Lou Anders is an American author, editor and game designer, best known for the Thrones & Bones series of middle grade fantasy novels. As an editor, he was editorial director and art director of Prometheus Books' science fiction and fantasy imprint Pyr from its launch in 2005 until 2014, and won the 2011 Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor, Long Form and a Chesley Award for art direction. He is also a journalist and tabletop roleplaying game designer; in 2021 he launched Lazy Wolf Studios to publish roleplaying material set in the world of his novels.
He describes his route through the science fiction and writings businesses as broadly beginning with "theatre in college lead[ing] to a partial scholarship to study acting in Oxford and London". This in turn got him into directing plays in Chicago, which led to working on sets in Los Angeles, which led to journalism & screenwriting, the former being "sci-fi" based, which led to internet publishing, which led to publishing.
Career
Anders' break came in 1994, when he became involved with the UK's Titan Publishing when they were about to launch the first Star Trek magazine, Star Trek Monthly (launched in March 1995). Recommended to Titan by Jean-Marc Lofficier, Anders became Titan Publishing Group's 'Los Angeles liaison', "churning out about 30 articles a month on average and living on the Star Trek and Babylon 5 sets". Anders was writing scripts and pitches on the side with a writing partner, and in 1996, was asked to write The Making of Star Trek: First Contact for Titan.
Between 1994 and 1999, Anders wrote around 500 articles, which have appeared in multiple magazines on a variety of - primarily science fiction-related - subjects, and Babylon 5 in particular. His articles have appeared in Babylon 5 Magazine, Doctor Who Magazine, Dreamwatch, Manga Max, Sci Fi Universe, Star Trek Monthly and Star Wars Monthly, and been translated into several languages. Much of his work has also appeared online at sites including Believermag.com, the SF Site, Infinity Plus. and RevolutionSF.com, while many of his Star Trek and Babylon 5 articles and interviews "have been illegally transcribed and are scattered throughout [web]sites the world over".
Editor
Bookface
In late 1999 or early 2000, Anders moved to San Francisco to become executive editor of Bookface.com, a "read on demand" website that offered books and short stories free to read online, with authors and publishers paid for each page read from advertising revenue. The site launched in June 2000 and stopped trading in early 2001.
In January 2001, Anders edited an anthology entitled Outside the Box: The Best Short Fiction from Bookface.com, which was published by Wildside Press.
Argosy
In 2003, Anders launched Argosy Magazine in collaboration with publisher James A. Owen, serving from 2003 to 2004 as senior editor on the bimonthly title. It was named after Argosy (a title that dates back to the 19th century), because (as Anders describes in an interview with John C. Snider): "[W]e thought taking a name that harkened back to its spirit was a good launching point from which to found a new magazine, one that sought to set trends for the 21st century, the way Munsey's magazines did for the 19th and 20th.
Despite this, Argosy Magazine, however was stated to have "no connection to the original Frank A. Munsey magazine, or any other incarnation of Argosy ... [it] is a completely new magazine ... a new entity."
The new magazine, "devoted to publishing quality fiction in a wide range of genres and styles, from science fiction and fantasy to mystery to mainstream", and including a smattering of non-fiction essays and interviews, launched in November, 2003, and featured in its first eclectic issue an interview by Adam Roberts with Samuel R. Delany. Argosy format complimented its eclectic nature, accompanying its digest-sized magazine with a "separate trade-paperbacknovella ... [both] presented in an attractive slipcase".(See left for Argosy #2's cover & slipcase.) The uniqueness of its design proved confusing to retailers, however, leading to subsequent issues being published in two formats: "Connoisseur" (two-volume, available through Argosy, to subscribers and via certain comic shops and independent bookshops) and "Proletarian" (single magazine, available at newsstands).
Having overseen the first two issues (and preparatory work on a third), mounting "creative differences" and concerns caused Anders to resign as editor in early July, 2004 to focus on his work with Pyr while Argosy itself went on hiatus.
Anthologies
Anders has edited a number of anthologies from several different publishers, helped in no small part by having been able to forge links and contacts with sci-fi authors during his time at Bookface. Anders' anthologies include Outside the Box(above) (a 'Print on Demand' collection of short stories that first appeared on Bookface.com) from Wildside Press, Live Without a Net from Roc (although originally planned for a small press, which was going under at the time) and Projections from MonkeyBrain (initially two separate books, "one on literature and one on cinema", co-published by Chris Roberson, whom Anders had met through Live Without a Net).
