Faculty
Meet our 2024 Guest of Honor!
Maurice Broaddus is a multi-talented author, editor, and community organizer with a diverse portfolio of work. As a prolific writer, Broaddus has authored a dozen novels, including the urban fantasy trilogy “The Knights of Breton Court,” steampunk works such as “Buffalo Soldier” and “Pimp My Airship,” and middle-grade detective novels like “The Usual Suspects.” He has nearly 100 short stories to his name, which have appeared in esteemed publications like “Lightspeed Magazine,” “Asimov’s,” and “Uncanny Magazine,” with some stories collected in “The Voices of Martyrs.” In addition to his literary works, his project “Sorcerers” is being adapted as a television show for AMC.
In his various roles beyond writing, Broaddus serves as an accidental teacher at the Oaks Academy Middle School, an accidental librarian in the IndyPL Shared System, and a purposeful community organizer, holding the title of resident Afrofuturist at the Kheprw Institute. His extensive contributions to the world of gaming include writing for the Marvel Super-Heroes, Leverage, and Firefly role-playing games, consulting for Watch Dogs 2 and Dungeons & Dragons, and crafting tie-in fiction for various games. Passionate about both his craft and his community, Broaddus is deeply involved in efforts to uplift and improve the lives of those around him. Learn more about him at MauriceBroaddus.com.
Check Out Our Faculty!
Chris Jackson Sailor, SFF fan, career biologist, gamer, and author, Chris has a diverse bibliography of science thrillers, nautical fantasy, epic fantasy, science fiction, horror, post-apocalyptic fantasy, and RPG tie-in stories.
His game tie-in work includes Pathfinder, Iron Kingdoms, Shadowrun, Arkham Horror, and Traveller RPGs.
He has over 30 novels in print and has won numerous awards, including the 2020 Scribe Award for best tie-in short story.
His most recent works from Falstaff Books include the War of Souls post-apocalyptic fantasy trilogy, and the high fantasy Dark Seeds Trilogy. He has published through several small presses, gaming publishers, and his own imprint, Jaxbooks.
New stories coming out all the time. Visit jaxbooks.com for a look at his work.
Richard Dansky A 25 year veteran of the video game industry, Richard Dansky has written for games including Hunt: Showdown, The Division, Splinter Cell: Conviction and many more. He has published 8 novels and 2 short fiction collections, including his most recent work, A MEETING IN THE DEVIL’S HOUSE.
Previously, he was a key contributor to White Wolf’s seminal horror setting The World of Darkness. He lives in Durham with his cats and a ridiculous amount of single malt scotch..
John G. Hartness is a teller of tales, a righter of wrong, defender of ladies’ virtues, and some people call him Maurice, for he speaks of the pompatus of love. He is also the award-winning author of the urban fantasy series The Black Knight Chronicles, the Bubba the Monster Hunter comedic horror series, the Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter dark fantasy series, and many other projects. He is also a cast member of the role-playing podcast Authors & Dragons, where a group of comedy, fantasy, and horror writers play Dungeons & Dragons. Very poorly.
In 2016, John teamed up with several other publishing industry professionals to create Falstaff Books, a small press dedicated to publishing the best of genre fiction’s “misfit toys.” Falstaff Books has since published over 250 titles with authors ranging from first-timers to NY Times bestsellers, with no signs of slowing down any time soon.
In his copious free time John enjoys long walks on the beach, rescuing kittens from trees and playing Magic: the Gathering. John’s pronouns are he/him.
Michael G. Williams writes queer-themed science fiction, urban fantasy, and horror celebrating monsters, macabre humor, and subverted expectations. He’s the author of three series for Falstaff Books: the award-winning vampire series The Withrow Chronicles; the thrilling urban fantasy series SERVANT/SOVEREIGN featuring real estate, time travel, modern-day witches, and San Francisco’s greatest historical figures; the science fiction private-eye noir A Fall in Autumn, winner of the 2020 Manly Wade Wellman Award; and a bunch of short stories. He strives to present the humor and humanity at the heart of horror and mystery with stories of outcasts and loners finding their people.
Michael co-hosts Arcane Carolinas and Data@Rest, studied Performance Studies at UNC Chapel Hill and Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University, and is a brother in St. Anthony Hall and Mu Beta Psi. He lives in Durham, NC, with his husband and a variety of animals.
https://michaelgwilliamsbooks.com
William C. Tracy writes and publishes queer science fiction and fantasy through his indie press Space Wizard Science Fantasy (spacewizardsciencefantasy.com).
His largest work is the Dissolutionverse: a space opera with music-based magic, including ten books and an RPG. He also has a standalone epic fantasy with seasonal fruit-based magic, a nonfiction book about body mechanics and correct posture, and a hard sci-fi trilogy with generational colony ships and a planet covered by a sentient fungal entity.
William is an NC native and a lifelong fan of science fiction and fantasy. He has a master’s in mechanical engineering, and has both designed and operated heavy construction machinery. He has also trained in Wado-Ryu karate since 2003 and runs his own dojo in Raleigh NC. He is an avid video and board gamer, a beekeeper, a reader, and of course, a writer.
