Thousands of homeschooling families in Orlando this week will find Christian-made fantastical fiction at the Realm Makers Bookstore. The booth opens this Thursday, May 25 at the annual Florida Parents Educators Association conference at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort.

Guest stars include Mike Nawrocki (VeggieTales), Sara Ella (The Wonderland Trials), Kerry Nietz (Amish Vampires in Space), and Lindsay A. Franklin (The Weaver Trilogy series).

On Friday, May 26 at 8 p.m., Mike Nawrocki and friends will host a special premiere event featuring the new Dead Sea Squirrels animated series. He’ll be joined by a team that includes renowned Disney animator Tom Bancroft and legendary creative producer Steve Taylor.

Lorehaven publisher E. Stephen Burnett will also showcase Lorehaven’s web resources, podcast, and Lorehaven Guild as well as our upcoming Summer Reading Challenge that starts this June.

E. Stephen Burnett (Lorehaven, The Pop Culture Parent)

E. Stephen Burnett creates sci-fi and fantasy novels as well as nonfiction, exploring fantastical stories for God’s glory as publisher of Lorehaven.com with its Fantastical Truth podcast. As the oldest of six, he enjoys connecting with his homeschool roots by speaking at conferences for Christian families and creators. Stephen is coauthor of The Pop Culture Parent: Helping Kids Engage Their World for Christ from New Growth Press. He and his wife, Lacy, live in the Austin area, where they serve as members of Faith Baptist Church.

Ralene Burke (Armor of Aletheia, Sword of Soter)

Whether she’s wielding a fantasy author’s pen, a freelance editor’s sword, or a social media wand, Ralene Burke always has her head in some dreamer’s world. And her goal is to encourage everyone to #SHINEBeyond! She has worked for a variety of groups/companies, including Realm Makers, The Christian PEN, Kentucky Christian Writers Conference, and as an editor for a number of freelance clients.

Sara Ella (The Wonderland Trials, The Looking Glass Illusion)

Once upon a time, Sara Ella dreamed she would marry a Disney prince and live in a castle. Now she spends her days homeschooling her three Jedi in training, braving the Arizona summers, and reminding her superhero husband that it’s almost Christmas (even if it’s only January). When she’s not writing, Sara might be found behind her camera lens or planning her next adventure to California. A lover of fairy tales, she believes “Happily Ever After is Never Far Away.”

Lindsay A. Franklin (The Weaver Trilogy series)

Lindsay A. Franklin is a Carol Award–winning author, freelance editor, and homeschooling mom of three. She would wear pajama pants all the time if it were socially acceptable. Lindsay lives in her native San Diego with her scruffy-looking nerf-herder husband, their precious geeklings, three demanding thunder pillows (a.k.a. cats), and a stuffed marsupial named Wombatman. She’s @LinzyAFranklin on Instagram and Twitter, and she Facebooks at www.facebook.com/LindsayAFranklin.

Rebecca P. Minor (The Windrider Saga series, The Risen Age Archive series)

Geek flag flyer, nerd herder, and eternal dreamer—these are some of the things Rebecca P. Minor has been called, and she won’t deny any of them. She writes fantasy novels in the sword-and-sorcery vein. She is also the founder of the Realm Makers Conference, where a couple hundred of her most awesome friends gather annually. When she is not wrapped up in words or vision-casting, she occasionally draws, specializing in cute.

Mike Nawrocki (The Dead Sea Squirrels series, VeggieTales)

As co-creator of VeggieTales and the voice of the beloved Larry The Cucumber, Mike Nawrocki has been making entertaining and wholesome content for kids since 1993. He created, wrote and directed most of the extremely popular “Silly Songs with Larry” segments, and lent his screenwriting and directing talents to VeggieTales episodes as well as their movies Jonah and The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything. Mike also developed and wrote for 3-2-1 Penguins! and authored a number of VeggieTales books and CD projects. Today Mike is creating the popular young readers’ series The Dead Sea Squirrels. He also serves as assistant professor of film and animation at Lipscomb University and co-hosts the weekly podcast, “The Bible for Kids.”

Kerry Nietz (The DarkTrench Saga series, Amish Vampires in Space)

Kerry Nietz is an award-winning science fiction author. He has over a half dozen speculative novels in print, along with a novella, a couple short stories, and a non-fiction book, FoxTales. Kerry’s novel A Star Curiously Singing won the Readers Favorite Gold Medal Award for Christian Science Fiction and is notable for its dystopian, cyberpunk vibe in a world under sharia law. Kerry’s most talked about book is the genre-bending Amish Vampires in Space. AViS was mentioned on the Tonight Show and in the Washington Post, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. Newsweek called it “a welcome departure from the typical Amish fare.”

C. E. White (The Worlds Next Door, When Your Dragon is Too Big for a Bath)

C. E. White (Connie) is an author of middle-grade fantasy, children’s books, and Christian non-fiction for adults. Her works are fueled by a lifetime love of both Jesus and reading, and she longs to inspire people of all ages with imagination and words of hope. She has a passion for helping people embrace the lives they have instead of the ones they imagined. Most of Connie’s favorite books are at least one-hundred years old, so chances are high that she is secretly a time-traveler who got stuck in the future. She doesn’t seem to mind, though, and lives happily in the mountains of North Georgia with her husband and two cats.

About the Florida Parent Educators Association (FPEA)

The Florida Parent-Educators Association exists solely to serve homeschooling families in Florida. It executes that mission through support for the legal right to homeschool, local school board education and interaction, support group networking, a state convention, local conferences and events, informative communications, and individual encouragement, all in accordance with Judeo-Christian principles.

The FPEA serves thousands of homeschooling families in Florida, delivering a wealth of support, guidance and information to both new and longtime home educators. The “FPEA Experience” involves a banding together of homeschoolers to accomplish the task of developing academic and personal excellence by sharing resources, creating connections, enhancing relationships and breaking down barriers. Acknowledging there is no one “right” way to educate, the FPEA acts as an ambassador and champion, serving and protecting the rights and choices of all homeschoolers.

About the Realm Makers Bookstore

Realm Makers Bookstore is a division of Realm Makers Media which serves Christian authors of fantasy and science fiction with an annual conference, membership, and an awards program to recognize the best books published by Christian authors in these powerful genres. The Realm Makers Bookstore brings the best of these books to homeschool conventions as well as industry conventions and book festivals to promote the Christian authors they serve. You will always find several authors present at their booth as well as many signed copies.

About Realm Makers

Realm Makers began in 2013, and from small origins has grown to serve hundreds of Christian fiction authors at annual conferences, whose faculties have included bestselling novelists such as Frank E. Peretti, Ted Dekker, Tosca Lee, Brent Weeks, and N. D. Wilson. Realm Makers exists to help creative Christians in their journeys, providing education in craft, connections with industry professionals, and strategies for finding readers who love these kinds of stories. Meanwhile, the Realm Makers Bookstore offers a curated collection of speculative fiction from Christian authors, traveling to sci-fi and fantasy cons as well as homeschool conventions.