We are pleased to announce an addition to our roster for this year. Welcome publisher Brian Hades.

As a boy, Brian Hades took to the family business with precocious fervor, even when it meant wearing a top hat with a rabbit hidden in it. Yes, more than half-a-century ago, the grey-haired, pony-tailed 58-year-old publisher of science-fiction and fantasy novels began his working life as a magician. Not just any magician, mind you, but a magician from a family of magicians; a child prodigy who was entertaining Calgarians by the age of seven.

He made birds disappear, pulled rabbits from his hat. Then, at the peak of his powers, he gave it all up.

"I retired at the age of 14 after seven years of service," he says, "My father had this idea that I was going to be a star. At 14, I had other plans." Given his early experiences in the spotlight, it's perhaps surprising that Hades ended up in a career that finds him working a less showy form of magic behind the scenes as the head of EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, Canada's largest genre book publisher.

"Publishing fits me to a T," says Hades. "I like being behind the scenes, the guy pulling the strings and getting things organized."

As head of EDGE, Hades is leading the Canadian campaign to add respectability to the often ghettoized genres of fantasy, science fiction, and horror.

Well, hello. Welcome to Wednesday. If you're Canadian and anything like me, you're off by at least a day, thanks to the long weekend. But it is Wednesday, and I'm pleased to bring you a few more presenters for SiWC 2011.

Say hello to Ian Weir, Kris Rothstein, Robert McCammon, and Cricket Freeman.

New to SiWC this year is Ian Weir. Ian is a playwright, screenwriter and novelist.  Daniel O’Thunder, published in 2009, was a finalist for four awards: the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Canadian Authors Association Award for Fiction.

Among his extensive television credits, he was writer and executive producer of the critically acclaimed CBC gangland miniseries Dragon Boys. Otherwise he has written nearly 150 episodes for two dozen series, ranging from Beachcombers to ReBoot to Flashpoint. His stage plays have been produced across Canada, as well as in the U.S. and England, and he is the author of ten radio dramas.  He has won two Geminis, four Leos, a Writers Guild of Canada Screenwriting Award and a Jessie.

Ian is currently working on a second novel, scheduled for publication by Douglas & McIntyre in 2012.  He lives in Langley, B.C., with his wife Jude and their daughter Amy. Welcome, Ian!

Kris Rothstein has been an Associate Agent with the Swayze Literary Agency for five years.

Monday, Monday. Time to pull a few more presenters out of my trusty hat to share with you, don't you think?

Meet Meg Tilly, Wendy Roberts, Terence Young, and kc dyer.

Meg Tilly is the author of two adult novels, Singing Songs (Penguin/Dutton, A Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, 1994) and Gemma (St. Martin's Press.) Her first YA novel, Porcupine was released by Tundra/McClelland & Stewart in Sept 2007, and was shortlisted for a BC Book Prize, The Canadian Libraries Association Best Children's Book 2008 and Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award 2008 It also was an Ontario Library Top Ten Best Bets 2008. First Time, a reluctant reader, was released by Orca in Nov 2008.

Tilly is also known for her work in her former career as a film actress. Some of her better known films include, The Big Chill and Agnes of God, for which she won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Oscar.

At present she is both writing and dipping her toe back in the acting world. This summer, she will be playing Martha in the Blue Bridge production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. At present she is working on yet another rewrite of her untitled adult manuscript. Her new middle grade manuscript, A Taste of Heaven, is out with various editors, looking for a home.

Her three children are grown, so she and her husband are now splitting their time between Vancouver Island and Toronto. Welcome to SiWC 2011, Meg!

Wendy Roberts is an armchair sleuth, fan of all things mysterious but a huge chicken at heart.

Happy Friday! It's been a (rare so far this spring) sunny day here at SiWC Central, and it has me a little giddy. Hope your day has been similarly sunny. I'd wager it'll get even brighter when you meet the Friday Five I have for you today.

