Samuel R. Delany was Guest of Honor at Readercon 2, and he is a living inductee into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Born in 1942 and brought up in New York's Harlem, he is a novelist and critic living in New York City. Called Chip by all his friends, after eleven years as a professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a year-and-a-half as professor of English at the State University of New York, Buffalo, since January 2000 he has been a professor of English and creative writing at Temple University in Philadelphia, where he directs the Graduate Creative Writing Program.

Delany's first novel, The Jewels of Aptor (restored text Ace, Bantam, 1968), appeared from Ace in winter, 1962. An SF trilogy, The Fall of the Towers, followed, its three volumes published between 1963 and 1965 (revised omnibus edition, Vintage Books, 2004), with a fifth novel, The Ballad of Beta-2, also out in 1965 from Ace. Babel-17 also appeared from Ace (Nebula winner, Hugo finalist) in 1966; The Einstein Intersection appeared from Ace in 1967 (Nebula winner, Hugo finalist), and Nova (Doubleday/Bantam, 1968; Hugo finalist; selected in Pringle's Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels) followed in 1968. The Tides of Lust (pornography) appeared from Lancer Books in 1973. Delany's tenth novel, Dhalgren, appeared from Bantam Books in January 1975 and was a Nebula Award finalist. It has proved his most popular, with sales of notably over a million copies and is currently in print with Vintage Books. Triton (a.k.a. Trouble on Triton) appeared a year later in 1976. Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (Bantam/Bantam Spectra) was released in 1984.

Delany's sword and sorcery fantasy series, Return to Nevèrÿon, comprises four volumes containing eleven stories and novels, Tales of Nevèrÿon (stories, Bantam, 1979; includes novella "The Tale of Gorgik," 1979 Nebula finalist), Nevèrÿona, or the Tale of Signs and Cities (novel, Bantam, 1983), Flight From Nevèrÿon (includes the novels The Tale of Fog and Granite and The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals, and a novelette, Bantam, 1985). Return to Neveryon (a.ka. The Bridge of Lost Desire) contains the novels The Game of Time and Pain and The Tale of Rumor and Desire, as well as a reprint of the first story, Arbor House/St. Martin's, 1987). All have been republished by Wesleyan University Press.

Delany's story collection Driftglass (1971) includes "The Star Pit" (1968 Hugo finalist, novella), "Aye, and Gomorrah" (1967 Nebula winner, Hugo finalist, short story), "Driftglass" (1967 Nebula finalist, short story), "We, in Some Strange Power's Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line" (1968, Nebula and Hugo finalist, novella; Tor double, 1990), and "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" (1969, Nebula and Hugo winner, novelette). Vintage Books has published his collected science fiction and fantasy stories, Aye, and Gomorrah, And Other Stories, (2003). Other short fiction has appeared in his collection Distant Stars (Bantam, 1981), and in F&SF, The New American Review, Omini, and The Mississippi Review. His short novel They Fly at Çiron appeared from Incunabula, in 1993 and in paperback from Tor Books. His autobiography The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village, 1957–1965 (Arbor House, 1988; revised and expanded, Richard Kasak Books, 1993) won a Hugo Award for Best Non-Fiction. He is the author of the memoir Heavenly Breakfast: An Essay on the Winter of Love (Bantam, 1979). His collections of SF criticism includes The Jewel-Hinged Jaw (Dragon/Berkley Windhover, 1997; rereleased in a revised edition this past year by Wesleyan Univrsity Press) add Starboard Wine (Dragon Press, 1984; it will be re-released in a revised edition by Wesleyan next year). Each has a new Introduction by Matthew Chaney. Other non-fiction includes The Straits of Messina (essays on his own work, Serconia, 1989; Readercon finalist), and the book-length critical essays The American Shore: Meditations on a Tale of Science Fiction by Thomas M. Disch — ‘Angouleme' (Dragon Press, 1978) and Wagner/Artaud: A Play of 19th and 20th Century Critical Fictions (Ansatz, 1988; Readercon finalist). Further non-fiction includes Silent Interviews: On Language, Race, Sex, Science Fiction, and Some Comics (Wesleyan University Press, 1994), Longer Views (Wesleyan, 1996), and Shorter Views: Queer Thoughts and the Politics of the Paraliterary (University Press of New England, 2000). Times Square Red, Times Square Blue was a bestseller in 1999 (New York University Press). In the 2000, he published a generous collection of letters, 1984, with an "Introduction" by Kenneth James, who is currently editing a multi-volume edition of Delany's Journals, who's first volume will soon appear from Wesleyan University Press.

Delany is also the author of two graphic novels, Empire (1982; with artist Howard Chankin) and Bread & Wine (Juno Books, 1999, with artist Mia Wolff). Five of Delany's fiction volumes contain no elements of fantasy or SF: Hogg, another pornographic novel, from FC-2, 1995; Atlantis: Three Tales, from Wesleyan University Press; The Mad Man (Richard Kasak Books, 1994); Phallos (2004), from Bamberger Books, shortly to be reprinted with extensive critical apparatus by NYU Press; his most recent novel Dark Reflections (Carroll & Graf, 2007) won a Stonewall Book Award for 2008. His forthcoming volume, Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders (due February 2011), has elements of SF in tale that feels largely contemporary. One excerpt has appeared in Black Clock, # 8, and another will shortly appear in the Boston Review.