Edward Willett is an award-winning author of science fiction, fantasy and non-fiction for both children and adults. Born in Silver City, New Mexico, Willett lived in Bayard, New Mexico and Lubbock and Tulia, Texas, before moving to Weyburn, Saskatchewan with his family when he was eight years old. He studied journalism at Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, then returned to Weyburn as a reporter/photographer for the weekly Weyburn Review, eventually becoming news editor. In 1988 he moved to Regina, Saskatchewan, as communications officer for the Saskatchewan Science Centre, and in 1993 he became a fulltime freelance writer. He still resides in Regina. Willett is now the author or co-author of more than 60 books, ranging from computer books and other nonfiction titles for both children and adults, to science fiction and fantasy for all ages. His science fiction novel Marseguro (DAW Books) won the 2009 Aurora Award for best English-language science fiction or fantasy book by a Canadian author. He has also won a Saskatchewan Book Award for his YA fantasy Spirit Singer. He has been shortlisted for the Aurora Award and Saskatchewan Book Awards multiple times. His most recent novels include Worldshaper and Master of the World, the first two books in his new series Worldshapers, and The Cityborn, a stand-alone science fiction novel from DAW Books; the Masks of Aygrima trilogy, YA/adult crossover novels published by DAW and written as E.C. Blake; the five-book YA fantasy series The Shards of Excalibur, published by Coteau Books; and the stand-alone YA fantasy Flames of Nevyana (Rebelight Publishing). He's also the author of the Peregrine Rising duology for Bundoran Press (Right to Know and Falcon's Egg). Other novels include SF novel Lost in Translation (DAW Books), Terra Insegura (sequel to Marseguro, DAW Books), Magebane (DAW Books, written as Lee Arthur Chane), YA SF novels Andy Nebula: Interstellar Rock Star, Andy Nebula: Double Trouble, and The Chosen; and YA ghost story The Haunted Horn. Shadowpaw Press recently released his short story collection Paths to the Stars and re-released Spirit Singer, a YA fantasy that won a Saskatchewan Book Award and other awards. His non-fiction titles run the gamut from science books for children on topics as diverse as Ebola Virus and the Milky Way to local history books like Historic Walks of Regina and Moose Jaw for Red Deer Press, awarded a Municipal Heritage Award by the City of Regina in the education category and A Safe and Prosperous Future: 100 years of engineering and geoscience achievements in Saskatchewan, published by the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan (APEGS). He's also written biographies for children of Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, Johnny Cash, Andy Warhol, Orson Scott Card, J.R.R. Tolkien and the Ayatollah Khomeini. You can find Ed online at www.edwardwillett.com, on Facebook, and on Twitter @ewillett. His is represented by literary agent Ethan Ellenberg (www.ethanellenberg.com). Besides being a writer, Willett is a professional actor and singer who has performed in dozens of plays, musicals and operas in and around Saskatchewan, hosted local television programs, and emceed numerous public events. He's married to a telecommunications engineer and has one daughter.

L. E. (Leland Exton) Modesitt, Jr. is an author of science fiction and fantasy novels. He is best known for the fantasy series The Saga of Recluce. He graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts, lived in Washington, D.C. for 20 years, then moved to New Hampshire in 1989 where he met his wife. They relocated to Cedar City, Utah in 1993. He has worked as a Navy pilot, lifeguard, delivery boy, unpaid radio disc jockey, real estate agent, market research analyst, director of research for a political campaign, legislative assistant for a Congressman, Director of Legislation and Congressional Relations for the United States Environmental Protection Agency, a consultant on environmental, regulatory, and communications issues, and a college lecturer and writer in residence. In addition to his novels, Mr. Modesitt has published technical studies and articles, columns, poetry, and a number of science fiction stories. His first short story, "The Great American Economy", was published in 1973 in Analog Science Fiction and Science Fact. -Wikipedia

Derryl Murphy lives with his wife, boys and dog in Saskatoon, where he is deeply involved in a life of soccer and writing. His short fiction has appeared in magazines and anthologies since his first sale in the early '90s. His first book, the collection of eco-SF Wasps at the Speed of Sound, was released by Prime Books in 2005, and in 2009 Cast a Cold Eye, a novella co-written with William Shunn, was released by PS Publishing. Napier's Bones has just been nominated for Best Novel for the Aurora Award. For more information and for information on how to vote for Napier's Bones, please see http://www.prixaurorawards.ca/ Derryl has been nominated for the Canada's Aurora Award for an SF review column he wrote for The Edmonton Journal, for his short story "Body Solar," and for "Mayfly," a short story he co-wrote with Peter Watts. Once upon a time Derryl was a photojournalist, but staking out murder sites to get a lousy picture was not the career he envisioned.

