Friday, October 28, 7:30pm -  Fiction
Philadelphia Fantastic Presents
Jonathan Maberry

Jonathan Maberry is a NY Times bestseller and multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Patient Zero, the Pine Deep Trilogy, The Wolfman, Zombie CSU and They Bite.  His work for Marvel Comics includes the Punisher, Wolverine, DoomWar, Marvel Zombie Return and Black Panther.  His Joe Ledger series has been optioned for TV by Sony Pictures.

His latest book is Dead of Night: A Zombie Novel ($14.99 Griffin)

A prison doctor injects a condemned serial killer with a formula designed to keep his consciousness awake while his body rots in the grave.  But all drugs have unforeseen side-effects.  Before he could be buried, the killer wakes up.  Hungry.  Infected.  Contagious.  This is the way the world ends.  Not with a bang…but a bite.

Friday, September 23, 7:30pm – Science Fiction

Philadelphia Fantastic

Friday August 26, 7:30pm – Science Fiction
Philadelphia Fantastic Presents
Darrell Schweitzer

Darrell Schweitzer (born August 27, 1952) is an American writer, editor, and essayist in the field of speculative fiction. Much of his focus has been on dark fantasy and horror, although he does also work in science fiction and fantasy. Schweitzer is also a prolific writer of literary criticism and editor of collections of essays on various writers within his preferred genres. From 1988 to 2007 he co-edited Weird Tales, sharing a World Fantasy Award in 1993 with colleagues John Gregory Betancourt and George H. Scithers. His most recent book is Living with the Dead, a collection of interconnected short stories issued by PS Publishing in 2008.

Friday, July 22, 7:30pm – Science Fiction

Philadelphia Fantastic Presents Michael Swanwick

Michael Swanwick has received the Hugo, Nebula, Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy Awards for his work. Stations of the Tide was honored with the Nebula Award and was also nominated for the Hugo and Arthur C. Clarke Awards. “The Edge of the World,” was awarded the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award in 1989. It was also nominated for both the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. “Radio Waves” received the World Fantasy Award in 1996. “The Very Pulse of the Machine” received the Hugo Award in 1999, as did “Scherzo with Tyrannosaur” in 2000. His stories have appeared in Omni, Penthouse, Amazing, Asimov’s, High Times, New Dimensions, Starlight, Universe, Full Spectrum, Triquarterly and elsewhere. Many have been reprinted in Best of the Year anthologies, and translated for Japanese, Dutch, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, French and Croatian publications. His books include In the Drift, an Ace Special; Vacuum Flowers; Griffin’s Egg; Stations of the Tide; The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, a New York Times Notable Book, and Jack Faust; his short fiction has been collected in Gravity’s Angels, A Geography of Unknown Lands, Moon Dogs, Tales of Old Earth, and a collection of short-shorts, Cigar-Box Faust and Other Miniatures. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Marianne Porter, and their son, Sean.

Friday, June 24, 7:30pm

Philadelphia Fantastic Presents

Barbara Ashford & Benjamin Tate

Barbara Ashford’s epic trilogy Trickster’s Game (written as Barbara Campbell) was nominated for the Mythopoeic Society’s fantasy award for adult literature. Before turning to fiction, she was an actress and librettist/lyricist for musical theatre and returns to her theatre roots for Spellcast. Look for her story “The Tale that Wagged the Dog” in After Hours: Tales from the Ur-Bar. Visit her Website at www.BarbaraAshford.com.

Benjamin Tate is a fantasy writer with a PhD in mathematics. The first book of his Throne of Amenkor series (written as Joshua Palmatier) was nominated for the Compton Crook Award in 2006. Well of Sorrows revisits the world of Amenkor and is the first in a planned trilogy from DAW Books. He has edited and contributed to two anthologies: After Hours: Tales from the Ur-Bar and The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity. Visit him at www.BenjaminTate.com.

Friday, May 27, 7:30 – Fiction

Philadelphia Fantastic Presents

CANCELLED

Friday, April 22, 7:30 – Sci Fi
Philadelphia Fantastic Presents
Lawrence M. Schoen

Though born in Chicago, Lawrence M. Schoen grew up in the endless sunshine of southern California. From age five until his eighteenth birthday, he worked every weekend with his father at various swap meets, selling everything from black Santa Claus dolls to melon ballers to women’s underwear. This provided him the opportunity to watch the full range of humanity pass by (and sell the occasional melon baller), and probably marks the start of his interest in human behavior. His writing career also began at those swap meets, and when business was slow he filled spiral notebooks with endless tales for his own amusement.

Eventually he left the swap meet behind and went off to college where the fascination with people won out and he put fiction aside. He first studied psychology, then linguistics, and then psycholinguistics, before ending up doing graduate work in Kansas on the nature of semantic representation and human memory. Doctoral degree in hand, he moved on to the teaching and research side of academia, working at schools in Florida, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. In 1992, Lawrence’s interests in science fiction and language found common ground and he established, and became director of, the Klingon Language Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the study of the world’s most popular fictional language. After ten years as a professor of psycholinguistics and cognitive psychology, Lawrence left academia to work in the private sector as a Research Director and Compliance Officer for a series of mental health and substance abuse facilities providing treatment for the poor and indigent in Philadelphia. He also found time to return to his first love, crafting fiction. His stories have appeared in variety of print and electronic magazines and anthologies, in English, Dutch, Finnish, German, Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, and Klingon, and he has begun a special project to make his first Amazing Conroy story, “Buffalo Dogs,” available in all of these languages and more.

