Philcon 2023 Guests

Jonathan Maberry

Principal Speaker

It is with deepest regret we announce that Philcon 2023’s Principal Speaker, Johnathan Maberry, will not be able to attend Philcon (November 17-19), due to an unexpected illness. The Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the Philcon Committee thank you for your understanding. We look forward to inviting him in the future and promoting his work. In the meantime, we invite you to check out his many books and anthologies and his V-Wars Netflix series. Thanks again for your understanding and please join us in wishing him a speedy recovery.

JONATHAN MABERRY is a New York Times bestselling author, 5-time Bram Stoker Award-winner, 3-time Scribe Award winner, Inkpot Award winner, anthology editor, writing teacher, and comic book writer. His vampire apocalypse book series, V-WARS, was a Netflix original series starring Ian Somerhalder. He writes in multiple genres including suspense, thriller, horror, science fiction, epic fantasy, and action; and he writes for adults, teens and middle grade. His works include the Joe Ledger thrillers, Kagen the Damned, Ink, Glimpse, the Rot & Ruin series, the Dead of Night series, The Wolfman, X-Files Origins: Devil’s Advocate, The Sleepers War (with Weston Ochse), NectroTek, Mars One, and many others. Several of his works are in development for film and TV. He is the editor of high-profile anthologies including The X-Files, Aliens: Bug Hunt, Out of Tune, Don’t Turn out the Lights: A Tribute to Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Baker Street Irregulars, Nights of the Living Dead, and others. His comics include Black Panther: DoomWar, The Punisher: Naked Kills and Bad Blood. His Rot & Ruin young adult novel was adapted into the #1 horror comic on Webtoon and is being developed for film by Alcon Entertainment. He the president of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers, and the editor of Weird Tales Magazine. He lives in San Diego, California. Find him online at www.jonathanmaberry.com

Rob Carlos

Artist Guest of Honor

Rob Carlos started his art career working as a digital graphic designer for a printing company in Florida, illustrating the D&D games he ran with friends and drawing and painting whenever possible. When that company folded, he started selling prints on his website (the worldwide web was a brand new thing at that point) and was asked to do some paintings for the Robert Jordan Wheel of Time TCG, starting his official professional work as a fantasy artist.

In 2001, Rob and his family moved from Florida to the Seattle/Tacoma area, and discovered the convention world that exists up here. A couple of years later, a bookstore/art gallery in Kent, WA called “Browser’s Books” was displaying and selling work by local artist Amy Brown, and decided to add Rob to their walls as well. Browser’s Books became Rob’s home base for many years, and most of his paintings from that time started as sketches done there in the bookstore.

In 2007, Rob started showing his work at Norwescon in Seattle, and various other sci-fi/ fantasy conventions. For years, Rob concentrated on illustrating for independent and small-press writers and musicians, being able to work directly with other creators without intervening art directors. During that time, Add An Accent produced a line of pewter dragons and ceramic tiles based on Rob’s artwork. Meanwhile, his convention appearances took him from one side of the country to he other, and abroad to Worldcon art shows in Helsinki and Dublin.

These days, Rob stays busy doing both self-directed and commercial painting projects, drawing people’s personal dragons, and occasionally creating enormous murals for locations around Washington and Oregon. Things came full circle during the 2020 pandemic, when online D&D games became more popular, and Rob started back into illustrating characters for the Camp Dragon online RPG company, along with his own personal group’s games. That period also saw him moving into digital sculpting using Zbrush to make gaming character minis, which has become an all-consuming passion! After the pandemic subsided, and conventions started again, Rob was thrilled to learn that he was chosen to be Norwescon’s Artist Guest of Honor – the show that started him on his convention artist path 15 years earlier.

Find him online at https://robcarlosart.wixsite.com/mysite

Kelley Armstrong

Special Guest

Kelley Armstrong is the author of the “Rip Through Time” and “Rockton” mystery series. Past works include the Otherworld urban fantasy series, the Cainsville gothic mystery series, the Nadia Stafford mystery trilogy, the Darkest Powers & Darkness Rising teen paranormal series, the Age of Legends teen fantasy series and the Royal Guide to Monster Slaying middle-grade fantasy series.

She has published thirty-one fantasy novels to date, thirteen in her Women series, five in her Cainsville series, six in her Rockton series, three in her Darkest Powers series, three in her Darkness Rising trilogy and three in the Age of Legends series, and three stand-alone teen thrillers. She has also published three middle-grade fantasy novels in the Blackwell Pages trilogy, with co-author Melissa Marr. As well, she is the author of three crime novels, the Nadia Stafford trilogy. She has also written several serial novellas and short stories for the Otherworld series, some of which are available free from her website. Starting in 2014, a Canadian television series based on the Women of the Otherworld, called Bitten, aired for 3 seasons on Space, and SyFy.

Find her online at https://www.kelleyarmstrong.com/