Category: Guest of Honor

K.B. Wagers

April 4, 2026 / ravenchair

K.B. Wagers has a bachelor’s degree in Russian Studies and their non-fiction writing has earned them an Air Force Space Command media contest award for best guest writer. A native of Colorado, they currently live in the north of the state with plenty of access to hiking trails. They are a firm believer in the importance of rest and have given several talks on burnout and the deluge of toxic productivity especially in the publishing industry.

K.B. has an avid interest in martial arts and non-violence, seeing these two things as flip sides of the same coin rather than paradoxical ideas. They enjoy whiskey and coffee in unequal measure, would gladly live in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Horizon Zero Dawn (until they were likely felled by a machine). During the hockey season you can find them buried under an Avalanche and the rest of the year they defend the managed democracy of Super Earth with the other Helldivers.

K.B. is the author of the NeoG Adventures from Harper Voyager and the Indranan and Farian War trilogies from Orbit Books. They are a fan of whiskey and cats, Jupiter Ascending, and the Muppets.

Mur Lafferty

April 4, 2026 / ravenchair

Mur Lafferty is an author.
Mur Lafferty is an editor.
Mur Lafferty is a podcaster.

Mur Lafferty podcasts about writing and writes about podcasting. She co-edits Escape Pod, a podcast with fiction. By writers.

She also writes about murders in space, zombies, Minecraft, and Han Solo. Her writing and podcasting have resulted in numerous award nominations and wins, such as the Best Semiprozine Hugo for Escape Pod, Best Novel Hugo and Nebula, Best Fancast Hugo, the Astounding Award for Best New Writer and was an inaugural inductee into the Podcast Academy Hall of Fame. Her books have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and Library Journal, and have been praised by Buzzfeed, CNET, NPR, among many others.

She lives in Durham with her family.

Ruth Sanderson

April 4, 2026 / ravenchair

Ruth Sanderson’s career as a professional illustrator spans over 45 years. In recent years she’s been illustrating fantasy and horror for the limited-edition company Centipede Press, including covers for Bram Stoker’s Powers of Darkness and Alligator by Shelley Katz, as well as covers and interiors for The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons and Things Seen and Unseen, a short story collection by Terry Lamsley.

Ruth was a guest at Comic-Con in San Diego and received the Inkpot Award there. Her scratchboard art has garnered two Chesley Awards. Ruth has also illustrated over 90 books for children, including many award-winning fairy tale picture books. In 2015, the Norman Rockwell Museum mounted a solo exhibition of her fairy tale illustration, and all the artwork from her book The Twelve Dancing Princesses is now in the museum’s permanent collection. She has exhibited at many Worldcons and World Fantasy cons and has been artist GOH at numerous conventions. Among Ruth’s current projects is her first novel, The Mirror of Truth, a YA retelling of Snow White and The Seven Dwarves.

Aurelio Voltaire

April 4, 2026 / ravenchair

At the age of ten, Aurelio Voltaire bought a Super 8 camera and taught himself the art of stop-motion animation. At 17, he ran away from home to New York City. There, he was hired by the production company making Pee Wee’s Playhouse to work as a stop-motion animator on national spots. By 18, he was an award-winning animator and director working on station IDs for MTV, SyFy Channel, Nickelodeon and other networks as well as on national spots, including a series of Budweiser spots for the Super Bowl.

While commercials paid the bills, a young Voltaire yearned to make “monster movies.” Through his “Chimerascope” series of short films Aurelio Voltaire was able to explore his more fantastic, monster-filled visions through short, experimental stop-motion films, each narrated by a singer. Narrators of his films include Danny Elfman, Gerard Way, Blondie front-woman Deborah Harry, Psychedelic Furs frontman, Richard Butler and new wave pioneer, Gary Numan. These five shorts earned Voltaire 35 film festival awards.

In the mid 90s, when CGI had practically replaced stop-motion animation, Voltaire ventured into other fields, achieving success as a comic book creator, toy designer and author, ultimately, becoming a world renowned recording artist. His mirthfully macabre music is a perennial favorite on many Halloween playlists and can be heard while walking through a Spirit Halloween. His greatest hits include songs written for the Cartoon Network show The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as well as his songs featured on the viral YouTube series, Vampair, which presently have a combined 70 million views. The Vampair series is now being developed into an animated show with Voltaire taking on an executive producer role.

Circling back around to his original passion, Aurelio Voltaire has finally made a feature-length “monster movie” in his feature directorial debut, The Demonatrix, which will be making its Richmond debut at RavenCon.