Say hello to Margaret George, Eileen Cook, Nephele Tempest, Michael Slade and Ken Sherman.

Margaret George is the author of six biographical novels, set in the ancient world and Tudor England.  They are: The Autobiography of Henry VIII (1986), Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles (1992), The Memoirs of Cleopatra (1997),  Mary Called Magdalene (2002),  Helen of Troy (2006), and Elizabeth I (2011).  All of these have been New York Times bestsellers, and the Henry VIII novel spent several weeks on the London Times bestseller list as well.  They have been published in twenty-one foreign countries. On a completely different note, she wrote (with a co-author) an illustrated children’s book about their pet tortoises, Lucille Lost (2006). She has been a ‘talking head’ on  A & E Biographies and specials about her characters, and a consultant for CNN’s special “The Two Marys” in 2004. ABC-TV made a $30 million miniseries based on The Memoirs of Cleopatra in 1999.

Although the epic novels are classified as ‘biographical’, she thinks of them as ‘psycho-biographies’ because she tries to expose the way the title characters think and what makes them tick.  Visit the author on www.margaretgeorge.com.

Margaret grew up in abroad (Taiwan, Israel, Germany) until she was thirteen; her father was in the U.S.

Welcome Wednesday has rolled around once again. (Is it just me, or are the weeks flying by? SiWC will be here before we know it!)

I have a handful of presenters to introduce to you today. What strikes me about all of them - and all our presenters - is what multi-facted, multi-talented people they are. It's a good reminder to me when I look at their bios: step away from the computer once in awhile and fill the well with other inspirations.

Meet Mary Robinette Kowal, Verna Dreisbach, I.J. Schecter, Kari-Lynn Winters, and Sean Cranbury.

Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of Shades of Milk and Honey (Tor 2010). In 2008 she won the Campbell Award for Best New Writer and has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. Her stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Asimov’s, and several Year’s Best anthologies as well as in her collection Scenting the Dark and Other Stories from Subterranean.
Mary, a professional puppeteer and voice actor, has performed for LazyTown (CBS), the Center for Puppetry Arts, Jim Henson Pictures and founded Other Hand Productions. Her designs have garnered two UNIMA-USA Citations of Excellence, the highest award an American puppeteer can achieve. She also records fiction for authors such as Kage Baker, Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi.
She is the Vice President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Mary lives in Portland, OR with her husband Rob and over a dozen manual typewriters.

Happy Monday to you! Here at SiWC Central, we're settling in for a busy week. First up, of course, is Meet More Monday, a chance to introduce you to another handful of SiWC 2011 presenters. Please give a warm welcome to Patricia Young, Susan Safyan, Kathleen Ortiz, Diana Gabaldon, and Robert Dugoni.

Patricia Young has published ten collections of poetry, most recently "An Auto-erotic History of Swings" with Sono Nis Press.  She has twice been shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for poetry, won the B. C. Book Prize for Poetry , the Pat Lowther Award for poetry, two National Magazine Awards, the League of Canadian Poets National Poetry Prize, the CBC Literary Award for Poetry, the Arc Poem of the Year Prize and the inaugural Rooke-Metcalf Award for a collection of short fiction, "Airstream," published with Biblioasis Press.  Recent or forthcoming publications include The Malahat Review, Queens Quarterly, The Literary Review of Canada, Canadian Literature, Prism International, Event, the New Quarterly, Arc’s Quarc issue and Best Canadian Poetry in English. Three chapbooks are forthcoming in 2011/12 from Jackpine Press, Alfred Gustav Press and Leaf Press. She lives and writes and edits in Victoria with her husband, Terence Young. Welcome, Patricia!

Susan Safyan is associate editor at Arsenal Pulp Press, where she edits a range of literary fiction and nonfiction titles, including cultural and gender studies, LGBTQ and multicultural literature, and unusual cookbooks, craft books, and guidebooks. Among the books she's edited at Arsenal this year are Hoopla!