"Science fiction is my way of life," Dr. Arlan Andrews says quite seriously. "It gave form to my childhood imagination, and those visions have propelled me through my adult life." He credits SF for taking him out of the backwoods of Arkansas and into a lifetime of technology development. "Who knows, if I'd stayed home, I might have gotten into politics," says Arlan, who was indeed the Libertarian Party's nominee for the governor of North Carolina in 1976. "But who would ever take any politician from Arkansas seriously?" (Like another Arkansan at the time, he did make it to the White House, serving as a Fellow in the White House Science Office, 1992 - 1993.)

Retiring in 2013 after a long career in engineering design and development, from White Sands Missile Range to his own high-tech startups, Arlan is now a full time writer, consultant, researcher and public speaker. His November 2014 Analog novella, "Flow," is a recommended choice on both the "Sad Puppies" and the "Rabid Puppies" slates for Hugo nominations, and a December 2014 short story "Foundation and Zombies," is available online from StupefyingStories.com. His two e-publications, a novel, Valley of the Shaman, and a short story collection, Other Heads & Other Tales, are both available for Kindle and Nook.

An SF fan ever since reading Heinlein's Red Planet in 1950, and an SF pro since his first sales to Omni and Asimov's in 1979, he has since published over 500 SF stories, articles, columns, poems and novelty items in more than 100 venues worldwide, including Analog, SF Review, SF Age, Fantasy Book, Pulphouse, anthologies (Nanodreams, How to Save the World), UFO Magazine, The New Scientist, Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Atlantis Rising, and others. His non-fiction deals with everything from humor, politics, nanotech, 3D printing, alternative archeology, UFOs, and various aspects of the esoteric and paranormal.

While working at the White House in 1992, Arlan founded SIGMA, the science fiction think tank, a group of professional science fiction authors who provide pro bono futurism consulting for the Federal government and appropriate non-government organizations (NGOs). SIGMA has since worked with the Department of Homeland Security, various military and intelligence agencies, and NGOs. In January 2012 four SIGMAns were guests of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at the Global Competitiveness Forum in Riyadh, presenting a panel on "Disruptive Technologies." In May 2015, SIGMAns will make presentations at the "Humans to Mars (H2M)" conference in Washington, D.C.

In the field of alternative archaeology, Arlan has published articles for magazines Atlantis Rising and Ancient American, and wrote one of the forewords to InConJunction guest Chris Dunn's latest book, Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt. Fulfulling a lifelong dream, he visited pyramids and temples of Egypt in 2008, accompanied by longtime friend and author Chris Dunn. In 2012 he visited other ancient sites in Peru, and is now working on a book to share some of his discoveries there. He made brief appearances on the Ancient Aliens cable TV show "Ancient Engineers," and in the French documentary movie, "Revelations of the Pyramids."

In 2013 Arlan retired as Environmental Director of Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas. In 2015 he and his wife Joyce relocated to a suburb of Louisville, Kentucky, where they are looking forward to re-connecting with InConJunction and other Midwest fandom and old-time friends.