Spotlight

Janny Wurts has authored 19 novels, a short fiction collection, and 33 contributions to anthologies. Titles include the War of Light and Shadow series; standalones To Ride Hell’s Chasm, Master of White Storm, and Sorcerer’s Legacy; the Cycle of Fire trilogy; and the collaborative Empire trilogy with Raymond E. Feist.

Her paintings have been featured in NASA’s 25th Anniversary exhibit, Delaware Art Museum, Canton Art Museum, and

Scott H. Andrews is a writer, editor, chemistry lecturer, musician, woodworker, and connoisseur of stouts. His literary short fiction has won a $1,000 prize from the Briar Cliff Review, and his genre short fiction has appeared in Ann VanderMeer’s Weird Tales and in On Spec. He is editor-in-chief and publisher of the four-time Hugo Award-finalist fantasy e-zine Beneath Ceaseless Skies and its five-time Parsec Award finalist podcast. Scott lives in

Heather Shaw is an editor, writer, performer, mother, lindy hopper, and bookkeeper living in Berkeley CA with her husband and son. In addition to editing Persistent Visions, she has in the past edited poetry, erotica, catalog copy, and technical manuals. Her fiction has appeared in nice places like Strange Horizons and The Year’s Best Fantasy, and she’s performed everywhere from small stages in San Francisco to the Lollapalooza poetry

Rovina Cai is a freelance illustrator from Melbourne, Australia. She creates intriguing images that make you linger, hungry to know the story behind them. Her work is often inspired by the past; from fairy tales to gothic novels, these stories resonate with her because they bring a little bit of magic and wonder to the present day. Rovina has worked with an eclectic range of clients, including The Folio Society,

Jeffrey Alan Love is an award-winning artist and writer whose clients have included The New York Times, TIME, The New Yorker, Tor, Gollancz, Scholastic, HarperCollins, and others. Nominated for the World Fantasy Award, the British Science Fiction Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Chesley Award, and the Spectrum Fantastic Art Award, he has won a gold medal from the Society of Illustrators and two Academy of British Cover Design Awards.

Paul Lewin was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1973 and moved to the US in 1977. He spent most of his years growing up in Miami FL and now lives in Oakland CA. Initially, pencil and paper were his medium of choice, but he was also into graffiti, and soon moved into colorful pieces using markers and pens. In 1994 he picked up a paint brush for the first time

Kelly Abbott is CEO and co-founder of Great Jones Street. He’s helped launch and grow social media, dating, and publishing products purchased by Match.com, Adobe, and Oprah. Now his mission is to meld his literary roots and tech chops to transform the world of short fiction for readers and authors alike. He plays soccer, roots for Cleveland, and lives in San Diego by the ocean with his wife, his son,

Ellen Kushner lives in New York City with her wife, the writer and teacher Delia Sherman. They have no cats, just plane tickets and theater stubs. After college, Kushner lucked into jobs as a fantasy editor for Jim Baen at Ace Books, and then for David G. Hartwell at Pocket/Simon & Schuster. She quit to write her first novel, Swordspoint, which took longer than she thought it would, so

Brooks Peck is an author, museum curator, and journalist. In 1996 he co-founded Science Fiction Weekly, the first professional website devoted to SF, and in time became editor-in-chief. He joined the Museum of Pop Culture (AKA MoPOP, formerly known as the EMP Museum) in 2004 when the museum established its first science fiction galleries. There he has curated exhibitions on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Battlestar Galactica, and Avatar

Sam J. Miller is a writer and a community organizer. His fiction has appeared in Lightspeed, Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, Apex, Strange Horizons, and The Minnesota Review, among others. His first book, a young adult science fiction novel called The Art of Starving, will be published by HarperCollins in 2017. His stories have been nominated for the Nebula, World Fantasy, and Theodore Sturgeon Awards, and he’s a winner of the Shirley