We welcome Author Wayland Smith as our
Keynote Speaker!
Wayland Smith is the pen name for a native Texan who has lived in Massachusetts, New York, Washington DC, and presently makes his home in Virginia. His rather unlikely list of jobs includes private investigator, comic book shop owner, ring crew for a circus (then he ran away from the circus and joined home), deputy sheriff, writer, and freelance stagehand. Wayland’s novels so far include Tis the Season, In My Brother's Name, Cadre Clash, and Old Gods and New Drugs, the first two books in the Wildside series. He has short stories in the anthologies "Cat Ladies of the Apocalypse", "HeroNet Files, Vol 1,", “SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror,” and “Misfits of Magic,” among many others. He has spoken on panels at WorldCon, DragonCon, DC AwesomeCon, MystiCon, and RavenCon and many more. A black belt in shao lin kung fu, he is also a fan of comic books, reading, writing, and various computer games (I’ll shut 7 Days to Die down in one more hour. Really). He lives with a beautiful woman who was crazy enough to marry him, and the spirits of a few wonderful dogs that have passed on. Wayland is also a founding partner in the Crowded Shelf, a nomadic indie bookstore that brings books to many different conventions and shows.
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