2009 Las Vegas KillerCon
Guests of Honor
Leslie Esdaile Banks has penned more than 30 novels and 11 novellas in a wide range of genres and is the recipient of the 2008 Essence Magazine Storyteller of the Year Award. A native of Philadelphia, Banks is a graduate of The University of Pennsylvania Wharton undergraduate program, and alumnae of Temple University’s Master of Fine Arts in filmmaking program.
Edward Lee has sold 15 novels and continues to pursue the ludicrous profession of freelance writing. His first novel, Night Bait, was written under the pen name Philip Straker. For the next 15 years, he worked as a night watchman at a retirement community and wrote by day. He quit the night watchman job in 1997. He is now living life in the sunshine of St. Pete Beach, Fla. His distant creative endeavors include more hardcore horror novels, a political thriller, a military tech thriller, a "true-life" thriller, a pop-literi abstraction for which he just won a modest grant, several horror scripts and God knows what else. His titles include MINOTAURESS, HOUSE INFERNAL, TERATOLOGIST, GAST, TRIAGE and many others. Forthcoming titles include ORDER OF THE SCARLET NUNS and GOLEMESQUE. Additionally, he probably cooks seafood better than any writer in the history of the genre. (Try his spicy crayfish spring rolls or deep fried shrimp heads stuffed with lump crab.)
In 2000, Banks won the coveted contract with Paramount/Showtime in collaboration with Simon & Schuster/Pocketbooks to write a book series for the popular cable network television series Soul Food. Banks also penned a four book crime thriller for Kensington/Dafina, beginning with Betrayal of the Trust, under her alternate pseudonym, Leslie Esdaile Banks. From there, Banks transitioned into another hot genre—the world of paranormal fiction, where she is currently penning a 12 book Vampire Huntress Legend series under the pen name, L.A. Banks, for St. Martin’s Press, as well as a hot new werewolf series, Crimson Moon Novels debuting spring 2008.
Currently Banks writes full-time, always working on multiple projects and anthologies simultaneously, and she resides in Philadelphia with her teenage daughter and her black Labrador Retriever.
Recent titles include A Kiss of Darkness, If Looks Could Kill and The Death Dealer. Deadly Night, Deadly Gift, Deadly Harvest and Nightwalker are highly anticipated and will be released in 2008 and 2009. Ms. Graham also writes under the names Shannon Drake and Heather Graham Pozzessere. Her greatest love in life remains her family, but she also believes her career has been an incredible gift, and she is grateful every day to be doing something that she loves so very much for a living.
New York Times and USA Today best selling author Heather Graham’s first book was with Dell, and since then she has written more than one hundred novels and novellas including category, suspense, historical romance, vampire fiction, time travel, occult and Christmas family fare.
She is pleased to have been published in approximately twenty languages, and to have been honored with awards from Walden Books, B. Dalton, Georgia Romance Writers, Affaire de Coeur, Romantic Times and more. She has had books selected for the Doubleday Book Club and the Literary Guild, and has been quoted, interviewed or featured in such publications as The Nation, Redbook, Mystery Book Club, People and USA Today and appeared on many newscasts including Today, Entertainment Tonight and local television.
Where does Mojo storytelling come from? How does a fella learn to spin over-the-top yarns of any sort: horror, suspense, humor, science fiction, Western, what have you? First you got to see the world, like champion Mojo storyteller Joe R. Lansdale, who has lived everywhere from Gladewater, Texas to Mount Enterprise, Texas to Nacogdoches, Texas!
Lansdale is a student of the martial arts for more than thirty years. With more than twenty books to his credit, Lansdale is the champion Mojo storyteller. He’s been called "an immense talent" by Booklist; "a born storyteller" by Robert Bloch; and The New York Times Book Review declares he has "a folklorist’s eye for telling detail and a front-porch raconteur’s sense of pace." He’s won umpty-ump awards, including five Bram Stoker horror awards, a British Fantasy Award, the American Mystery Award, the Horror Critics Award, the "Shot in the Dark" International Crime Writer’s award, the Booklist Editor’s Award, the Critic’s Choice Award, and a New York Times Notable Book award. He’s got the most decorated mantle in all of Nacogdoches!
Lansdale lives in Nacogdoches, Texas, with his wife, Karen, writer and editor.
Brian Keene is a two-time Bram Stoker Award winning horror author, first in 2001 for his non-fiction work Jobs In Hell and then again in 2003 for his debut novel, the post-apocalyptic zombie tale The Rising. In 2004, he won the Shocker Award for his non-fiction work Sympathy For the Devil. His other novels include Dead Sea, Ghoul, City of the Dead, Terminal, The Conqueror Worms, Fear Of Gravity, and more. Several of his books and stories have been optioned for film, video game and comic book adaptations.
Keene has often been credited (by the New York Times, Fangoria, the History Channel, and others) with ushering in the new era of zombie popularity in pop culture (along with filmmaker Danny Boyle).
In 2008, Marvel Comics announced that Keene would be writing for them. His first project for the company is the four-issue Dead of Night: Devil Slayer.
Keene currently lives in Pennsylvania.