Readercon 34 Guests of Honor
July 17 – 20, 2025
Boston Marriott Burlington in Burlington, MA
Cecilia Tan
Cecilia Tan ("ctan") is a trailblazer in erotic science fiction and fantasy. In 2014 RT Magazine recognized that fact, awarding her both the Career Achievement Award and their Pioneer Award, and she has also won various other genre awards, as well as being inducted into the GLBT Writers Hall of Fame at Saints & Sinners Literary Festival in 2010. Tan's influence has been twofold as both writer and editor. When she discovered a total lack of appropriate markets to submit her story "Telepaths Don't Need Safewords" to, Tan founded Circlet Press in 1992 to publish works of erotic science fiction and fantasy, and queer sf/f. Since then, she has been widely published in sf/f, literary, and queer fiction circles, including three of the Big Five publishers and numerous medium to nano-sized presses. All told she has over 35 novels to her credit and over 100 published short stories in venues ranging from Asimov's to Ms. Magazine, Strange Horizons to Best American Erotica, in addition to over 100 anthologies edited. As if that were not enough nerdery, Since 2011 she had also served as Publications Director for SABR (Society for American Baseball Research) for whom she edits the semi-annual Baseball Research Journal and heads their book publishing program.
Tan received her master's degree in professional writing and publishing from Emerson College in 1994. A partial bibliography follows, since the entire is too long to list: The Struck by Lightning Trilogy (Slow Surrender, Slow Seduction, Slow Satisfaction) Slow Surrender won the 2013 RT Reviewers Choice Award and the Maggie Award for Excellence from the Georgia RWA. The Magic University Series: The Siren and the Sword, The Tower and the Tears, The Incubus and the Angel, The Poet and the Prophecy (Riverdale Avenue Books), he Velderet (Circlet), Mind Games, The Prince's Boy, and the erotic sf/f short fiction collection Telepaths Don't Need Safewords, Black Feathers: Erotic Dreams, and White Flames.
Tan's essays on writing have been included in Uncanny Magazine, Sojourner, A Woman Like That (Perennial/HarperCollins, 2000), Lambda Literary Report, Queers Destroy Science Fiction, and many other publications, and she has taught writing classes for many places including Writing the Other, StoryStudio Chicago, and the Learning Annex.
She considers her writing to be activism, opening readers' hearts, minds, imaginations, and libidos to possibilities they might not have been open to before, as a way of moving society in a more open, sex-positive, and queer-inclusive direction. Tan is a biracial bigender bisexual who uses she/her pronouns for society's convenience.
Phenderson Djèlí Clark
P. Djèlí Clark is the award winning and Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, and World Fantasy nominated author of the novels Abeni’s Song and A Master of Djinn, and the novellas The Dead Cat Tail Assassins, Ring Shout, The Black God’s Drums, and
Memorial Guest of Honor
Charles R. Saunders
Charles R. Saunders began publishing genre stories in 1974, including fantasies set on the fictional Africa-inspired world of Nyumbani (“home” in Swahili), the setting for Imaro and sequels The Quest for Cush (1984), The Trail of Bohu (1985), and The Naama War (2009). The Dossouye series began with Dossouye (2008) and continued with Dossouye: The Dancers of Mulukau (2012). Other novels include Damballa (2011) and Abengoni: First Calling (2014). Some of his stories were collected in Nyumbani Tales (2017). Saunders also edited issues of various magazines, including Stardock, Dragonbane, and Dragonfields, plus anthologies Griots: A Sword and Soul Anthology (2011) and Griots: Sisters of the Spear (2013), both with Milton J. Davis. He also wrote screenplays and numerous works of non-fiction, including books of Canadian history.