Bouchercon 2025 Guests of Honor
Michael Connelly
Lifetime Contribution to the Genre
Guest of Honor
Michael Connelly was born in Philadelphia, PA on July 21, 1956. He moved to Florida with his family when he was 12 years old. Michael decided to become a writer after discovering the books of Raymond Chandler while attending the University of Florida. Once he decided on this direction he chose a major in journalism and a minor in creative writing — a curriculum in which one of his teachers was novelist Harry Crews.
After graduating in 1980, Connelly worked at newspapers in Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, primarily specializing in the crime beat. In Fort Lauderdale he wrote about police and crime during the height of the murder and violence wave that rolled over South Florida during the so-called cocaine wars. In 1986, he and two other reporters spent several months interviewing survivors of a major airline crash. They wrote a magazine story on the crash and the survivors which was later short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. The magazine story also moved Connelly into the upper levels of journalism, landing him a job as a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times, one of the largest papers in the country, and bringing him to the city of which his literary hero, Chandler, had written.
Michael is the bestselling author of thirty-eight novels and one work of non-fiction. With over eighty-five million copies of his books sold worldwide and translated into forty-five foreign languages, he is one of the most successful writers working today. His very first novel, The Black Echo, won the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1992. In 2002, Clint Eastwood directed and starred in the movie adaptation of Connelly’s 1998 novel, Blood Work. In March 2011, the movie adaptation of his #1 bestselling novel, The Lincoln Lawyer, hit theaters worldwide starring Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller. His most recent #1 New York Times bestsellers include Desert Star, The Dark Hours, The Law Of Innocence, The Night Fire, and Dark Sacred Night. Michael’s crime fiction career was honored with the Diamond Dagger from the CWA in 2018, and the Outstanding Contribution To Crime Writing Award at the 2022 Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, England, and the Grand Master title from the Mystery Writers of America in 2023.
Michael is the executive producer of Bosch and Bosch: Legacy, two Amazon Studios original drama series based on his bestselling character Harry Bosch, starring Titus Welliver. These both stream on Prime Video and Amazon Freevee. He is the executive producer of The Lincoln Lawyer on Netflix, starring Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Mickey Haller. He is the creator and host of the podcasts Murder Book and The Wonderland Murders & The Secret History Of Hollywood. He is the executive producer of the documentary films, Sound Of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story and Tales of the American. He spends his time in California and Florida.
Steph Cha
Suspense Guest of Honor
Steph Cha is the author of Your House Will Pay and the Juniper Song crime trilogy. She’s an editor and critic whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. A native of the San Fernando Valley, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two basset hounds.
Craig Johnson
Lifetime Achievement
Guest of Honor
Craig Johnson is the author of seventeen novels in the Walt Longmire mystery series, which has garnered popular and critical acclaim. The Cold Dish was a Dilys Award finalist and the French edition won Le Prix du Polar Nouvel Observateur/BibliObs. Death Without Company, the Wyoming State Historical Association’s Book of the Year, won France’s Le Prix 813. Another Man’s Moccasins was the Western Writers of America’s Spur Award winner and the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers’ Book of the Year, and The Dark Horse, the fifth in the series, was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year. Junkyard Dogs won the Watson Award for a mystery novel with the best sidekick, and Hell Is Empty, selected by Library Journal as the Best Mystery of the Year, was a New York Times best seller, as are the rest of the series. The Walt Longmire series is the basis for the hit Netflix drama, Longmire, starring Robert Taylor, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Katee Sackoff.
Johnson lives in Ucross, Wyoming, population twenty-five.
Lisa Jewell
British
Guest of Honor
Lisa Jewell is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of nineteen novels, including The Family Upstairs and Then She Was Gone, as well as Invisible Girl and Watching You. Her novels have sold over 10 million copies internationally, and her work has also been translated into twenty-nine languages. Connect with her on Twitter @LisaJewellUK, on Instagram @LisaJewellUK, and on Facebook @LisaJewellOfficial.
