Alastair Reynolds (UK)
British science fiction writer Alastair Reynolds is the author of ten novels and around fifty short stories. He is best known for the Revelation Space-series which includes the novels Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, Absolution Gap, Chasm City and The Prefect.
His standalone novels are Century Rain, Pushing Ice, House of Suns and Terminal World. January 2012 saw the release of his latest novel Blue Remembered Earth, the first in a trilogy called Poseidon’s Children. His Doctor Who novel, Harvest of Time – featuring Jon Pertwee’s Doctor, Jo Grant and The Master, will appear in 2013.
He has won the 2001 British Science Fiction Award for Best Novel for Chasm City and he has been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award three times, for his novels Revelation Space, Pushing Ice and House of Suns. His novella Troika made the shortlist for the 2011 Hugo Awards for Best Novella.
Reynolds has a background in astronomy. He spent the twelve years leading up to 2004 as a scientist within the European Space Agency, of which about half that time was spent working on S-Cam, the world’s most advanced optical camera. After spending sixteen years in the Netherlands, he returned to his native Wales in 2008.
More information can be found at www.alastairreynolds.com or at his blog Approaching Pavonis Mons by balloon.
Ellen Datlow (US)
Ellen Datlow has been editing science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction for over twenty-five years. She was fiction editor of OMNI Magazine and SCIFICTION and has edited more than fifty anthologies, including The Best Horror of the Year, Inferno, Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror, Lovecraft Unbound, Supernatural Noir, Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy, Blood and Other Cravings, The Beastly Bride and Teeth: Vampire Tales (the latter two young adult anthologies with Terri Windling), and Haunted Legends (with Nick Mamatas).
Forthcoming is the young adult dystopian anthology After and the adult fantasy anthology Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells (both with Windling).
She has tied for the most World Fantasy Awards (nine),and has also won multiple Locus Awards, Hugo Awards, Stoker Awards, International Horror Guild Awards, and The Shirley Jackson Award for her editing. She was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award, given at the British Fantasy Convention for “outstanding contribution to the genre.” She has also been honored with the Life Achievement Award given by the Horror Writers Association, in acknowledgment of superior achievement over an entire career.
She co-curates the long-running Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series in New York City’s east village.
More information can be found at www.datlow.com or at her blog: http://ellen-datlow.livejournal.com/. She tweets as https://twitter.com/#!/ellendatlow
Anne-Marie Vedsø Olesen (DK)
Best known for the fantasy trilogy based on Egyptian mythology “Djævelens Kvint”, “Tredje Ikaros” and “Gudernes Tusmørke”. A paperback version with all three books will be published at about the same time as Fantasticon.
Her most recent book “Glasborgen” (The Glass Castle in English) has been highly praised by most reviewers from the major Danish newspapers.