Tag: Guest of Honor

David Brin

October 13, 2025 / ravenchair

David Brin is a scientist, tech speaker/consultant, and above all a proud sci fi author. His novels about our survival and opportunities in the near future include Earth and Existence. A film by Kevin Costner was based on The Postman. His 16 novels, including NY Times Bestsellers and Hugo Award winners, have been translated into more than twenty languages. Earth foreshadowed global warming, cyberwarfare, and the world wide web.

David has lately been “paying forward” by mentoring new or rising authors through his two series of Young Adult science fiction novels*.

Speaking and advising about how science, technology and evolving values will affect our onrushing future, David has keynoted for IBM, Google, Procter & Gamble, SAP, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Price-Waterhouse, the Mauldin Group and Casey Research, all the way to think-tanks, Homeland Security and the CIA.

A Caltech Distinguished alumnus, Brin spent a decade advising NASA’s Innovative & Advanced Concepts program (NIAC). He appears frequently on shows such as Nova and The Universe and Life After People. His first non-fiction book—The Transparent Society—won the Freedom of Speech Award. His second nonfiction book is Vivid Tomorrows: Science Fiction and Hollywood (2021). His third—about Artificial Intelligence—is nearing completion.

See more at: DavidBrin.com

*The Out of Time (or Yanked!) series: Only teens can teleport through time and space! Dollops of fun, adventure & optimism for young adults. AND

The High Horizon series: aliens kidnap a California high school!

K.B. Wagers

October 9, 2025 / 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.

Ruth Sanderson

October 8, 2025 / 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.