Nancy Kress – Literary Guest of Honor

Nancy Kress is known for her Hugo and Nebula-winning novella Beggars in Spain. Kress won the Nebula Award for Best Novella in 2013 for “After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall”, and again in 2015 for “Yesterday’s Kin”.

Jeff Sturgeon – Artist Guest of Honor

Jeff Sturgeon’s work has graced hardback and paperback books, ebooks, magazines, CDs and album covers, and video games. His work has been displayed in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. In a former life, Jeff was a long-time computer game artist/art director, most notably with Electronic Arts Seattle.

Margaret Davis and Kristoph Klover – Filk Guests of Honor

Sugo Music recording artists Margaret Davis and Kristoph Klover perform original arrangements of Celtic music from the British Isles and the Medieval and Renaissance melodies of the European courts and countrysides, interweaving soaring vocals with a Celtic Harp, an Octave Mandolin, guitars, flute, recorders, and a Tin-Whistle. They are known for their “effortless harmonies and deft facility in numerous traditional instruments” (Mythopoeic Society), and Margaret has been described as “an incredible singer – her clear soprano and harp playing I cannot praise enough” (the folknik).

Margaret & Kristoph have delighted audiences since 1993 — sharing the magic of other times and places with fans of traditional music the world over. They have put together an engaging collection of traditional Celtic, Medieval, and Renaissance music ranging from haunting harp-based ballads and troubadour love songs, to danceable jigs and reels. Their lyrics, including some in Gaelic, Medieval French, and Provencal, speak of love and longing, quests and revels, magic and transformation in a language that transports and enchants the listener.

Rebecca Moesta – Editor Guest of Honor

Rebecca Moesta (pronounced MESS-tuh) is the bestselling author of many science fiction and fantasy books, both solo and in collaboration with her husband Kevin J. Anderson, including the STAR WARS: YOUNG JEDI KNIGHTS series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Little Things, Star Trek TNG: The Gorn Crisis graphic novel, the original CRYSTAL DOORS trilogy, the Grumpy Old Monsters graphic novel, and the STAR CHALLENGERS trilogy.

She holds a Master of Science in Business Administration from Boston University and is a founding member of Superstars Writing Seminars. She is the co-publisher of WordFire Press and has more than 25 years of experience as a professional editor.

Andrew Mayne – Entertainment Guest of Honor

Andrew Mayne, star of A&E’s Don’t Trust Andrew Mayne, is a magician and novelist. He was ranked the fifth best-selling independent author of the year by Amazon UK and his Jessica Blackwood series, about a female FBI agent who pursues crimes that appear supernatural, was nominated for the ITW Award.
As a magician, he started his first world tour when he was a teenager and went on to work behind the scenes for Penn & Teller, David Blaine and David Copperfield. He’s also the host of the Weird Things podcast, winner of the 2016 Podcast Award for best science series.

Lou Mayo – Scientist Guest of Honor

Lou Mayo is a planetary scientist from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington, DC in Geenbelt, MD. A highly sought-after public speaker, he is an expert on the dynamic atmospheres of Jovian gas giant planets, having worked on the Voyager and Cassini mission teams, and is currently serving as the Program Manager for the NASA Heliophysics Education Consortium.

Mem Morman and Kent Bloom – Fan Guests of Honor

Kent started reading SF before he was 10 years old (a long time ago). He attended Discon II in 1974, MidAmeriCon in 1976, and hasn’t missed a Worldcon since. He joined the Washington Science Fiction Association in 1975, and was active in that club and its Disclave conventions until he was transferred to Colorado Springs in 1991. Kent is a founding member of First Friday Fandom of Colorado Springs. Kent started working on Worldcons at Iguanacon in 1978, where he was a radio operator and operations staff member. He chaired Denvention 3 in 2008. He is currently President of the Worldcon Heritage Organization, which collects and displays artifacts from Worldcons.
He has volunteered at Division Head and Department Head levels at Worldcons around the world, including Great Britain, Canada, and Australia. He has also chaired and been secretary for Worldcon and Westercon Business Meetings.
Mem attended her first Worldcon (and her first science fiction convention) at Baycon in Berkeley over Labor Day of 1968. This eye-opening weekend led her into both the Tolkien Society and the Mythopoeic Society and she attended (and volunteered at) Mythcons and Westercons for the next decade while she finished college, married, and even had babies – reading SF all the while.
Her second Worldcon was LAcon I in 1972 where she helped out at registration and at the masquerade. She ran her first con in 1976 – the first Mythcon run outside southern California. This experience, the birth of her third child, and a new job with IRS kept her too busy for active fandom for a couple of years, but she returned to cons and con running on the east coast in the 1980s working on Darkovercons, Disclaves, Datclaves, and the occasional Worldcon – she was an official “Bug-Eyed Computer Operator” at Noreascon II. By now her areas of expertise were in running registration and programming, and running babysitting (a task she took on for several consecutive years at Disclave, possibly setting a record in fandom for insufficient reluctance).
In the late 80’s mystery fandom won out briefly over SF fandom, and she created and chaired the first few years of Malice Domestic (a DC area mystery con designed to provide a cozy alternative to the more hard-boiled Bouchercon). By now married to Kent Bloom, and attending Worldcons and SMOFcons annually, Mary has worked site selection, information, newsletter, registration, events, and even taken a turn as a program participant. She ran Worldcon babysitting at Bucconneer putting in 17 hour days and managing to only once have to change a diaper. With Linda Ross-Mansfield she ran at-con registration at Torcon (that was the one without the long lines).

Connie Willis – Heckler Guest of Honor

Connie Willis is the award winning author of Doomsday Book, Passage, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Bellwether, and Blackout/All Clear. Connie has been awarded 11 Hugo Awards, 11 Locus Poll Awards and 8 Nebula Awards. Her stories have an epic feel to them and range from laugh out loud funny to deadly serious. The first half of her newest novel, Blackout, was published in February 2010 with the second half, All Clear, was published in October, 2010.

We are pleased to have Connie join us to provide context for why the long-time members of the Westercon community do what they do, and help young or new fans better appreciate the historical entity and lore of Westercon and fandom in general!

David Gerrold – Master of Ceremonies

David Gerrold is the author of over 50 books, hundreds of articles and columns, and over a dozen television episodes. He is a classic sci-fi writer that will go down in history as having created some of the most popular and redefining scripts, books, and short stories in the genre.

TV credits include episodes from Star Trek (“The Trouble With Tribbles” and “The Cloud Minders”), Star Trek Animated(“More Tribbles, More Troubles” and “Bem”), Babylon 5 (“Believers”), Twilight Zone (“A Day In Beaumont” and “A Saucer Of Loneliness”), Land Of The Lost (“Cha-Ka,” “The Sleestak God,” “Hurricane,” “Possession,” and “Circle”), Tales From The Darkside (“Levitation” and “If The Shoes Fit”), Logan’s Run (“Man Out Of Time”), and others.

Novels include When HARLIE Was One, The Man Who Folded Himself, The War Against The Chtorr septology, The Star Wolf trilogy, The Dingilliad young adult trilogy, the Trackers duology, and many more sci-fi classics.

Additionally, the autobiographical tale of his son’s adoption, The Martian Child, won the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novelette of the Year and was the basis for the 2007 movie, Martian Child, starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet, and Joan Cusack.