Choose Your Player: How SciFi & Fantasy Authors Create Legendary Characters

Join us at Book Culture LIC as R.A. Salvatore, David Pedreira, S.A. Chakraborty, Sarah Beth Durst, and Richard Kadrey discuss their work in a panel discussion on Thursday, October 4th at 7pm following the New York Comic Con.

Whether it’s an iconic drow warrior, a thief with mystical ancestry, or a hitman from Hell, the heroes and anti-heroes that populate our favorite books are the reason we keep coming back for more of their adventures. Join R.A. Salvatore, Richard Kadrey, S.A. Chakraborty, Sarah Beth Durst, and David Pedreira for some hands-on character creation, followed by a panel discussion about the ins and outs of developing compelling characters in SFF.

Light refreshments will be served.

Thirty years ago, R. A. Salvatore created the character of Drizzt Do’Urden, the dark elf who has withstood the test of time to stand today as an icon in the fantasy genre. With his work in the Forgotten Realms, the Crimson Shadow, the DemonWars Saga, and other series, Salvatore has sold more than thirty million books worldwide and has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list more than two dozen times. He considers writing to be his personal journey, but still, he’s quite pleased that so many are walking the road beside him! R.A. lives in Massachusetts with his wife, Diane, and their three dogs, Ivan, Pikel, and Dexter. He still plays softball for his team, Clan Battlehammer, and enjoys his weekly DemonWars: Reformation RPG game. Salvatore can be found at RASalvaStore.com

A former reporter for newspapers including the Tampa Tribune and the St. Petersburg Times, David Pedreira has won awards for his writing from the Associated Press, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association, and the American Society of Newspaper Editors. He lives in Tampa, Florida.

Shannon/S. A. Chakraborty is a NY-based speculative fiction writer and history buff. Her debut, The City of Brass, is out now with Harper Voyager. Short-listed for the Locus, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy Awards, The City of Brass is the first book in THE DAEVABAD TRILOGY, an epic fantasy set in the 18th century Middle East. She is an organizer with the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers’ Group. Originally (and proudly!) from New Jersey, S. A. currently resides in Queens with her husband and daughter. When not buried in books about Mughal miniatures and Abbasid political intrigue, she enjoys hiking, knitting, and recreating unnecessarily complicated, medieval meals for her family. You can find her online most frequently at Twitter (@SAChakrabooks) where she likes to ramble about history, politics, and Islamic art.

Sarah Beth Durst is the award-winning author of sixteen fantasy books for adults, teens, and kids, including The Queens of Renthia series, Drink Slay Love, and The Stone Girl’s Story. She won an ALA Alex Award and a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and has been a finalist for SFWA’s Andre Norton Award three times. She is a graduate of Princeton University, where she spent four years studying English, writing about dragons, and wondering what the campus gargoyles would say if they could talk. Sarah lives in Stony Brook, New York, with her husband, her children, and her ill-mannered cat. For more information, visit her at sarahbethdurst.com.

Richard Kadrey is the New York Times bestselling author of the Sandman Slim supernatural noir books.  Sandman Slim was included in Amazon’s ‘100 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books to Read in a Lifetime’, and is in development as a feature film. His other books include Hollywood Dead, The Everything Box, Metrophage, and Butcher Bird, and he also writes comics and screenplays. He lives in San Francisco.