As an only child of good geek stock (her mother still attends San Diego Comic-Con yearly, and her father is still an early tech adopter), young Lia Habel was lovingly reared on horror movies, video games, and Victorian novels. She developed an affection for horror movie monsters early on, often challenging her weary mother with lists of reasons why Jason Voorhees might yet be saved or excuses for Darkman’s cackling insanity. As she grew older and her natural sympathy extended to ever more serial killers, swamp monsters, sentient fanged beasts, and reanimated gents, her mother began to worry what her daughter might one day bring home.

It’s no surprise then that Miss Habel would pen the upcoming YA novel Dearly, Departed, a sweeping tale of zombie-living romance set in a cyber-Victorian/steampunk future. How can we say no to an army of walking corpses?

Miss Habel enjoys attending anachronistic and steampunk events, watching zombie movies (her goal is to watch every zombie movie ever made), and collecting Victorian and Edwardian books and ball gowns. She still hopes one day to run into the beautiful monster of her dreams, but would settle for the reincarnation of Vincent Price.

The beautiful Miss Habel will be joining us on Sunday to give a reading from her up-coming novel, Dearly, Departed, at Queen Victoria’s Sunday Afternoon Tea!

She’ll be giving away several Advance Reader Copies of the novel, which won’t be officially out until October… Won’t you join her?

Award winning, bestselling author, actress and playwright Leanna Renee Hieber is returning to The Steampunk World’s Fair!

Ms. Hieber graduated with a BFA in Theatre, a focus in the Victorian Era and a scholarship to study in London. Having adapted works of 19th Century literature for the stage, her one-act plays have been produced around the country. The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, first in the Strangely Beautiful quartet of Gothic Victorian Fantasy novels, hit Barnes & Noble’s bestseller lists, won 2010 Prism Awards for Best Fantasy and Best First Book and the rights have been sold for adaptation into a Broadway musical theatre production currently in development. The Perilous Prophecy of Guard and Goddess (a Strangely Beautiful prequel) has just recently released and Leanna’s new Gaslight Gothic series set in 1880 New York City, Magic Most Foul, launches in November with Darker Still. A member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, RWA and International Thriller Writers, Leanna is also a proud member of actors unions AEA, SAG and AFTRA, working often in film and television. When not writing or on set, she’s a devotee of ghost stories and Goth clubs, adventuring about NYC, where she resides with her real-life hero and their beloved rescued lab rabbit Persebunny.

Peter Woodworth is an author, English professor and professional game designer. He got his start in the gaming industry and spent a number of years working for White Wolf Game Studio, particularly on their Mind’s Eye Theatre line, where he was a writer, editor and line developer. All together, he’s been rolling dice, swinging swords and playing rock-paper-scissors for almost two decades, and has been delightfully surprised to see it shows no signs of stopping. He made the acquaintance of Mister Lapin shortly before his wedding last year, and has been jotting down his new friend’s exploits ever since.

At The Steampunk World’s Fair, Peter will be reading from “The Impossible Mister Lapin: The Affair of the Terrible Boar” plus presenting discussions and workshops on “Building Steampunk Table Top Game Settings”, “Staging Your Steampunk & Victorian LARPs”, and “Breaking into Game Publishing With Your Steampunk Setting”!

Born and raised in the North East, PJ Schnyder spent her childhood pretending to study for the SATs by reading every fantasy and sci-fi novel she could borrow from the local and school libraries. She scored fairly high in the verbal portion. She was introduced to the wonderful world of romance a decade later by her best friend at an anime convention in Seattle. She now lives somewhere temperate watching the seasons go by with her two dogs and super stealthy ninja kitty, writing her stories. She is a writer of steampunk as well as paranormal and sci-fi romance.

Jared Axelrod is the author of The Battle of Blood and Ink: A Fable of the Flying City, a graphic novel to be published from Tor, a prequel podcast of which can be found at Fables of the Flying City. His written work has been published on the website I Should Be Writing, as well as the anthologies Podthology: The Pod Complex, The Sovereign Era: Year One, Salt and End Of Time. He was a founding writer for 365 Tomorrows. He currently resides in Philadelphia with his immensely talented wife.

He is not domestic, he is a luxury. And in that sense, necessary.