Charles Todd
Special Guest of Honor
Charles and Caroline Todd are a mother-and-son writing team who live on the east coast of the United States. Caroline has a BA in English Literature and History, and a Masters in International Relations. Charles has a BA in Communication Studies with an emphasis on Business Management, and a culinary arts degree that means he can boil more than water. Caroline has been married (to the same man) for umpteen years, and Charles is divorced.
Charles and Caroline have a rich storytelling heritage. Both spent many evenings on the porch listening to their fathers and grandfathers reminisce. And a maternal grandmother told marvelous ghost stories. This tradition allows them to write with passion about events before their own time. And an uncle/great-uncle who served as a flyer in WWI aroused an early interest in the Great War.
Charles learned the rich history of Britain, including the legends of King Arthur, William Wallace, and other heroes, as a child. Books on Nelson and by Winston Churchill were always at hand. Their many trips to England gave them the opportunity to spend time in villages and the countryside, where there’a different viewpoint from that of the large cities. Their travels are at the heart of the series they began ten years ago.
Charles’s love of history led him to a study of some of the wars that shape it: the American Civil War, WWI and WWII. He enjoys all things nautical, has an international collection of seashells, and has sailed most of his life. Golf is still a hobby that can be both friend and foe. And sports in general are enthusiasms. Charles had a career as a business consultant. This experience gave him an understanding of going to troubled places where no one was glad to see him arrive. This was excellent training for Rutledge’s reception as he tries to find a killer in spite of local resistance.
Caroline has always been a great reader and enjoyed reading aloud, especially poetry that told a story. The Highwayman was one of her early favorites. Her wars are WWI, the Boer War, and the English Civil War, with a sneaking appreciation of the Wars of the Roses as well. When she’s not writing, she’s traveling the world, gardening, or painting in oils. Her background in international affairs backs up her interest in world events, and she’s also a sports fan, an enthusiastic follower of her favorite teams in baseball and pro football. She loves the sea, but is a poor sailor. (Charles inherited his iron stomach from his father.) Still, she has never met a beach she didn’t like.
Both Caroline and Charles share a love of animals, and family pets have always been rescues. There was once a lizard named Schnickelfritz. Don’t ask.
Writing together is a challenge, and both enjoy giving the other a hard time. The famous quote is that in revenge, Charles crashes Caroline’s computer, and Caroline crashes his parties. Will they survive to write more novels together? Stay tuned! Their father/husband is holding the bets.
Jonathan Maberry
Young Adult
Guest of Honor
JONATHAN MABERRY is a New York Times best-selling and five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author, anthology editor, comic book writer, magazine feature writer, playwright, content creator, and writing teacher/lecturer. He was named one of the Today’s Top Ten Horror Writers. His books have been sold to more than two-dozen countries.
Writing
He writes in several genres. His young adult fiction includes ROT & RUIN (2011; was named in Booklist’s Ten Best Horror Novels for Young Adults, an American Library Association Top Pick, a Bram Stoker and Pennsylvania Keystone to Reading winner; winner of several state Teen Book Awards including the Cricket, Nutmeg and MASL; winner of the Cybils Award, the Eva Perry Mock Printz medal, Dead Letter Best Novel Award, and four Melinda Awards); DUST & DECAY (winner of the 2011 Bram Stoker Award; FLESH & BONE (winner of the Bram Stoker Award; 2012; and FIRE & ASH (August 2013). BROKEN LANDS, the first of a new spin-off series, debuted in 2018.
Jonathan is the creator, editor, and co-author of V-WARS, a shared-world vampire anthology from IDW, and its sequels, V-WARS: BLOOD AND FIRE, V-WARS: NIGHT TERRORS, and V-WARS: SHOCKWAVES. And he writes a best-selling monthly V-WARS comic. A board game version of V-Wars was released in 2017. A Netflix original series, starring Ian Somerhalder (LOST, VAMPIRE DIARIES) is in production and the first ten-episode season will debut in early 2019.
