We are proud to announce our LTUE 2024/LTUE 42 Guests of Honor, Toastmaster, and Special Guests.

Aaron Johnston

LTUE 42 GUEST OF HONOR

Aaron Johnston is a New York Times bestselling author, a writer for Marvel and EA Comics, an advertising creative, an excellent improv artist, television writer, and the co-creator and executive producer of EXTINCT, a science-fiction television series on BYU TVHe was also an associate producer on the movie Ender’s Game, where he made a cameo appearance as an officer of the International Fleet. Blink and you’ll miss him.

Aaron’s comic credits include Ender in Exile, Speaker for the Dead, Formic Wars, League War, and Mazer in Prison, all for Marvel. His novels include Earth Unaware, Earth AfireEarth AwakensThe SwarmThe HiveInvasive Procedures, and the other forthcoming Formic Wars and Extinct novels, all written with science-fiction legend Orson Scott Card. 

His play Lifeloop, an adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s short story, was featured at Western Illinois University.  A longtime stage improviser, Aaron is a former member of LA’s Improv Factory, Santa Clarita Improv, and the Garrens Comedy Troupe. He and his wife are the parents of four children.

aaronwjohnston.com

Rebecca Moesta

LTUE 42 GUEST OF HONOR

Rebecca Moesta (pronounced MESS-tuh) is the bestselling author of forty books, both solo and in collaboration with her husband, Kevin J. Anderson. Her solo work includes A Christmas to Remember (based on the Hallmark tv movie by the same name), Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Junior Jedi Knights novels, short stories, articles, ghost writing, and editing anthologies. With Kevin, she wrote the Crystal Doors trilogy, the Young Jedi Knights series, movie and game novelizations, lyrics for rock CDs, graphic novels, pop-up books, and writing books, such as Writing as a Team Sport.

Rebecca and Kevin are the publishers of WordFire Press. In her “spare time” she also moonlights as a freelance book editor.

Kaela Rivera

LTUE 42 GUEST OF HONOR

Kaela Rivera grew up believing in will-o’-the-wisps and el chupacabra, but even ghost stories couldn’t stop her from reading in the isolated treetops, caves, and creeks of Tennessee’s Appalachian forests.

She still believes in the folktales of her Mexican-American and British parents, but now she writes about them from the adventure-filled mountains of the Wild West. When she’s not crafting stories, she’s using her English degree from BYU-I as an editor for a marketing company (or secretly doodling her characters in the margins of her notebook). Her award-winning debut novel, Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls, came out April 13, 2021.

Her biggest hope is to highlight and explore the beauty of cultural differences—and how sharing those differences can bring us all closer.

Michael F. Haspil

LTUE 42 TOASTMASTER

Michael F. Haspil is a science fiction and fantasy author and an Air Force veteran. His novel from Tor, Graveyard Shift—an urban fantasy about an immortal pharaoh out to stop an ancient vampire conspiracy in modern-day Miami—was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. His Warhammer 40,000 stories are currently available from Games Workshop’s Black Library and he wrote the lore for the Season VIII Battlepass for World of Tanks. Other short stories have made anthology appearances including in “Gunfight On Europa Station” and “No Game for Knights” from Baen. He also hosts the Quantum Froth Dispatches podcast, which examines storytelling through pop-culture classics. Part-time amateur Egyptologist, tabletop general, miniatures painter, antiquarian, and vampire-hunter.

www.michaelhaspil.com

Todd McCaffrey

Todd McCaffrey

2024 SPECIAL GUEST

NYT bestseller and middle son of the Nebula Grandmaster Anne McCaffrey, discovered Space Cat, and was delighted that his mother wrote it. He earned his first typewriter and started writing at 12. He wrote in between the US Army, boardgaming, software engineering and parenting. His first sale was in 1986. He collaborated on five Dragonriders of Pern®, and wrote three Pern novels, many short stories. His latest, City of Angels, is about AI.  toddmccaffrey.org

Celesta Rimington

Celesta Rimington

2024 SPECIAL GUEST

Award-winning author of The Elephant’s Girl and Tips for Magicians. Musical theater performer, advocate for wildlife and the arts. Living in a military family around the United States inspired her settings. She graduated from the Institute of Children’s Literature, has a BYU degree in Sociology. Member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, visits schools across the United States, teaches and encourages children to write their stories. Celestarimington.com

Kevin J. Anderson

Kevin J. Anderson

2024 SPECIAL GUEST

Kevin published more than 175 books, 58 national or international bestsellers and numerous novels (Star Wars, X-Files, Dune), Clockwork Angels, was written with drummer Neil Peart from the rock band Rush. He wrote multiple trillogies, a horror series featuring Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. edited numerous anthologies, wrote comics and games, and lyrics for two rock CDs. He and his wife Rebecca Moesta are the publishers of WordFire Press.

John Goodwin

John Goodwin

2024 SPECIAL GUEST

John Goodwin is president of Galaxy Press, publisher of the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future anthology, and host of the award-winning Writers & Illustrators of the Future Podcast.

