Category: Author Guest (Page 1 of 7)

Alix E. Harrow

March 29, 2025 / ravenchair

Alix E. Harrow is the New York Times-bestselling author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January, The Once and Future Witches, Starling House, and various short fiction, including a duology of retold fairy tales (A Spindle Splintered and A Mirror Mended). Her work has won a Hugo and a British Fantasy Award, and been shortlisted for the Nebula, World Fantasy, Locus, Southern Book Prize, and Goodreads Choice awards.

A former adjunct and Kentuckian, Harrow now lives in Virginia with her husband and their two semi-feral kids.

April J. Asbury

March 29, 2025 / ravenchair

April J. Asbury is a writer, teacher, and editor from southwest Virginia. She earned her M.F.A. from Spalding University and M.A. from Hollins. Her poetry and short stories appear in Artemis Journal, Still: The Journal, Gyroscope Review, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, Songs of Eretz, Women Speak, Power of the Feminine I, Up Your Ars Poetica, Floyd County Moonshine, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, and other publications. Her poetry collection, Woman with Crows, is available on apriljasbury.com.

Dr. J. “Cal” Baldari

March 29, 2025 / ravenchair

Dr. Cal Baldari is a retired U.S. Army Sapper and military instructor turned professor of ethics. His research credits include alternative military ethics, Aristotelian excellence, moral conflict in literature, implicit bias mitigation, modern heroics, RPG morality, and many others. He has published both academically and creatively, with author credits in short military science fiction and fantasy, as well as philosophy. As an avid table-top role-player, Cal has run games for over a dozen systems professionally, and many more for fun. He also runs BEC Ltd., which provides expert services for authors, game designers, and comics writers; advising on ethics and consequences both within the stories they write and the effect it has on the reader. Finally, Cal is firmly entrenched in the battle to bring diversity and inclusivity to fandom. His work on implicit bias often references the broadening of “geek culture” and the awesome efforts many geeks have put forward to make this hobby one in which everyone, absolutely everyone, can enjoy it with impunity.

JM Beal

March 29, 2025 / ravenchair

I started writing seriously in 2001, behind the check-out counter at Walgreens on leftover receipt paper or whatever I could get my hands on, with a novel full of drama and romance and epic sword battles. In all honesty it will probably never again see the light of day.

It’s been a long road since then, through different genres and projects and full of life events that keep getting in the way of what I’d like to be doing with my writing. Still, I’ve always got a new idea in the works.

In the grand tradition of writers who dream big, and jump without looking, a friend and I launched a publishing company in June of 2014. You can find us at Golden Fleece Press.

R.S. Belcher

March 29, 2025 / ravenchair

R.S. (Rod) Belcher is a newspaper and magazine editor and journalist. He is the 2022 Webster Award Winner and was the Grand Prize winner of the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Anthology contest.

Rod has been a private investigator, DJ, a comic book store owner, and worked with the Occult Crime Taskforce for the Virginia General Assembly.

His novels include the Golgotha series (The Six-Gun Tarot, The Shotgun Arcana, The Queen of Swords, and The Ghost Dance Judgement), the Nightwise series (Nightwise, The Night Dahlia), and The Brotherhood of the Wheel series (The Brotherhood of the Wheel, King of the Road). Rod’s novel adaptation of the film, MiB International was published by Titan Books. His Audible Originals space opera audiobook, The Queen’s Road is available as a book from Falstaff Books.

He is currently finishing work on a stand-alone novel, Ink and Ash. His fifth Golgotha novel, The Hanged Man releases in fall of 2025 from Falstaff Books.

Rod has spoken and taught at numerous conferences and universities. He hosts programs on his Patreon Discord channel, as well as on a YouTube channel called The Knave of Pens with R.S. Belcher.

He lives in Virginia with his children, Jon, Emily and Stephanie, and his grandchildren, Torri, Sofiyah, Julian, and Jaxson.

James Blakey

March 29, 2025 / ravenchair

James Blakey has published fifty short stories across a variety of genres and is a three-time finalist for the Short Mystery Fiction Society’s Derringer Award, winning in 2019 for his story “The Bicycle Thief.” As an active member of the writing community, he leads critique groups in Harrisonburg, Charlottesville, and Shenandoah County, and serves as the Secretary of the Rocktown Writers Guild. His debut novel Superstition, a paranormal thriller, was released by City Owl Press in 2024. James is also the publisher and co-editor of Charlottesville Fantastic: Arcane Echoes From Virginia’s Heartland, an anthology featuring speculative tales set in and around Charlottesville. When not crafting stories, James explores the outdoors having summited forty of the fifty US state high points, or embarks on bike-camping adventures along the East Coast. He resides in Broadway, VA. Discover more at JamesBlakeyWrites.com.

Jennifer Brinn

March 29, 2025 / ravenchair

Jennifer Brinn grew up with her nose in a book, reading everything with a dragon, a spaceship, or a horse on the cover. While she always told herself stories, it never occurred to her to write them down until she needed an elective in high school and chose creative writing.

She proudly writes in cursive with fountain pens, knows many useless facts, and loves putting stickers on things. Her retired racing greyhound and Cardigan Welsh Corgi let her pretend to be leader of the pack as long as she provides the right snacks.

Doug Burbey

March 27, 2025 / ravenchair

Doug Burbey, author of the Blood War militarized urban fantasy series, is constantly preparing to: repel the demon hordes, slay zombies, brew beer, and defeat the insidious plots of the bureaucratic machinery. Doug grew up in Asia as a military brat and went to college in Michigan. He then served in numerous Army positions and wars around the world before retiring his combat boots. Doug now is a military technology development program manager by day and demon slayer by night. With muddy boots and a cold beer in hand, he spends his spring/summer weekends as a gentleman farmer tending to his hops vines and apple orchard. Doug’s books can all be found on amazon.com. Get even more information on the current and future Bad Ash Publishing releases at badashpublishing.com.

Krista Cagg

March 27, 2025 / ravenchair

According to her mother, Krista has lived in her own imagination since birth. The real world let her down. It was, frankly, boring beyond belief. After she discovered fantasy novels and comics there was no going back. This didn’t win her any popularity contests (or dates) until after high school. Art school introduced her to other geeks and the wonderful world of AD&D. A love for RP eventually led to LARP (the goth/vampire era of her life). Finally, sci-fi/fantasy/fandom conventions introduced her to the beautiful world of steampunk. Music. Clothing. And books. She dove into the books she took a shine to and absorbed them. But something was missing. She wasn’t satisfied. During her recovery from neck surgery something she’d heard somewhere stuck out in her mind: “If you can’t find the stories you want to read then write them yourself.” On a couch in Savannah, GA. with Sons of Anarchy playing in the background, The William’s Hunt began.

Currently, Krista lives in her home town in Pennsylvania with four cats and a husband.

Randee Dawn

March 24, 2025 / ravenchair

Randee Dawn is the Brooklyn-based author of the new dark rock n’ roll fantasy The Only Song Worth Singing (Arc Manor) and the humorous pop culture romp Tune in Tomorrow (Solaris Nova, 2022). She had two other books out in 2024: Leave No Trace (dark fantasy, Arc Manor) and We Interrupt this Program (follow-up to Tune, Solaris Nova), and many short stories published in horror, fantasy and SF anthologies, including Dark Spores: Stories We Tell After Midnight, Vol. 4 (Crone Girls Press). In addition, she’s a veteran entertainment journalist writing for Variety, the LA Times, Today.com and Gold Derby who covers the film, TV, and music beats. If she can’t make you laugh, she’ll try scaring you. More at RandeeDawn.com.