His novels include the Joe Ledger series from St. Martin’s Griffin (PATIENT ZERO, 2009, winner of the Black Quill and a Bram Stoker Award finalist for Best Novel; EXTINCTION MACHINE, (2013; now in development for TV by SONY); PREDATOR ONE, and others. His first middle-grade novel, THE NIGHTSIDERS BOOK 1: THE ORPHAN ARMY (Simon & Schuster) was named one the 100 Best Books for Children 2015. His standalone teen science fiction novel, MARS ONE, is in development for film by Zucker Productions and Lone Tree Entertainment. His upcoming standalone suspense novel, GLIMPSE, is in development for TV with BLACK SWAN screenwriter John McLaughlin as head writer.
His horror novels include The Pine Deep Trilogy from Pinnacle Books (GHOST ROAD BLUES, 2006, winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel and named one of the 25 Best Horror Novels of the New Millennium; DEAD MAN’S SONG, 2007; and BAD MOON RISING, 2008), as well as DEAD OF NIGHT, 2011 (named one of the 25 Best Horror Novels of the New Millennium) and its sequel, FALL OF NIGHT, 2014. He also wrote the movie novelization, THE WOLFMAN, 2010, winner of the Scribe Award for Best Adaptation; and DEADLANDS: GHOSTWALKERS, an original novel inspired by the million-copy-selling role-playing game. He also wrote the official story of teenage Dana Scully in X-FILES ORIGINS: DEVIL’S ADVOCATE.
He is also the editor of the dark fantasy anthology series, OUT OF TUNE (JournalStone); a series of THE X-FILES anthologies which launched in 2015; SCARY OUT THERE, an anthology of horror for teens; and the anthologies ALIENS: BUG HUNT, NIGHTS OF THE LIVING DEAD (with George Romero), JOE LEDGER: UNSTOPPABLE (with Bryan Thomas Schmidt) and two volumes of mysteries: ALTERNATE SHERLOCKS and THE GAME’S AFOOT (with Michael Ventrella). He is also the editor of the highly anticipated middle-grade anthology, NEW SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK, a tribute to the beloved series by Alvin Schwartz
TV
Jonathan was an expert on the History Channel documentary series, ZOMBIES: A Living History, and TRUE MONSTERS. He also participated in the commentary tracks for NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: REANIMATED.
Nonfiction
His many nonfiction works include VAMPIRE UNIVERSE (Citadel Press, 2006); THE CRYPTOPEDIA (Citadel, 2007 and winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction; co-authored by David F. Kramer); ZOMBIE CSU: The Forensics of the Living Dead (Winner of the Hinzman and Black Quill Awards and finalist for a Stoker Award; 2008); THEY BITE! (2009 co-authored by David F. Kramer); WANTED UNDEAD OR ALIVE (2010; Bram Stoker finalist; co-authored by Janice Gable Bashman); THE VAMPIRE SLAYERS FIELD GUIDE TO THE UNDEAD (2001, written under the pen name of Shane MacDougall); ULTIMATE JUJUTSU (Strider Nolan, 2001); ULTIMATE SPARRING (Strider Nolan, 2000); JUDO AND YOU (Kendall Hunt 1991); and many others.
Comics
He writes a variety of projects for various top comic book companies. His work for Marvel Comics included CAPTAIN AMERICA: HAIL HYDRA, BLACK PANTHER: POWER, DOOMWAR, WOLVERINE: FLIES TO A SPIDER, PUNISHER: NAKED KILLS, the NY Times bestselling MARVEL ZOMBIES RETURN; as well as his own franchise within Marvel --MARVEL UNIVERSE vs THE PUNISHER, MARVEL UNIVERSE vs WOLVERINE and MARVEL UNIVERSE vs THE AVENGERS. He wrote the vampire miniseries BAD BLOOD for Dark Horse and debuted V-WARS for IDW in May 2014. He is writing the ROT & RUIN, an ongoing comic for IDW based on his bestselling novels. Adaptations of his short stories have appeared in EVIL JESTER COMICS and GRAVE CONDITIONS. All of Jonathan’s comic book collections are released as Graphic Novel collections within a month or two of individual comic publication.
In the Media
He is one-third of the hirsute pop-culture podcast THREE GUYS WITH BEARDS, along with Christopher Golden and James A. Moore. Their guests include authors, comic creators, actors, producers, and filmmakers. He is also on the board of the Horror Writers Association and president of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers.