Wulf Moon

Wulf Moon

2024 SPECIAL GUEST

Wulf Moon is a bestselling writer, editor, and writing instructor. At fifteen, Moon won the national Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and followed that with winning the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Contest, and Writers of the Future. He leads the Wulf Pack Writers group. He’s won both Best Author and Best Writers Workshop four years running in the Critters Readers’ Choice Awards, and is the author of How to Write a Howling Good Story. www.thesupersecrets.com

Sandra Tayler

Sandra Tayler

2024 SPECIAL GUEST

Writer, editor, and publisher Sandra Tayler (credits in 30+ titles), consistently successful crowdfunder has spent the last 30 years managing a household and several small businesses. Her latest work-in-progress, Structuring Life to Support Creativity (crowdfunding late Spring 2024), is a non-fiction book to help writers, artists, and other creatives make more art with less burnout. Sandra lives in Orem with her husband, (see more in the program book).  sandratayler.com

Rodayne Esmay

Rodayne Esmay

2024 SPECIAL GUEST

Rodayne earned his MFA in illustration from Syracuse University in 1990. He has twenty years of professional art studio experience and has taught thousands of students at UVU and other schools. He is an accomplished artist and has a rich set of experience creating and teaching a variety of illustration and animation art techniques. Among other things he is an expert in 3D Art modeling, Digital Art Storyboarding for Animation, and Digital Storytelling through art. He earned the IDMAA Award for Leadership in the Digital Media Arts, Multimedia Educator of the Year (State of Utah), the NISOD Excellence Award from The University of Texas, Austin, the Distinguished Scholar Award and Service Learning Award. 

Will Munn

Will Munn

2024 SPECIAL GUEST

Will Munn is the award-nominated and bestselling creator of Arium, the worldbuilding RPG. He runs the Adept Icarus game design studio and has collaborated on RPGs such as Cold Shadows, Tiny Frontiers, and Zorro, the Roleplaying Game. Will also serves as a publisher for multiple award-winning and bestselling game designers. All four continental US timezones have been his home, but he’s never moved without his towel.

Rosemary Kirstein

Rosemary Kirstein

2024 SPECIAL GUEST

Rosemary’s motto is, “Words, you want ’em? I’ve got ’em.” Rosemary is the author of The Steerswoman, The Language of Power, The Lost Steersman, and The Outskirter’s Secret, along with other books in the works. She has also worked as a musician and songwriter/folk singer, computer programmer, technical writer, trainer and has done technical support. She currently lives in Connecticut, near Springfield, Massachusetts.

Mickey George

Mickey George

2024 SPECIAL GUEST

Mickey George is the author of the YA historical novel Speak Easy, Speak Love, a retelling of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, from Greenwillow / HarperCollins. Her graphic novel, The Heart Hunter, illustrated by V. Gagnon, is out from Legendary Comics, in addition to the comic adaptation of Enola Holmes, starring Millie Bobby Brown and Henry Cavill. She also writes game scripts for visual novel apps. She also works as a bookseller at The King’s English Bookshop and has worked as an acquisitions editor for Flux Publishing.

John M. Olsen

John M. Olsen

2024 SPECIAL GUEST

John has written the Polecat Protocol science fiction series, the Riland Throne YA fantasy trilogy, and has published over forty short stories. He won the League of Utah Writers Emerald Typewriter for best published short story of the year with “Death by Misadventure” and he won the DragonComet short story competition in 2018 with “When Words Fail.” He has also written stories for and edited award winning anthologies. He is a past president of the League of Utah Writers and loves to encourage writers (especially local authors) to excel. johnmolsen.blogspot.com

Robert Hatch

Robert Hatch

2024 SPECIAL GUEST

Robert Hatch has over thirty years experience as a director/producer/writer of dramatic films, documentaries, and television series, and acting teacher. His work includes: Masque, Infinite Gift, 56 network television programs aired on VISN and PBS, seven tv programs for BBC, a tv series currently airing on FNX, Peace: Dream or Vision, Miracle Kids television specials and many more including interactive series for Toyota USA. In addition to his commercial success, Robert’s films received over three hundred awards and honors in film festivals in the U.S. and internationally.

Todd Gallowglas

Todd Gallowglas

2024 SPECIAL GUEST

Take raw imagination. Two parts coffee to one part whiskey. Equal heaping spoonfuls of angst, whimsy, snark, and a dash of imposter syndrome. Drop in an MFA and sprinkle a healthy dose of shenanigans on top while chanting either “What’s a gleeman?” or “Tell me a story,” to personal taste. Best served with a cloak of tales at Con temperature. Shiny!

The full 2024 guest list will be available when the LTUE 42 (2024) program book is published shortly before the symposium begins. To get an idea of our offerings please look at the LTUE 41 (2023) program book where you can see the list of LTUE 2023 panels, presentations and guests. Click Schedule then click 2023 Program Book.