John Helfers

The founder and president of Stonehenge Editorial, John Helfers is an author, book packager, and editor currently living in Green Bay, Wisconsin. During his sixteen years working at Tekno Books (the largest commercial book packager in the nation), he co-edited twenty short story anthologies, and oversaw the production of more than one hundred anthologies in all genres. He has worked with many bestselling authors and co-editors, including Lawrence Block, Lee Child, Mary Higgins Clark, Larry Bond, Elizabeth George, Dale Brown, Stephen Coonts, Nelson DeMille, Charlaine Harris, John Jakes, Anne Perry, Jeffery Deaver, Michael Connelly, Walter J. Boyne, Harold W. Coyle, Mercedes Lackey, Margaret Weis, Kevin J. Anderson, Ice-T, Richard Belzer, and Max Allan Collins. He has also edited more than forty novels by such authors as Doug Allyn, Brendan DuBois, James Patrick Hunt, Elizabeth Vaughan, R.L. King, and Jean Rabe.

He has published more than fifty original short stories in anthologies such as If I Were An Evil OverlordTime Twisters, and Shattered Shields. His fiction has appeared in anthologies, game books, novels, and on websites for the  Dragonlance™, Transformers™, Golem ArcanaBattleTech™, and Shadowrun™ universes. He has written both fiction and nonfiction, including the third novel in the first authorized trilogy based on The Twilight Zone™ television series, the YA novel Tom Clancy’s Net Force Explorers™: Cloak and Dagger, and a history of the United States Navy. He also wrote three novels in the Room 59 espionage series for Gold Eagle/Worldwide Publishing (including the launch book, The Powers That Be) and several novels in their Deathlands and Mack Bolan/Executioner™ series.

His essays on the military have appeared in Beyond Shock and Aweedited by U.S. Navy SEAL founder Eric Haney, and in the Civil War and World War II volumes of the How to Lose a War series. The Vorkosigan Companion (co-edited with Lillian Stewart Carl) a nonfiction guide to the science fictional world of award-winning author Lois McMaster Bujold, was nominated for a 2009 Hugo Award. In 2010, the original Shadowrun anthology Spells & Chrome won the Origins Award for Best Game-Related Publication, and the bibliography of Martin H. Greenberg, titled “I Have an Idea for a Book…” was nominated for the Best Related Book Hugo Award in 2013. He’s also appeared on writing and editorial panels at national conventions, including DragonCon, GenCon, and the World Science Fiction Convention.

Currently he’s working on several tie-in and original projects in both the adult and YA genres, including overseeing the production of new novels in the Shadowrun and Battletech game universes for Catalyst Game Labs. He also operates Stonehenge Editorial, a literary project management company working with such clients as Mercedes Lackey, Esther Friesner, and the Mystery Writers of America, Inc.