Jonathan has sold more than 1,200 feature articles and 3,000 columns; as well as greeting cards, song lyrics, poetry, technical manuals, call-floor scripts, and two plays, including Tales from the Fire Zone.
Community
Jonathan created the Writers Coffeehouse, a free three-hour open-agenda networking and discussion session for writers of all genres and levels of skill in multiple locations around the country each month. Jonathan has opened Writers Coffeehouses in Willow Grove, PA, Philadelphia, Asheville, NC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and elsewhere.
In February 2016 Jonathan had an award named after him and became the first recipient of The Jonathan Maberry Inspiring Teens Award, presented by the Canyon Crest Academy Writers Conference, the first free teen writers con in the country.
http://www.jonathanmaberry.com/
Alex Segura
Toastmaster
Alex Segura is the bestselling and award-winning author of Secret Identity, which The New York Times called “wittily original” and named an Editor’s Choice. NPR described the novel as “masterful” and The L.A. Times called it “a magnetic read.”
Secret Identity received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Booklist, was listed as one of the Best Mysteries of the Year by NPR, Kirkus, Booklist, LitReactor, Gizmodo, BOLO Books, and the South Florida Sun Sentinel, was nominated for the Anthony Award for Best Hardcover, the Lefty and Barry Awards for Best Novel, the Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel, and won the LA Times Book Prize in the Mystery/Thriller category.
His upcoming work includes the YA superhero adventure Araña/Spider-Man 2099: Dark Tomorrow, the follow-up to Secret Identity, Alter Ego, and the sci-fi/espionage thriller, Dark Space (with Rob Hart). Alex is also the author of Star Wars Poe Dameron: Free Fall, the
Anthony Award-nominated Pete Fernandez Miami Mystery series, and a number of comic books – including The Mysterious Micro-Face (in partnership with NPR), The Black Ghost, The Archies, The Dusk, The Awakened, Mara Llave – Keeper of Time, Blood Oath, stories featuring Marvel heroes the Avengers, Sunspot, White Tiger, Spider-Man and DC’s Superman, Sinestro, and The Question, to name a few.
His short story, “90 Miles” was included in The Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories for 2021 and won the Anthony Award for Best Short Story. Another short story,“Red Zone,” won the 2020 Anthony Award for Best Short Story.
Alex is also the co-creator of the Lethal Lit podcast, named one of the best fiction podcasts of 2018 by The New York Times.
A Miami native, he lives in New York with his wife and children.
Ali Karim
International Fan
Guest of Honor
Ali Karim - is Assistant Editor at Shots eZine, a contributing editor at January Magazine & The Rap Sheet and writes for Crimespree magazine, Deadly Pleasures, Strand Magazine and Mystery Readers International
Literary Awards
2018 Red Herring Award for services to Crime Fiction by The Crime Writers Association [CWA]
2013 Don Sandstrom Lifetime achievement award for services to Crime and Mystery Genre
2011 David Thompson Memorial Award for Special Services to the Crime and Thriller Genre
As a published writer [contributing to]
Dissecting Hannibal Lecter ed. Benjamin Szumskyj [McFarland Press]
The Greenwood Encyclopaedia of British Crime Fiction [ed. Barry Forshaw]
ITW 100 Thriller Novels ed David Morrell and Hank Hagner [Oceanview Publishing].
Associate Memberships
The Crime Writers Association [CWA]
International Thriller Writers [ITW]
Private Eye Writers of America [PWA]
Literary Judge
British Book Awards [Nibbies] 2017- 2018
CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger 2016 – 2018
Ngaio Marsh Award [New Zealand] 2017 - 2018
CWA Gold Dagger Award 2012 - 2016
CWA Short Story Dagger Award 2009 - 2012
International Thriller Writers Awards 2006 - 2008
Board Member to Bouchercon [The World Mystery and Crime Convention] 2014 - 2017
Co-chaired programming for Bouchercon 2015 [Raleigh, North Carolina].