The judges for this contest are amazing, brilliant, and filled with talent! It’s been a blast learning all about them and I’m sure you’ll feel the same way when you’re finished with this blog!
Eric James Stone
A Nebula Award winner, Hugo Award nominee, and winner in the Writers of the Future Contest, Eric James Stone has had stories published in Year’s Best SF 15, Analog, Nature, and Kevin J. Anderson’s Blood Lite anthologies of humorous horror, among other venues.
One of Eric’s earliest memories is of seeing an Apollo moon-shot launch on television. That might explain his fascination with space travel. His father’s collection of old science fiction ensured that Eric grew up on a full diet of Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke.
While getting his political science degree at Brigham Young University, Eric took creative writing classes. He wrote several short stories, and even submitted one for publication, but after it was rejected he gave up on creative writing for a decade.
During those years Eric graduated from Baylor Law School, worked on a congressional campaign, and took a job in Washington, DC, with one of those special interest groups politicians always complain that other politicians are influenced by. He quit the political scene in 1999 to work as a web developer in Utah.
In 2002 he started writing fiction again, and in 2003 he attended Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp. In 2007 Eric got laid off from his day job just in time to go to the Odyssey Writing Workshop. He has since found a new web development job.
In 2009 Eric became an assistant editor for Intergalactic Medicine Show.
Eric lives in Murray, Utah, with his wife, Darci, a high school physics teacher.
Find more on his website.
Megan Whalen Turner
Megan Whalen Turner is the author of award-winning books for children and young adults. Her first novel, The Thief, was a Newbery Honor Book in 1997. Her most recent book, A Conspiracy of Kings, fourth in the series that began with The Thief, won the LA Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature in 2011. The series was awarded the Mythopoeic Award for Children’s Literature in 2011, as well. Turner’s stories take place in a world with similarities to Byzantine Greece. Influenced by writers such as Rosemary Sutcliff, Henry Treece, Peter Dickinson and Joan Aiken, she writes fantasy with a nod to historical realism.
Turner graduated from the University of Chicago with Honors in 1987 and worked for several years as a Children’s books buyer in Chicago and Washington, D.C. Married to a professor of Cognitive Science, she moves frequently to live for a year at a time in a new place while he does research. Most recently, they were in Oslo, Norway where she was writing short stories about trolls. They are now back in Ohio.
Find more information on her website.
MichaelBrent Collings
Michaelbrent Collings is a bestselling novelist, produced screenwriter and WGA member, martial artist, and has a killer backhand on the badminton court (’cause he’s macho like that).
He published his first “paying” work – a short story for a local paper – at the age of 15. He won numerous awards and scholarships for creative writing while at college.
His first produced script, Barricade, was made into a movie starring Eric McCormack of TV’s Will & Grace and Perception. Michaelbrent also wrote the screenplay for Darkroom, a movie starring Kaylee DeFer (Gossip Girl, Red State) and Elisabeth Rohm (Angel, Law & Order, Heroes). Darkroom is currently set for a 2013 release.
As a novelist, Michaelbrent has written numerous bestsellers, including Apparition, The Haunted, The Billy Saga, The Loon, Rising Fears, and others. In addition, he has also written dozens of non-fiction articles which have appeared in periodicals on several continents.
Michaelbrent is also a member of the WGA (Writers Guild of America) and the HWA (Horror Writers of America). In addition to selling, optioning, and doing rewrites on screenplays for major Hollywood production companies, he is currently developing several movies and television shows.
He hopes someday to develop superpowers, or, if that is out of the question, then at least to get a cool robot arm.
Michaelbrent has a wife and several kids, all of whom are much better looking than he is (though he admits that’s a low bar to set), and also cooler than he is.