It all began when Pat Rothfuss was born to a marvelous set of parents. Throughout his formative years they encouraged him to do his best, gave him good advice, and were no doubt appropriately dismayed when he failed to live up to his full potential. In high-school Pat was something of a class clown. His hobbies included reading a novel or two a day and giving relationship advice to all his friends despite the fact that he had never so much as kissed a girl. He also role-played and wrote terrible stories about elves. He was pretty much a geek. Most of Pat's adult life has been spent in the University Wisconsin Stevens Point. In 1991 he started college in order to pursue a career in chemical engineering, then he considered clinical psychology. In 1993 he quit pretending he knew what he wanted to do with his life, changed his major to "undecided," and proceeded to study whatever amused him. He also began writing a book.... For the next seven years Pat studied anthropology, philosophy, eastern religions, history, alchemy, parapsychology, literature, and writing. He studied six different martial arts, practiced improv comedy, learned how to pick locks, and became a skilled lover of women. He also began writing a satirical advice column which he continues to this day: The College Survivial Guide. Through all of this he continued to work on his novel. In 2000 Pat went to grad school for English literature. Grad school sucked and Pat hated it. However, Pat learned that he loved to teach. He left in 2002 with his masters degree, shaking the dust from his feet and vowing never to return. During this period of time his novel was rejected by roughly every agent in the known universe. Now Pat teaches half-time at his old school as an assistant-sub-lecturer. He is underpaid but generally left alone to do as he sees fit with his classes. He is advisor for the college feminists, the fencing club, and, oddly enough, a sorority. He still roll-plays occasionally, but now he does it in an extremely sophisticated, debonair way. Through a series of lucky breaks, he has wound up with the best agent and editor imaginable, and the first book of his trilogy has been published under the title "The Name of the Wind." Though it has only been out since April 2007, it has already been sold in 26 foreign countries and won several awards. Pat has been described as "a rough, earthy iconoclast with a pipeline to the divine in everyone's subconscious." But honestly, that person was pretty drunk at the time, so you might want to take it with a grain of salt.

Catherynne M. Valente was born on Cinco de Mayo, 1979 in Seattle, WA, but grew up in in the wheatgrass paradise of Northern California. She graduated from high school at age 15, going on to UC San Diego and Edinburgh University, receiving her B.A. in Classics with an emphasis in Ancient Greek Linguistics. She then drifted away from her M.A. program and into a long residence in the concrete and camphor wilds of Japan. She currently lives in Maine with her partner, two dogs, and three cats, having drifted back to America and the mythic frontier of the Midwest.

Wil Wheaton loves to tell stories. He’s been doing it his whole life. By age ten, he had already been acting for three years. In 1986, at age 12, he earned critical acclaim as Gordie Lachance in Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me; at 14, he began his four-year turn as Wesley Crusher on the hit TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation. Since then, Wil has appeared in dozens of films and TV series, with recurring roles on TNT’s Leverage, SyFy’s Eureka, and the hit webseries The Guild. He is the creator, producer, and host of the wildly successful webseries Tabletop, credited with reigniting national interest in tabletop gaming. Most recently, he played a fictionalized version of himself on CBS’s The Big Bang Theory, one of the most highly rated and watched sitcoms of the last decade. An accomplished voice actor, Wil has lent his talents to animated series including Family Guy, Teen Titans, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Batman: The Brave and the Bold. His video game credits include four installments each of the Grand Theft Auto and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon series, as well as Fallout: New Vegas, DC Universe Online, and Broken Age. His audiobook narration of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and was one of Goodreads’ 10 Best Narrator and Audiobook Pairings of All Time. He has also lent his voice to titles by John Scalzi, Randall Monroe, and Joe Hill. When he isn’t acting, narrating, or podcasting, Wil Wheaton is writing. A lot. He is the author of Just A Geek, Dancing Barefoot, The Happiest Days of Our Lives, Hunter, and Dead Trees Give No Shelter, plus a forthcoming novel, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything. He has contributed columns to Salon.com, The A.V. Club, LA Weekly, Playboy, The Washington Post, and the Suicide Girls Newswire. In recent years, Wil has earned recognition as an outspoken mental health advocate, chronicling his own journey in his blog and as a public speaker for the National Alliance on Mental Illness. His powerful, candid essay about his struggle with chronic depression and anxiety garnered national attention. Wil lives in Los Angeles with his badass, irrepressible wife Anne, two rescued dogs, one cat, and two vintage arcade cabinets. If you’re not a robot, you can reach him at: wil at wilwheaton dot net.

Stephen Toulouse, also known as Stepto, is the Director of Xbox LIVE Policy and Enforcement at Microsoft. He frequently represents Microsoft and Xbox Live in various media, including on Larry Hryb's "Major Nelson Radio" Xbox-related podcast, to discuss security and policy issues. Prior to joining the Xbox team at Microsoft, Toulouse was the head of communications for security response with the Microsoft Security Response Center.

John Scalzi, having declared his absolute boredom with biographies, disappeared in a puff of glitter and lilac scent. (If you want to contact John, using the mail function here is a really bad way to do it. Go to his site and use the contact information you find there.)