Cory Swanson lives in Northern Colorado with his wife, two daughters, and his old blind dog named Kirby. When he’s not working himself to the bone teaching tweens how to play band and orchestra instruments, he can be seen camping with his family in his tiny trailer or traveling to strange worlds in his head in order to write about them. If the weather is decent, you might catch him riding his bike or running because he is afraid of death, and he’s heard exercise helps with that. Cory has a Bachelors in Music Education from the University of Northern Colorado and a Masters in Music with an Emphasis in Conducting from Colorado State University. Neither of these degrees is helpful with his writing, but they do allow him to earn a living teaching music to middle schoolers, which he has done since 2004. He began writing in 2016 after the Denver Broncos won the Super Bowl. The absence of American Football in his life after that point left a gaping hole in his soul. He then proceeded to fill said hole with speculative fiction. It’s worked out okay so far, with his story, “The Musicologists,” being published in the anthology, Triangulation: Harmony and Dissonance, published by Parsec Ink and his novella, Geminus, was recently published by Castrum Press. If you would like to witness a nearly middle aged man attempt to navigate the perils of social media, you can find Cory on Facebook under the handle @speculativemeculative, or at his website, coryswansonauthor.wordpress.com

Joe Vasicek fell in love with science fiction and fantasy when he read A Wrinkle in Time and The Neverending Story as a child. He wrote several unfinished novels in high school and took Brandon Sanderson's writing class at Brigham Young University. He first came onto the indie writing scene in 2011 with his debut novel Genesis Earth. Since then, he has written more than twenty novels and novellas, including Genesis Earth, Gunslinger to the Stars, The Sword Keeper, and the Sons of the Starfarers series. His stories have been published in Perehilion, Mirror Dance, Sci Phi Journal, Uprising Review, Kasma SF, and Leading Edge. As a young man, he studied Arabic and traveled across the Middle East and the Caucasus Mountains. He has also traveled across the United States, and has lived in Texas, Illinois, Massachusetts, California, Utah, Washington DC, and Iowa. Wherever he goes, though, he's always writing.