Special Guest

Stefan Rudnicki has produced and/or directed over 3,000 audiobooks for Skyboat Media and multiple major publishers. Blessed with his distinctly recognizable voice, Stefan has also narrated over 1,000 audiobooks, and is best known for his renditions of SF, Fantasy and Thriller series by Orson Scott Card, Robert Silverberg, Ursula K. LeGuin, Alex Bledsoe, Harlan Ellison, Cory Doctorow, Ben Bova, Jack Vance, Samuel R. Delany, Walter Jon Williams, Kim Stanley Robinson, Alan Dean Foster, Donald Hamilton and Max Allan Collins among others. He is known as the voice of Ender, Matt Helm, Quarry, Mike Hammer, Will Durant’s The Story of Civilization, Ellison’s TikTok Man, and dozens of aliens in the forthcoming solo recording of L Ron Hubbard’s “Battlefield Earth.”

Honors include a Bram Stoker Award, a Ray Bradbury, dozens of Audies and Earphones awards, two GRAMMYs for Best Spoken Word, and two Hugos for the story podcasts in Lightspeed Magazine.  The Grammys were for “The Children’s Shakespeare” and Janis Ian’s Autobiography, “Society’s Child.” In 2012, Stefan was acknowledged a Golden Voice by AudioFile Magazine. Upon entering the world of audiobooks with Dove Audio in 1994, Stefan quickly moved up the ladder to publisher. He has produced audio recordings of over 350 children’s stories for LeVar Burton’s Reading Rainbow App. Skyboat Media’s publishing initiative, with now more than 300 titles in release, is only the most recent manifestation of Stefan’s mission to match fine stories with the best storytellers and production values. Skyboat’s authors include Shirley Jackson, Sever Bronny, Samuel R. Delaney, Bethany Adams, Kim Stanley Robinson and Wil Wheaton, among others.

Often referring to himself as a citizen of the world, Stefan was born in Krakow, Poland and has lived in Sweden, Canada, and various parts of New York State and Connecticut. He currently resides in Southern California where his Skyboat recording studios are located.  Endowed with a passionate streak for the theatre, he has produced and/or directed hundreds of stage productions, dominated by musicals and the plays of Shakespeare and Bertolt Brecht. This passion for theatre propelled him to the Edinburgh International Festival where he won a Fringe First in 1979. Stefan was educated at Columbia University and the Yale School of Drama, and has taught performance disciplines at various American and European institutions of higher learning, including the University of Rochester, C. W. Post, Dartmouth College and New York University. In the gaming world, he is known for his portrayal of Albrecht Entrati in Digital Extremes’ Warframe.