You can get a free Dissolutionverse novelette by signing up for William’s mailing list at spacewizardsciencefantasy.com
Follow him on Bluesky at wctracy.bsky.social, Threads at threads.net/@tracywc, and Twitter at @wctracy for writing updates, cat and bee pictures, and thoughts on martial arts.
Gail Z. Martin writes urban fantasy, epic fantasy, steampunk for Orbit Books, Falstaff Books, SOL Publishing and Darkwind Press. Urban fantasy series include Deadly Curiosities and the Night Vigil. Epic fantasy series include Darkhurst, the Chronicles Of The Necromancer, the Fallen Kings Cycle, the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga, and the Assassins of Landria.
She and Larry N. Martin co-write the Jake Desmet Adventures, the Spells Salt and Steel series, the Joe Mack Adventures, and the Wasteland Marshals series. As Morgan Brice, she writes urban fantasy MM paranormal romance (Witchbane, Badlands, Treasure Trail, Kings of the Mountain and Fox Hollow series.)
Susan H. Roddey writes dark speculative fiction and works as a book formatter, cover designer, and developmental editor, both for hire and for several independent presses. She is also a voracious reader, wanna-be chef, amateur gamer, and owner of The Snark Shop, a handcrafted internet market.
She lives in the Piedmont area of South Carolina with a house full of humans, cats, books, and yarn, and spends entirely too much time yelling at her sewing machine.
She also writes romance under the name Siobhan Kinkade.
She is also very food-motivated and can easily be bought with chocolate chip cookies.
Nicole Givens Kurtz has been called “a genre polymath who does crime, horror, and Science Fiction and Fantasy (Book Riot).”
She’s the recipient of the Ladies of Horror Grant, the HWA’s Diversity Grant, and the two-time Palmetto Scribe Award Winner. She’s the editor of the groundbreaking anthology, SLAY: Stories of the Vampire Noire and Blackened Roots: An Anthology of the Undead with co-editor, Tonia Ransom.
She’s written for White Wolf, The Realm and Baen. She enjoys reading scary stories and mysteries.
Nicole Kurtz image by Kecia Stovall
K. D. Edwards lives and writes in North Carolina, but has spent time in Massachusetts, Maine, Colorado, New Hampshire, Montana, and Washington. (Common theme until NC: Snow. So, so much snow.)
Mercifully short careers in food service, interactive television, corporate banking, retail management, and bariatric furniture has led to a much less short career in Higher Education.
The first book in his urban fantasy series THE TAROT SEQUENCE, called THE LAST SUN, was published by Pyr in June 2018. The third installment, THE HOURGLASS THRONE, was released in May 2022, and THE EIDOLON, the first official companion novel, was released in February 2023.
K D Edwards image by York Wilson
Stuart Jaffe is the madman behind The Max Porter Paranormal Mysteries, the Nathan K thrillers, the Parallel Society novels, The Ridnight Mysteries, The Malja Chronicles, The Bluesman, Founders, Real Magic, and much, much more.
He trained in martial arts for over a decade until a knee injury ended that practice. Now, he plays lead guitar in a local blues band, The Bootleggers, and enjoys life on a small farm in rural North Carolina. For those who continue to keep count, the animal list is as follows: one dog, two cats, three aquatic turtles, and numerous chickens. As best as he’s been able to manage, Stuart has made sure that the chickens do not live in the house.
Jody Lynn Nye lists her main career activity as ‘spoiling cats.’ When not engaged upon this worthy occupation, she writes fantasy and science fiction books and short stories.
Over the last thirty or so years, Jody has taught in numerous writing workshops and participated on hundreds of panels covering the subjects of writing and being published at science-fiction conventions. She has also spoken in schools and libraries around the north and northwest suburbs. In 2007 she taught fantasy writing at Columbia College Chicago. She also runs the two-day writers’ workshop at DragonCon. Jody is the Coordinating Judge of the Writers of the Future contest, the world’s largest science fiction and fantasy writing contest for new authors (free to enter!).
Jody lives in the northwest suburbs of Atlanta, with her husband Bill Fawcett, a writer, game designer, military historian and book packager, and three feline overlords, Athena, Minx, and Marmalade. Check out her website at www.jodynye.com.
Lucy Blue, a horror and romance author, is currently a writer and senior editor for Falstaff Books. Prior to signing with Falstaff, she published novels with Berkley Books (part of the Penguin Group), Pocket Books (part of Simon & Schuster), Purple Sword Publications, and her own micro-press, Little Red Hen Romance.
Her most recent published novels are The Devil Makes Three (Southern gothic horror) and The Princess and the Peonies (Book 4 in The Stella Hart Mysteries, romantic comedy murder mysteries set in 1920s England and Hollywood). Her latest horror novel, Wollstonecraft, is a classic gothic ghost story (so sexy AND scary) and sapphic alternative history about Mary Shelley—coming soon from Falstaff Books.
She is married to artist, illustrator, and game designer Justin Glanville, known affectionately to Blue and her many bemused followers on social media as The Thunder from Down Under.
Copyright 2024 Saga Conference