Pioneer Con

Bob Byrd grew up in a family of storytellers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but has called Alabama home for nearly thirty years. He is a Moth Grand Slam champion, winner of the 2014 Alabama Tall Tales competition, and a two-time winner of the Tom Brown Creative Non-Fiction Award. For a dozen years he was a regular contributor to the NPR quiz show, Says You. Bob is a proud Navy veteran and an amateur chef who never met a kitchen gadget he didn’t like, though he’s met a few that he only liked once.

Image of Travis Turner's keynote address on Alabama lore, Pioneer Con 2023 (photos courtesy of Ashley Kitchens)

Biographies of keynote speakers from 2016 through 2021 can be found here.

• 2023 Travis Turner, author of "Capital of Dreams" and "Chimney Sweeps"
• 2022 Shaun Hamill, author of A Cosmology of Monsters
• 2021 John Mantooth, author of The Year of the Storm
• 2020 T.K. Thorne, author of House of Rose
• 2019 Jon Padgett, author of The Secret of Ventriloquism
• 2018 Phoebe North, author of Starglass
• 2017 Brian Parker, author of Crow in the Hollow
• 2016 Lou Anders, author of Throne & Bones Series