Rick Wilber is an award-winning writer, editor and teacher who has published more than fifty short stories, several novels and short-story collections, three edited anthologies, a memoir, and a half-dozen college textbooks on writing and the mass media.

His most recent novel is Alien Day, the second of a trilogy based on his long-running S’hudonni Empire series of stories. The first book in the trilogy, Alien Morning, was a finalist for the 2016 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction novel of 2016.

Other recent publications include The Wandering Warriors (New Word City, 2020) co-authored with Alan Smale; the short-story collection Rambunctious: Nine Tales of Determination (WordFire Press 2020); Making History: Classic Alternate History Stories (Ed.) (New Word City, 2019); and the collection The Moe Berg Episodes (New Word City, 2018).

He is a Visiting Professor in the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing at Western Colorado University, and he is he co-founder and co-judge with Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine Editor Sheila Williams of the Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing, awarded annually at the International Conference on the Fantastic in Orlando, Florida.

Sue Bedry has been with the Tampa Bay Times Newspaper in Education program since 2011. A long-time fan of the science fiction and fantasy genres, she established the Tampa Bay Times Newspaper in Education Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing Award in 2014 to encourage aspiring authors to explore the genres of science fiction and fantasy and to experiment with the short story format.