Author Guest of Honor: K. D. Edwards
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Artist Guest of Honor: Jesse Kiefer
Jesse Kiefer is a Nebraska-based illustrator, writer, and educator whose work explores the crossroads of fantasy, folklore, and gentle magic. Working across watercolor, pencil, ink, digital illustration, comics, and mixed media, Jesse creates images that feel like fragments of larger stories, moments in which ordinary objects carry strange histories and small decisions expand into surprising consequences.
His illustration work includes character art, concept design, tabletop roleplaying content, and promotional art. He created trade floor illustrations for the MMORPG Meridian 59 at PAX West, producing banners, illustrated posters, business cards, and stickers for the game's convention presence. His professional work also includes illustrating an elementary classroom management textbook for SAGE Publications. Jesse, however, is probably best known for tabling at regional conventions, drawing original and beloved characters in new and unusual situations.
Jesse's art frequently crosses into public and community spaces. He designed a park bench styled after a giant audio cassette tape as part of the community-wide Benchmark for the Arts public art project. In addition to creating art, he has spent years supporting the arts community, serving on the board of directors of his local art gallery for 6 years and tabling at regional conventions for over a decade.
Teaching and storytelling are central to Jesse's creative life. He has been an elementary art teacher in Nebraska since 2002 and spent five years teaching Elementary and Middle School Art Methods at Midland University. Alongside his visual art, he writes poetry and short speculative fiction and enjoys building small narrative worlds via flash fiction and illustration.
When he's not juggling far too many creative projects, Jesse enjoys tabletop gaming, podcasting, folklore, storytelling, and his ongoing, possibly unhealthy, fascination with puppets. If he's not making art, there's a good chance he’s walking, playing with, or otherwise spoiling his dog.
Toastmaster Guest of Honor: Dr. Michael Page
Dr. Michael Page teaches science fiction in the English Department at UNL. Dr. Page’s new book is a study of the life and works of James Gunn, Saving the World Through Science Fiction: James Gunn, Writer, Teacher and Scholar (McFarland, 2017). He has also written the definitive study on science fiction master Frederik Pohl, Frederik Pohl (University of Illinois, 2015) and edited an edition of the stories of pioneering SF writer and Lincoln native Miles J. Breuer, The Man with the Strange Head (Bison Books, 2008).