Other Author, Poet, and/or Writing Guests
Carolyn Clink – Science Fiction Poet
Carolyn Clink is a Canadian poet living in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. She has published over 150 poems. She won the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Award (“the Aurora”) for Best Poem/Song in 2022 for “Cat People Café” and again in 2011 for “The ABCs of the End of the World.” She is poetry co-editor of Amazing Stories. In 2025, she was a finalist for both the Rhysling and Dwarf Stars Awards. Her genre poetry publications include: Weird Tales, Analog, Polar Starlight, Polar Borealis, On Spec, Tesseracts, Star*Line, Eye to the Telescope, Tales of the Unanticipated, Room, and all three volumes to date of The Year’s Best Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Keith R.A. DeCandido – Author
Keith R.A. DeCandido has written more than 60 novels, more than 135 short stories, more than 75 comic books, and more nonfiction than he can comfortably count. His work ranges from fiction in nearly 40 different licensed universes from Alien to Zorro — including TV shows (Star Trek, Supernatural), movies (Cars, Serenity), games (Resident Evil, World of Warcraft), comics (Spider-Man, Thor), and literary characters (Sherlock Holmes, Joe Ledger) — to a ton of work in milieus of his own creation, including fantasy/police procedural hybrids (Supernatural Crimes Unit: NYPD, Dragon Precinct and its sequels), urban fantasies (the Adventures of Bram Gold, the Tales of Cassie Zukav, Weirdness Magnet), and superhero stories (The Inflictors, Super City Police Department). Keith also writes about pop culture for a variety of magazines, web sites, and essay collections, most prominently for the award-winning web site Reactor Magazine. In addition, Keith is a musician (percussionist for the bands Boogie Knights and the Chris Abbott Band), a martial artist (a fourth-degree black belt in karate), an editor (having edited dozens of anthologies and several book lines), and a baseball fan (always following his beloved New York Yankees). He’s been honored by the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers and the New England Science Fiction Association for his body of work.
Terry Hooker – Author and Editor
Terry, is a freelance writer and editor, a Jersey girl from the shore turned Florida farm girl soon to be a Virginia farm girl. She has a BA in anthropology, an AAS in Culinary Arts, and an MA in Library science. She has worked as a congressional archivist, historian, teacher, and professional chef and has presented her research on the history and iconography of southern cemeteries throughout the Southeast United States. She has edited several children’s books, full length novels, dissertations, and academic papers; Terry, herself, has published scholarly papers, magazine articles, fictional stories, and books. She lives with her husband, two kids, and a plethora of critters.
Pamela Kinney – Author
Author Pamela K. Kinney gave up long ago trying not to listen to the voices in her head and has written award-winning, bestselling horror, fantasy. science fiction, poetry, along with nonfiction ghost books ever since. Her horror short story, “Bottled Spirits,” was runner-up for the 2013 WSFA Small Press Award and is considered one of the seven best genre short fiction for that year. Her horror, fantasy, and science fiction stories, poetry and nonfiction articles were published in various anthologies and magazines, she has a horror novel, YA dark fantasy novel, an urban fantasy novel, a science fiction novella, six nonfiction ghost books and a nonfiction book about werewolves, dogmen, and other shapeshifting cryptids in the United States. Three of her books won the Book Fest Awards in 2024 and 2025.
Pamela and her husband live with one crazy black cat (who thinks she should take precedence over her mistress’s writing most days). Along with writing, Pamela has acted on stage and film and investigates the paranormal for episodes of Paranormal World Seekers for AVA Productions. She is a member of both Virginia Writers Club, James River Writers, and Horror Writers Association. You can learn more about her at http://www.PamelaKKinney.com.
Gray Rinehart – Author
Gray Rinehart writes stories, songs, and … other things. He is an award-winning author of nonfiction, and is the only person to have commanded an Air Force satellite tracking station, written speeches for Presidential appointees, devised a poetic form, and had music on The Dr. Demento Show.
During his rather odd USAF career, Gray fought rocket propellant fires, refurbished space launch facilities, “flew” Milstar satellites, drove trucks, processed nuclear command and control orders, commanded the largest remote tracking station in the Air Force Satellite Control Network, and did other interesting things. In addition to one near-future science fiction novel, his fiction has appeared in Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, and several anthologies.
Gray is a contributing editor (the “Slushmaster General”) for Baen Books, and a singer/songwriter with three albums of mostly science-fiction-and-fantasy-inspired music. His alter ego is the Gray Man, one of several famed ghosts of South Carolina’s Grand Strand, and his web site is grayrinehart.com.
Wayland Smith – Pan Authorial (Multi-Genre) Author
Wayland Smith calls himself pan-authorial, because it’s funnier than multi-genre. He has several novels out, including In My Brother’s Name and the Wildside series, and even more anthologies such as Cooking Up Death and the Vampire Survival Guide. Wayland is a frequent guest at many conventions up and down the East Coast and now ranging further and further west.