Your Personal Odyssey 2024 Guest Critiquers
Scott H. Andrews lives in Virginia with his wife, two cats, twelve guitars, a dozen overflowing bookcases, and hundreds of beer bottles from all over the world. He writes, teaches college chemistry, and is Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of the nine-time Hugo Award finalist and World Fantasy Award-winning online fantasy magazine Beneath Ceaseless Skies.
Scott is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop; his literary short fiction has won a $1000 prize from the Briar Cliff Review, and his genre short fiction has appeared in Space & Time, Crossed Genres, and Ann VanderMeer's Weird Tales.
Scott has taught writing at the Odyssey Workshop, Writefest, and online for Odyssey Online Classes, Clarion West, and Cat Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers. He has lectured on short fiction, secondary-world fantasy, editing, magazine publishing, audio podcasting, and beer on dozens of convention panels at multiple Worldcons, World Fantasy conventions, and regional conventions in the Northeast and Midwest. He is an eight-time finalist and 2019 winner of the World Fantasy Award, and he celebrates International Stout Day at least once a year.
Ayana Gray is a New York Times-bestselling young adult fantasy author and a lover of all things monsters, mythos, and magic. Originally from Atlanta, she now lives in Little Rock, Arkansas where she reads avidly, follows Formula One racing, and worries over the varying moods of her adopted baby black rhino, Apollo, and her mini goldendoodle, Dolly.
Her debut novel, Beasts of Prey, is being translated in 10 languages across five continents, and is in feature film development with Netflix.
Shiv Ramdas is a multi-award nominated author of speculative fiction short stories and novels. He lives and writes in Seattle, Washington with his wife and three cats. In 2020 he became one of only two Indian writers to ever be nominated for a Hugo, a Nebula and an Ignyte Award in the same year. He also gained Twitter fame in 2020 for live-tweeting the saga of his brother-in-law’s rice mishap. His first novel, Domechild, was India’s first mainstream cyberpunk novel. His short fiction has appeared in Slate, Strange Horizons, Fireside Fiction, Podcastle and other publications.
He is a graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop. He was previously a radio host, and worked in journalism, advertising, and event management. In addition to his speculative fiction work he has also penned numerous advertisements, radio segments, audio plays and resignation letters.
Arley Sorg is an associate agent at kt literary. He is a two-time World Fantasy Award Finalist and a two-time Locus Award Finalist for his work as co-Editor-in-Chief at Fantasy Magazine. Arley is also a SFWA Solstice Award Recipient, a Space Cowboy Award Recipient, and a finalist for two Ignyte Awards. Arley is senior editor at Locus, associate editor at both Lightspeed & Nightmare, a columnist for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and an interviewer for Clarkesworld. He has been a guest critiquer for the Odyssey Workshop, was the week five instructor for the 2023 Clarion West workshop, and is a Guest of Honour for the 2024 in-person Can*Con, among other teaching and speaking engagements. Find him at arleysorg.com, his Twitter, Facebook, or Blue Sky. Arley is a 2014 Odyssey Writing Workshop graduate.
Carrie Vaughn's work includes the Philip K. Dick Award-winning novel Bannerless, a post-apocalyptic murder mystery; the New York Times Bestselling Kitty Norville urban fantasy series; over twenty novels and upwards of 100 short stories, two of which have been finalists for the Hugo Award. Her most recent novel is Questland, about a high-tech LARP that goes horribly wrong. She's a contributor to the Wild Cards series of shared world superhero books edited by George R. R. Martin and a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. An Air Force brat, she survived her nomadic childhood and managed to put down roots in Boulder, Colorado. Visit her at www.carrievaughn.com.
Jeanne Cavelos - Director and Primary Instructor
The creation of the Odyssey Writing Workshops Charitable Trust, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization devoted to helping developing writers of fantastic fiction improve their work, has been a dream of Jeanne’s which she has worked to make a reality.
Jeanne is a writer, editor, scientist, and teacher. She began her professional life as an astrophysicist and mathematician, teaching astronomy at Michigan State University and Cornell University, and working in the Astronaut Training Division at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
But soon her love of science fiction led her to earn her MFA in creative writing. She moved into a career in publishing, becoming a senior editor at Bantam Doubleday Dell, where she created and launched the Abyss imprint of innovative horror and the Cutting Edge imprint of noir literary fiction. She also ran the science fiction/fantasy publishing program. In addition, she edited a wide range of fiction and nonfiction. She worked with such authors as William F. Nolan, Joan Vinge, Robert Anton Wilson, Dennis Etchison, Tanith Lee, Kathe Koja, Poppy Z. Brite, J. M. Dillard, David Wingrove, Barry Gifford, Patrick McCabe, and Peter Dickinson. In her eight years in New York publishing, she edited numerous award-winning and best-selling authors and gained a reputation for discovering and nurturing new writers. Jeanne won the World Fantasy Award for her editing.
Jeanne left New York to find a balance that would allow her to do her own writing and work in a more in-depth way with writers.
Jeanne has had seven books published by major publishers. Her last novel to hit the stores was Invoking Darkness, the third volume in her best-selling trilogy The Passing of the Techno-Mages (Del Rey), set in the Babylon 5 universe. The Sci-Fi Channel called the trilogy “A revelation for Babylon 5 fans. . . . Not ‘television episodic’ in look and feel. They are truly novels in their own right.” Her book The Science of Star Wars (St. Martin’s) was chosen by the New York Public Library for its recommended reading list. The Science of The X-Files (Berkley) was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. Jeanne is currently writing a near-future science thriller about genetic manipulation, titled Fatal Spiral.
Jeanne has published short fiction and nonfiction in many magazines and anthologies. She has also ghostwritten several bestselling books.
The Many Faces of Van Helsing (Berkley), an anthology edited by Jeanne, was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. The editors at Barnes and Noble called it “brilliant. . . . Arguably the strongest collection of supernatural stories to be released in years.”
Since she loves working with developing writers, Jeanne created and serves as primary instructor at Your Personal Odyssey Writing Workshop, an innovative program that combines advanced lectures, expert feedback, and deep mentoring, and provides a personalized, one-on-one online experience responsive to each writer’s needs. In 2010, Jeanne launched Odyssey Online Classes to help writers all over the world improve their skills in specific, targeted areas. Jeanne oversees the courses offered and teaches every few years. In 2015, Jeanne was nominated for a World Fantasy Award for her work as Odyssey director and instructor.
She is also an English lecturer at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, where she teaches fiction writing.
Jeanne has spoken widely on writing, publishing, science, and science fiction at venues as varied as the Smithsonian Institute, the Air Force Revolutionary Technologies Division, the Intel International Science Fair, the American Chemical Society, Dartmouth College, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, the Science Channel, Turner Entertainment, the Art Bell radio program, and many radio shows, bookstores, and conventions. More information is on her site, www.jeannecavelos.com.