With the acquisition of six books from Nate Hendley, another two in the works, and submissions now becoming quite active, an expansion of not only our book list, but our staff is in order. It gives me great pleasure to announce the addition of two excellent associates here at Five Rivers.

In the capacity of Editor I’d like to welcome Robert Runté to the fold.

Dr. Robert Runté is an associate professor at the University of Lethbridge. As an academic, editor, reviewer, and organizer, Robert has been actively promoting Canadian SF for over 30 years. He was a founding Director of NonCon, Context89, and SF Canada; and has served on the Boards of the Edmonton Science Fiction and Comic Arts Society, On Spec Magazine, Tesseract Books, and The Writers Guild of Alberta. In addition to dozens of conference papers, journal articles, book chapters, and a half dozen entries in the Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada, Robert has edited over 150 issues of various SF newsletters.

In 1989, his Guide to Canadian Science Fiction won an Aurora Award; he won a second Aurora in 1990 for his general promotion of Canadian SF. In 1994 he was honored as Fan Guest at the 52nd WorldCon, and in 1996 he co-edited (with Yves Meyard) the Tesseracts5 SF anthology. More recently, he has been a regular reviewer for NeoOpsis Magazine. In terms of non-fiction, he has co-edited (with Gerald Taylor), a popular first year textbook, Thinking About Teaching: An Introduction and produced a number of educational websites in the “Tigana learns about…” series. His most recent book chapters were on the student construction of the demands of academic writing and using blogs as research tool and data. A full CV may be found at http://www.uleth.ca/edu/runte/professional/cv.htm.

Robert will be assisting in the title acquisition process, as well as working with authors once manuscripts have been accepted and are going to print. Robert can be reached at: robert@5rivers.org

Kelly Stephens joins us as Editorial Assistant.

Having grown up in the publishing, writing and illustration industry, Kelly has worked as an accomplished illustrator and has written several papers on the subjects of public policy, immigration and refugee law and social justice. Kelly is currently working on her first full-length book, entitled 5000 Mile Journey. Kelly brings with her an excellent understanding of the written word, marketing and, of course, her own flair for artistry.

Kelly will be assisting in the title acquisition process, and act as liaison between Five Rivers and authors, as well as be responsible for the development and delivery of marketing, promotion and communications. Her considerable artistic capabilities will be tapped for many in-house illustrations. Kelly can be reached at: kelly@5rivers.org.

I’m thrilled to have these two dynamos part of the team here at Five Rivers, and look forward to a very long, fruitful and inspiring association.