Jason M. Hough (pronounced 'Huff') is the New York Times bestselling author of The Dire Earth Cycle and the near-future spy thriller Zero World. In a former life he was a 3D artist, animator, and game designer (Metal Fatigue, Aliens vs. Predator: Extinction, and many others). He has also worked in the fields of high-performance cluster computing and machine learning. The Darwin Elevator began life in 2008 as a project for National Novel Writing Month. The book released on July 30th, 2013 and reached the New York Times Bestseller list the following week. Darwin was Jason’s first published fiction. The subsequent books in that trilogy were released that same summer, along with a prequel novella, The Dire Earth, in 2014. Jason's latest novel, Zero World, released on August 18th, 2015 from Del Rey Spectra (US) and Titan Books (AUS/NZ). Publishers Weekly called it “a thrilling action rampage that confirms Hough as an important new voice in genre fiction.” He lives near Seattle, Washington with his wife, two young sons, and a dog named Missbuster.

"Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia: Although I haven't actually lived "down east" since just before my fourth birthday, I still consider myself a Maritimer. I think it's something to do with being born in sight of the ocean. Or possibly with the fact that almost no one admits to being from Ontario… Raised, for the most part, in Kingston, Ontario. It was the late sixties, early to mid seventies. Enough said for those of us who lived through it-and those who didn't seem to be getting another chance to fall off platform shoes. Spent three years in the Canadian Naval Reserve: I was a cook. They'd just opened it up to women and I figured it would be the first trade that would send women to sea. I was right. Unfortunately it happened a year after I left. No tattoos. Received a degree in RADIO AND TELEVISION ARTS (B.A.A.) from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute: The year I graduated was the year that the CBC laid off 750 employees in Toronto alone. We were competing for jobs with people who had up to five years experience. The cat threw up on my degree. Spent eight years working at Bakka, North America's oldest surviving science fiction book store: Change Of Hobbit in California was actually a very little bit older but unfortunately it was a casualty of the recession in '91. During those eight years, while working full-time, I wrote seven books (the first seven, except for the original draft of CHILD), and nine short stories. In 1992, after living in downtown Toronto, a city of nearly three million, for thirteen years, I moved with two large cats, one small psychotic cat, and my partner out to a rented house in the middle of nowhere. In the years since, we've purchased the house, buried two of the original cats, replaced them with three more felines and, unintentionally, acquired a Chihuahua. You're probably wondering how two reasonably intelligent adults can unintentionally acquire a Chihuahua. Please don't ask. I love living in the country, writing full-time, anything by Charles de Lint, Xena, Hercules, and email. I dislike telephones, electric blankets, and bathroom renovations. I always expect catastrophe; as a result, I'm usually pleasantly surprised." Huff lives with her wife, Fiona Patton.

I passed a peripatetic childhood reading way too many books, and eventually writing my own little stories, either inspired by my life (such as it was) or by whatever I was reading at the time. I thought I would grow up to be an archaeologist which explains why I read The Last Days of Pompeii at the age of nine. I was fortunate to have a few teachers early on who encouraged my literary tendencies—including one who let me stay inside to read during recess. When I discovered the Society for Creative Anachronism, a medieval recreation group, I delved more deeply into medieval history, becoming enthralled with the dark castles, bloodsports and social expectations of the period. I nearly went to Fordham University for Medieval Studies, but chose Stanford instead—then withdrew as soon as humanly possible (before I ever started, as a matter of fact). By this time, my stories accumulated rejection slips faster than the DOW was rising, yet I continued to hope my writing would be the answer. I started work on a first novel during a summer writing workshop, and finally finished it some years later, while depending on the refuge of aspiring writers everywhere: working customer service and living with family. A second novel, begun with a notebook full of world-building concepts and great ambitions, lies dormant in a file my computer can no longer read. But when I met Elisha Barber, I knew I was on to something. I have to thank a local workshop with Dan Brown (slightly before he became THE Dan Brown) for my approach to the new project. Now I find that once I start reading history, science, sociology, I discover a dozen different stories hiding in the details. . . I live quietly in New England with my family, where I have just found the right dog to defend the new apple trees from the local whitetail deer population.