Anders is seen as a particular mentor to Roberson, whom he met at the World Fantasy Convention in Montreal, where he invited Roberson to submit to Live Without a Net. Roberson's work subsequently appeared in Argosy magazine, Anders' FutureShocks and his novels Here, There & Everywhere and Paragaea: A Planetary Romance have both been published by Pyr. Roberson was also featured in the Anders-edited anthology Sideways in Crime (2008).
Anders notes that his anthology Live Without a Net was a direct reaction against a certain type of science fiction. He says, in interview with Rick Kleffel:
I was reacting to what I felt was a preponderance of post-cyberpunk in American science fiction in the year 2000. The anthology was a deliberate attempt to counter that trend in some small and useful way.
Pyr
Anders became editorial director of Pyr when it launched in March 2005, after Prometheus Books advertised for someone to start a science fiction line. Authors published by Pyr under Anders included Michael Moorcock, Alan Dean Foster, Adam Roberts, Mike Resnick, Justina Robson, Joe Abercrombie and Ian McDonald. In September 2014, Prometheus Books announced that Anders, who had been editorial and art director of Pyr since its inception ten years earlier, was leaving to write full-time, with Rene Sears as interim editor.
Anders left Pyr in September 2014 to concentrate on writing full-time. That year, Anders published the middle grade novel Frostborn. It was followed by Nightborn, Skyborn, Star Wars: Pirate's Price, and Once Upon a Unicorn. He has short fiction included in the anthologies Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Stories of LIght and Dark and All is Found: A Frozen Anthology.
Game designer
In the roleplaying game arena, Anders has designed games for Kobold Press, River Horse, and others, contributing to such titles as The Curious Case of the Malfunctioning P.R.A.N.C.E.R., Margreve Player’s Guide, Midgard Magic Ley Lines, Tome of Time, Warlock Grimoire III, Warlock Grimoire IV, and The White Worg Accord.
In 2021, Anders created Lazy Wolf Studios to publish the Thrones & Bones line of campaign settings, adventure books, supplemental materials, and short fiction. To date, Lazy Wolf Studios has released the Norrøngard Campaign Setting, Sagas of Norrøngard, Player's Guide to Norrøngard, Vengeance of the Valravn, Tales from Stolki's Hall, Banner of the Bull, and Keeper of the Drowned.
Awards and nominations
Accepting the Hugo Award - Reno, Nevada, August 2011
His middle grade fantasy novel Frostborn has been nominated for a 2015-16 Utah Beehive Book Award, a 2016-17 Nebraska Golden Sower Award, a 2016-17 Indiana Young Hoosier Book Award, and a 2016-17 Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Award. He was chosen as the 2016 Thurber House Children's Writer-in-Residence.
Other appearances
Anders also features as a recurring fictional cartoon character in Jim Woodward's real-life comic book stories These Things Happen.
"And How His Audit Stands" in The Clockwork Jungle Book (Shimmer Magazine Issue #11) (2009)
"Dooku Captured" in Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Stories of Light and Dark by Jen Heddle (ed.) (Disney Lucasfilm Press (August 2020) ISBN978-1368057295
"A Midsummer's Song and Dance" in All is Found: A Frozen Anthology by Heather Knowles and Mari Mancusi (ed.) (Disney Press (November 2023) ISBN1368057292
The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders (3 vols.) by Gary Westfahl (ed.) (Greenwood Press (Sep, 2005)) ISBN0-313-32950-8
Contributions include: "Babylon 5 (1993-1998) and films", "Batman (1989) &c.", "Doctor Who (1963-1989) and films", "Drugs", "Individualism and Conformity" and "Religion"
"A Tale of Two Orphans" in The Man from Krypton: A Closer Look at Superman by Glenn Yeffeth (ed.) (BenBella Books (May, 2006)) ISBN1-932100-77-6
"A Word Of Warning For Brandon Routh" in The Man from Krypton: A Closer Look at Superman by Glenn Yeffeth (ed.) (BenBella Books (May 2006)) ISBN1-932100-77-6
"The Natural and the Unnatural: Verisimilitude in Battlestar Galactica" in So Say We All: Collected Thoughts and Opinions on Battlestar Galactica by Richard Hatch (ed.) (BenBella Books (Oct, 2006)) ISBN1-932100-94-6
"The Tangled Web We Weave" in Webslinger: SF and Comic Writers on Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man by Glenn Yeffeth (ed.) (BenBella Books (Mar, 2007)) ISBN1-933771-06-2
"New Directions: Mind the Gap": an online essay on the different branches of Science fiction at RevolutionSF
