The Wild Cards series began in New Mexico in the mid-80s with a group of writers and friends who all gamed together, players in an epic years-long campaign of the role-playing game SUPERWORLD. That gaming group included me, Melinda Snodgrass, Walter Jon Williams, John Miller and Gail Gerstner Miller, Parris, Chip Wideman, and Victor Milan… but when we decided to pitch Wild Cards as a shared world anthology, I reached out to some other writers who shared our love of comic books and superheroes, and Roger Zelazny, Steve Leigh, Lew Shiner, Bud Simons, Pat Cadigan, Edward Bryant, Leanne C. Harper, Arthur Byron Cover, and Howard Waldrop came aboard. So did Steve Perrin, the creator of the SUPERWORLD game that had inspired us. That core group of writers and creators produced the first seven books in the Wild Cards series.

It’s always been my feeling, however, that any long-running series risks growing stagnant after awhile unless it’s freshened up from time to time… and the best way to do that is by regularly adding new characters, new concepts, new conflicts… new writers. Wild Cards has had a long tradition of dragging new inmates into the asylum (some of them kicking and screaming). Over the years, the original founding members of the Wild Cards consortium were joined by others: William F. Wu, Michael Cassutt, Chris Claremont, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Bob Wayne, Laura J. Mixon, Sage Walker, Daniel Abraham… and most recently the Class of 2007, made up of Caroline Spector, Christopher Rowe, Carrie Vaughn, Ian Tregillis, and S.L. Farrell.

Renewal is a never-ending process, however. With SUICIDE KINGS in the pipeline and the Committee triad wrapped up, the time was ideal to go out and recruit some more poor damned fools for the Wild Cards projects to come (which I can’t talk about, not just yet, but watch this space, we’ll have news for you soon).

So let me introduce all you Wild Cards fans (and those who aren’t yet, but soon will be) to the Wild Cards Class of 2009.

DAVID D. LEVINE

David is the Hugo-winnning author of “Tk’tk’tk'” and many other fine short stories, a graduate of Clarion West and the Writers of the Future contest, a Nebula and Campbell Award loser, hailing from Portland, Oregon.

CHERIE PRIEST

“Southern gothic historical horror fantasy” is as close as I can come to describing Cherie’s work. She was born in Tampa and schooled in Chattanooga, but lives in Seattle at present. She’s also an associate editor for Subterranean Press.

MARY ANNE MOHANRAJ

Born in Sri Lanka, Mary Anne presently lives in Chicago (my old stomping grounds), where she’s a Ph.D. candidate. She’s written novels and short stories, edited anthologies and a Hugo-nominated ezine. Her work includes science fiction, fantasy, poetry, erotica, even a cookbook.

DAVID ANTHONY DURHAM

A two-time Campbell Award nominee for Best New Writer, David has written both fantasy (ACACIA) and historical novels (THE PRIDE OF CARTHAGE). He lives in Fresno, but he’s getting out as soon as he can.

PAUL CORNELL

Novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, and comic book scripter, Paul comes to us from England, where he’s written episodes of DR. WHO and TORCHWOOD. He’s currently scripting Captain Britain and MI-13 for Marvel Comics.

I could tell you about their cool new characters as well… but I’d rather make you wait and meet them in the books. But we’re all excited to have them aboard, and we expect they’ll make some great contributions to the future of Wild Cards.

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