Who makes up Candlemark & Gleam? We’re small but intrepid.

Publisher and Editor

Melissa Scott has been writing science fiction and fantasy since the 1980s, and is the author of more than thirty original science fiction and fantasy novels, most with queer themes and characters. She has also written authorized tie-ins for Star Trek: DS9, Star Trek: Voyager, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Star Wars Rebels, and Overwatch. She won Lambda Literary Awards for Trouble and Her Friends, Shadow Man, Point of Dreams (written with her late partner, Lisa A. Barnett), and Death By Silver, written with Amy Griswold. She also won Spectrum Awards for Shadow Man, Fairs’ Point, Death By Silver, and for the short story “The Rocky Side of the Sky” (Periphery, Lethe Press), as well as the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. She was also shortlisted for the Otherwise (Tiptree) Award for Shadow Man. She has taught creative writing for many years, both online and in person, leading single session workshops as well as longer classes, and has been a regular lecturer at Odyssey.

She was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, part of a family with literal Faulknerian connections. (Her grandmother worked as a secretary for the lawyer who was the model for the character of Gavin Stevens.) She studied history at Harvard College and Brandeis University, where she earned her PhD in the Comparative History program. She and Barnett lived in New England for almost thirty years. After Barnett’s death, Scott moved to North Carolina to be closer to friends and family, and to get away from New England winters.

Former Ship’s Captain and Astrogator

Athena Andreadis was born in Hellás (aka Greece) to parents who were part of the WWII resistance, spent her adolescence under the military junta and was lured to the US at age 18 by a full scholarship to Harvard, then MIT. She spent her adult life doing basic research in molecular neurobiology, focusing on mechanisms of mental retardation and dementia. She has also given many invited talks (that included NASA venues and the 100-Year Starship Symposium) on the biological and cultural issues of space/planetary exploration and settlement.

Athena is an avid reader in four languages across genres (though she has an accent in all of them unless she’s singing) and cherishes every moment she gets to spend with her partner Peter Cassidy.  She’s the author of To Seek Out New Life: The Biology of Star Trek and writes speculative fiction and non-fiction on a wide swath of topics. She conceived of and edited the widely acclaimed feminist space opera anthology The Other Half of the Sky (2013, Candlemark & Gleam). Her work can be found in Scientific American, Harvard Review, Belles Lettres, Strange Horizons, Crossed Genres, Stone Telling, Cabinet des Fées, Bull Spec, Science in My Fiction, SF Signal, The Apex Blog, World SF, SFF Portal, io9, The Huffington Post, and her own site, Starship Reckless.

Lead Designer and Navidile Emerita

Kate Sullivan is the founder of Candlemark & Gleam, the result of a mild bout of insanity that seems to have led to a higher literary calling—and one heck of an adventure in sf/f and the publishing industry. Formerly the publisher, editor-in-chief, acquiring editor, chief layout and design artist, gofer, cook, and bottlewasher, she happily functioned as the Navidile during Candlemark’s ownership transition year. Today, Kate still does covers for Candlemark, as well as keeping loving track of its progress.

Kate has worked in publishing, in one capacity or another, for more than 10 years, doing everything from daily news to design, RPG editing to technical writing. When she started getting aggravated at the state of publishing on the bleeding edge of digital, she decided to do something about it. Hence, Candlemark & Gleam.

Visual Types

Cover art, interior design and more is under the auspices of these talented folks, who breeze in, make everything pretty, and go back to saving the (art) world in their regular lives.

Laura Galli, cover art and design
Inkspiral Design, cover art and design
Brigid Ashwood, cover art and interior design
Fernando Caire, illustrations
Melissa Capriglione, cover art and design
Alan Caum, cover art and illustrations
Julie Dillon, cover art
Alexael, cover art and design
Ciaran Gaffney, cover art and design
Rhiannon Griffiths, cover art and design
Brittany Hague, cover art and design
Candra Hope, cover art
Rhiannon McCullough, cover art and design
Chelsea Neveu, cover art and design
Heather D. Oliver, cover art and illustrations
Eleni Tsami, cover art and design
H. Won, cover art and design
Jenny Zemanek, cover art and interior design