is still there. Since leaving, though, she has studied literature, literary craft, philosophy, and emotion, and earned an MA from NYU by talking in detail about how scary stories made her feel. She uses the things she learned to edit horror and sci-fi novels, and in so doing helps readers and writers alike find solace in terror. No matter how much she edits, she still gets the heebie-jeebies.
Molly Rookwood
Molly Rookwood (she/her) is a Jewish writer, fiction editor, and authenticity reader. She particularly loves working with fantasy, science fiction, and romance, and she is always excited to work with Jewish authors. Molly offers presentations on antisemitism in fiction and fantasy, with a focus on antisemitic fairy tale tropes. When Molly isn’t editing, she writes Jewish romance, works at a bookstore, and teaches writing at the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Monique Cuillerier writes about increasingly odd things from Ottawa (Canada), where she lives with her cat Janeway. Her work has most recently appeared in Bicycles & Broomsticks: Fantastical Feminist Stories About Witches on Bikes and Rise: Queer Sci Fi’s 10th Annual Flash Fiction Anthology. When not reading or writing, she is usually running or gardening. She spends too much time on Twitter @MoniqueAC and not enough on her website.
Stephen Granade is a physicist and writer from Huntsville, Alabama, the city with a Saturn V rocket in its skyline. Their stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, Baffling Magazine, and Cast of Wonders. Their game, Professor of Magical Studies, is available from Choice of Games.
Tanya Gold (they/them) is a book editor, French to English translator, educator, and literary omnivore.
They’ve been in publishing for over 20 years and have worked on all sorts of delicious books. These days, they mostly work on and devour fiction and memoir. They pile their plate high with SFF, horror, retellings, queer stories, experimental narratives, interactive fiction, and graphic novels.
They also coach editors and writers, teach online courses for editors and writers, and teach at the Popular Fiction Writing and Publishing MFA program at Emerson College.
It’s been suggested that they read too much for their own good. This might be true.
Born in 1994, Thomas Wrightson has spent much of his life creating narratives and characters. Home schooled, he currently lives on the island Ynys Mon in Wales, surrounded by beautiful scenery and unpredictable weather. His debut series is The Cluster Cycle, a five-part space opera. Its first two titles, Starborn Vendetta and Lost Station Circé, are available now.
Author of Most Famous Short Film of All Time (tRaum Books, 2022). Anthology contributions include It Came From the Closet (Feminist Press, 2022) and Trans-Galactic Bike Ride (Microcosm, 2020, a Lambda Literary 2021 finalist). Bilingual poetry collection inspired by Gilgamesh and Enkidu was a 2020 Grayson Books contest finalist and a 2022 Elgin Award nominee. Nonfiction reader for Split/Lip Press. Contributor to Gender Identity Today. Podcast appearances include Out to Get You. Spoke at Medium Day 2023. Editor for Prism & Pen. Reviewed a hundred books for Independent Book Review. Born with a science-fictional left hip, ran a half-marathon, walked on fire, talks about it. Gender transition 1998. Lives in Bogotá, Colombia. Married to Arturo Serrano, author of To Climates Unknown (2021) and co-editor of the Hugo-winning, Ignyte-winning blog “nerds of a feather, flock together.”
Valerie Estelle Frankel is the author of over 90 books on pop culture, including Hunting for Meaning in The Mandalorian; The Villain’s Journey; and Star Wars Meets the Eras of Feminism. Many of her books focus on gender in fiction, from her heroine’s journey guides From Girl to Goddess and Superheroines and the Epic Journey to The Trans Hero’s Journey (2024). Her Chelm for the Holidays (2019) was a PJ Library book, and now she’s the editor of Jewish Science Fiction and Fantasy, publishing an academic series for Lexington Press (submissions welcome!). vefrankel.com