Friday, January 28, 7:30pm – Erotica/Fantasy

Philadelphia Fantastic Presents

Victoria Jannsen author of The Duke & the Pirate Queen

“Aboard her privateering ship, The Seaflower, Captain Imena Leung is the law. Ashore she answers only to her liege, Duke Maxime. They are a powerful couple, with an intense attraction neither can disguise nor deny. As a nobleman, Maxime is destined to wed strategically, so his seductive advances must be purely for pleasure. And what self-respecting pirate denies herself any pleasure? Their delicious dalliance is prolonged when Imena is forced to abduct Maxime to thwart a political plot against him. At sea, with a stunningly virile man bound and held in her private quarters, Imena can imagine—and enact—any number of intoxicating scenarios. The heat between captain and captive is matched only by the perils that beset The Seaflower and her crew. Violent storms, marauding corsairs and life-or-death sex games on a desert island—how fortunate for the seemingly insatiable lovers that danger and desire go hand-in-hand.”

The author, Victoria Janssen, attended a women’s college and there discovered she enjoyed writing erotica. After selling several dozen stories under the name Elspeth Potter, her agent suggested a novel based on “Ducal Service,” which appeared in The Milf Anthology (2006). The proposal evolved into “The Duchess, Her Maid, The Groom and Their Lover,” published by Harlequin Spice in December 2008. Frequent themes in her stories include role reversal, creating families and empowering women, usually through unconventional means. When not writing, Victoria lectures about writing and selling erotica at literary conferences, researches in libraries and graveyards, and guestblogs. She lives in Philadelphia.

Come escape the winter doldrums and join us as one of the most exciting

authors in the field of romantic fantasy entertains us!

Friday, October 22, 7:30pm – Science Fiction / Fantasy

Philadelphia Fantastic Presents

Steve Alten author of Grim Reaper: End of Days ($25.95 Variance Publishing)

Revelations to the Mayan Calendar’s 2012 prophecy, all major religions warn of a darkness to come, a supernatural event that will be the modern-day equivalent of Noah’s Flood. In the 13th century, Europe suffered through war, famine, and the evils of the pogrom acts of hatred that massacred tens of thousands of Jews. In 1346, at the height of corruption, the Black Plague struck the Eurasian continent, wiping out half the world’s population while spawning a new legend: The Grim Reaper. In GRIM REAPER: End of Days, international best-selling author Steve Alten takes us on a classic hero’s journey of good versus evil, transformation and redemption. The story draws frightening parallels between the lack of morality that corrupted 13th century Europe and the greed that has mired our own society in economic collapse, two endless wars — and a very real covert biological program, exposed by the author, which could lead to a global pandemic and our own prophesied self-destruction in 2012. . .666 years after the Black Death struck Europe! The hero in Grim Reaper: End of Days is Patrick Shepherd, an Iraqi war vet and tainted soul who returns home to find his wife and child gone and his country mired in economic collapse, two endless wars and a very real covert biological program which could lead to global pandemic and our own self-destruction.

New York Times and International best selling author, Steve Alten is the creator of the Meg series, Domain, The Loch, Goliath, and The Shell Game. He holds degrees from Penn State University, The University of Deleware and Temple University. Alten is founder and director of Adopt an Author, a nationwide non-profit program for teens that has over 10,000 registered teachers. Grim Reaper End of Days is his tenth novel.

Friday, September 24, 7:30pm – Science Fiction

Philadelphia Fantastic Presents

L.A. Banks author of the Crimson Moon Series

L.A. Banks’ bestselling Crimson Moon series continues, and this time the otherworldly threat is dangerously personal… Secret government operative Sasha Trudeau earned a long vacation with her lover and fellow Shadow Wolf, Hunter, after the brutal wolf-like attacks that left New Orleans in an uproar. But when her team calls with news of vampire slayings, Sasha knows it’s only a matter of time before another war breaks out among the supernatural denizens of the world …

LEFT FOR UNDEAD – The vampires are nobody’s ally, but the cold-hearted deaths of their own kind make them even more bloodthirsty than usual. But who is the culprit? With the Seelie and Unseelie courts claiming innocence and aligning together, Sasha’s team is at a loss. Until they discover that they’re facing ancient creatures from the depths of hell itself, bent on unleashing pure fury …

“The darkly thrilling Crimson Moon series…bursts with treachery and supernatural chills.” —Romantic Times BOOKreviews

“An action-packed thrill ride!” —Sherrilyn Kenyon

L. A. BANKS is the author of the Vampire Huntress LegendTM series. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and a master’s in fine arts from Temple University. Banks considers herself a shape-shifter. She has written romance, women’s fiction, crime and suspense, and of course, dark vampire huntress lore. She lives with her daughter in an undisclosed lair somewhere in Philadelphia. You can visit her at www.vampire-huntress.com or crimsonmoonnovels.com