Clay and Susan Griffith are the authors of The Greyfriar: Vampire Empire Book 1 (Pyr Books, 2010) a steampunk fantasy adventure. This novel, the first of a trilogy, is set in a neo-Victorian world where vampires destroyed the great industrial nations of the north and drove the remnants of human society into the equatorial regions. Now bold new human kingdoms of steam and steel are rising in the deserts and jungles to face the vampire hordes. The Rift Walker: Vampire Empire Book 2 is to be published in September 2011. Of course, Clay and Susan don’t just write weird steampunk novels. Their prodigious comic book resume includes many issues of The Tick as well as the upcoming Victoriana adventure Allan Quatermain and the Lord of Locusts and It Came From Beneath the Sea… Again, the official graphic novel sequel to the Ray Harryhausen giant octopus movie. They are coming to New Jersey to read cheerfully and discuss Vampire Empire, and give random thoughts on how to collaborate creatively and stay married at the same time.

S. J. Chambers is co-author with Jeff VanderMeer of The Steampunk Bible (Abrams Images, May 2011). She is the Senior Editor of Articles at Strange Horizons magazine, and a regular contributor to Bookslut and Tor.com. Her writing has appeared in a diverse array of publications including The Baltimore Sun’s Read Street blog, Yankee Pot Roast, New Myths, Fantasy, Mungbeing, and in Ann and Jeff VanderMeer’s forthcoming anthology Thackery T. Lambshead’ s Cabinet of Curiosities. She is a devout Poepathist, and has devoted a great portionof her career to emphasizing Poe’s importance to genre. She holds a degree in Art History, where her focus was upon 19th century European art, especially that of the French Symbolists.You can find out more about S. J., including her pronom, over at www.sjchambers.org.

CJ Henderson, creator of the Brooklyn Knight supernatural investigator series, and author of Steam-Powered Love, has written some 70 books and/or novels in his time, as well as hundreds and hundreds of short stories and comics along with thousands of non-fiction pieces. This legendary wordsmith, this gracious humanitarian, the man about whom Rolling Stone said “Who?” invites you to learn more about him at www.cjhenderson.com and to enjoy his company at our wonderful gathering. Those who bring bacon or fine cigars to his table may just make a friend for life.

Adding to our literary wonders is Emilie P. Bush. Former Host of Georgia Public Broadcasting’s Georgia Gazette, Emilie released her debut Steampunk novel, Chenda and the Airship Brofman, in late 2009. This is an adventurous tale with a feminist twist. Emilie’s NEW book is part two of the Chenda series – titled The Gospel According to Verdu. Her next project, Chyptid, is a modern mythological fantasy set in New York City. Emilie lives and writes in Atlanta, where she is the Queen of Steam at CoalCitySteam.com, and writes for SteampunkChronicle.com and other websites.

Born in Wellington, New Zealand, Philippa Ballantine (or Pip, to many) has always had her head in a book. In 2010, Pip set her sights on America with her first mass market paperback release with Ace Books — Geist. In 2011, she is one of the voices behind Harper Voyager’s Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel, co-authored with Tee Morris. This Ministry novel is only the beginning as work is underway on its sequel, Of Cogs and Corsets. Pip is currently in the United States where her two Siberian cats, Sebastian and Viola, make sure she stays out of trouble.

After years of writing definitive guides in the Social Media movement and speaking across the country and around the world on the subject, Tee Morris in 2011 returns to fiction with the steampunk romp Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel, co- authored with Philippa Ballantine. This novel marks his mass market paperback debut with Harper Voyager. Phoenix Rising is where Tee prefers to be: in his imagination. When he is not there, Tee is in the Washington D.C. area with his five cats and one daughter, all of whom have him very well-trained.

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O. M. Grey dreams of the dark streets of London and the decadent deeds that occur after sunset. She dons a tight corset, a fluffy bustle, and a teeny-tiny top hat for fantasy conventions where she enjoys meeting fans and participating on panels. Olivia prefers to live in the cobwebbed corners of her dark mind writing paranormal romance with a Steampunk twist.

Her premiere Steampunk Paranormal Romance novel, Avalon Revisited, is an Amazon.com Gothic Romance bestseller. She also writes short stories, relationship articles, and angsty poetry. When she’s not writing, she’s reading, tending the garden, or drinking a hot cup of tea.

Just two drops, please.

Stella Price is a literary renaissance woman, with her fingers many of the literary pies. She’s an author of over 24 books, art director for Tease Publishing LLC, award winning cover artist, event planner and the convention director for the Authors After Dark convention. With her sister she writes what they have coined “risk-taking romance”, using subjects and characters others shy away from in the genre, including weresnakes, and satyrs, as well as urban fantasy, and steampunk. Alone, writing as Dagmar Avery, she writes erotic romance and steampunk. On her off time, she designs costumes and steampunk accessories. You can visit them at www.stellaandaudra.com