I grew up in a splendidly eclectic household and community in rural Northern California. The influence of growing up in a creative atmosphere like that was not something that I fully appreciated until much later. I loved reading, drawing and the Thoreauvian joys of tromping through the great cathedrals of forest, hiking the sun-golden hills, frolicking in the greenest of frog ponds and following gravity’s path along the streams and rivers melodizing in their canyons — a zest for exploration and adventure in my heart.
At some point along the way, I contracted an intractable case of the dreaded lit bug and it has been a slow and painful recovery ever since.
I am a career public educator with an MA in Educational Leadership, principal certification and long-time department chair experience. I have been published here and there over the years, with work appearing in Argentina, Japan, England, and the United States. Somehow, I managed to win the first and quite possibly the last Macmillan Education Onestopenglish poetry contest in 2002 and was nominated for the SFPA 2022 Rhysling Award. I have always been in love with ideas and at one point was ranked in the top five globally for social invention ideas accepted for publication by the editorial board of the storied, but sadly now defunct Global Ideas Bank of the Institute for Social Inventions, London. I have been nominated for various teaching awards in my career, including the Humanities Texas Outstanding Teaching of the Humanities Award and the H-E-B Excellence in Education Awards.
For much of my life, I have been positively obsessed with science fiction, more so even than I once was with Hostess Twinkies and Turkish Delight. However, there is more in the literary cosmos than science fiction alone, so this publishing house is interested in other genres as well.
I loved science fiction long before learning that my great-great grandfather was the editor of Amazing Stories, or that my grandfather was Isaac Asimov’s editor at Doubleday. Knowing this just made me feel that much more of a connection with science fiction. Even before the near-mystical experience of discovering Lone Sloane, I was totally on board with science fiction. It fired up my imagination like nothing else ever had. It is the “literature of ideas,” after all. I remember vividly that it was during the 1970s, while watching reruns one day on a small black & white television in Napa that I first saw an episode of Star Trek. I was absolutely astounded by its famous introduction. In that precise moment my fascination with science fiction ignited, much like a cognitive “thunder well.” Watching that beautiful starship the USS Enterprise hit warp speed changed my view of the world and the possible, just as quickly, and forever.
This journey is an awesome one and you’re invited aboard this starship, as we explore the literary cosmos!
Cordially,
Justin T. O’Conor Sloane
Editor
Starship Sloane Publishing Company, Inc.
Exploring the Literary CosmosTM
