Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) wrote and edited more than 120 books and more than 1,700 stories, essays, and articles, as well as dozens of screenplays and teleplays. He won the Hugo Award nine times, the Nebula Award four times, the Bram Stoker Award six times (including the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996), the Edgar Allan Poe Award of the Mystery Writers of America twice, the Georges Méliès Fantasy Film Award twice, and was awarded the Silver Pen for Journalism by PEN, the international writer’s union. He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2006.

J. Michael Straczynski is a legendary American writer and television producer—best known as the author of The Complete Guide to Scriptwriting, as the creator and showrunner for the science fiction TV series Babylon 5 and, from 2001 to 2007, the writer for the long-running Marvel comic book series The Amazing Spider-Man.

Max Brooks is a senior nonresident fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point and the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. His bestselling books include Minecraft: The Island, The Zombie Survival Guide, and World War Z, which was adapted into a 2013 movie starring Brad Pitt. His graphic novels include The Harlem Hellfighters.

Adrian Tchaikovsky is the author of the ten-book Shadows of the Apt series, starting with Empire in Black and Gold. His other works include the novel Children of Time, which won the 2016 Arthur C. Clarke Award, the short story collection Feast and Famine, and the novellas The Bloody Deluge and Even in the Cannon's Mouth. He has been shortlisted for the David Gemmell Legend Award and the British Fantasy Award.

Patton Oswalt is an American stand-up comedian, actor, voice actor, and New York Times bestselling author. He has released television specials and critically acclaimed comedy albums, including the Grammy Award-nominated My Weakness Is Strong. He put together the Comedians of Comedy tour and television series and he has held recurring character roles on many television shows. He has appeared in more than twenty films and has worked as a voice actor in King of Queens, Cartoon Network’s Robotomy, and the Disney animated film Ratatouielle.

Cory Doctorow is a blogger, journalist, and author science fiction and nonfiction. His writing has won numerous awards, including three Locus Awards, two John W. Campbell Awards, three Prometheus Awards, two Sunburst Awards, the White Pine Award, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award, among others. He has served as Canadian regional director of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He is coeditor of the blog Boing Boing, and he was named one of the web’s twenty-five “influencers” by Forbes and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He is a contributing author to Wired magazine, and his writing has been published in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, the Globe and Mail, the Boston Globe, Popular Science, and others.

Dan Simmons, the author of critically acclaimed suspense and science fiction novels, is a recipient of numerous major international awards, including the Hugo Award, World Fantasy Award, Bram Stoker Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award, among others.

Richard Peck has won almost every children’s fiction award, including the Margaret A. Edwards Award, the Newbery Medal, the Scott O’Dell Award, and the Edgar, and he has twice been nominated for a National Book Award. He was the first children’s author ever to have been awarded a National Humanities Medal.