I've been a canoe instructor, camp counselor, volunteer worker, house painter, inept waitress, receptionist, freelance writer, writing instructor, ESL instructor, drama mentor, director of plays, elementary school teacher, mother, and a social justice and environmental activist. I suppose I'm still all of those things. My first breakthrough came when I won the grade 8 Writing Award for grade 8. The English teacher must have been amazed by my six-page poem dedicated to Bobby Orr. (Mr. Orr never replied.) Later, I wrote articles for parenting magazines as I muddled through a few happy, hazy years with three children. ("Today's Parent" and "Canadian Living".) Recently, my short stories have been published in the Imagine 2200: Climate FIction for Future Ancestors (Grist/Fix Magazine. "Benni and Shiya..."), Alluvian Journal, Flyway Journal, Alium Journal, The New Quarterly, The Yale Review Online, The Penmen Review, Feminine Collective, The Dalhousie Review, The Antigonish Review, Room, Toasted Cheese, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Everyday Fiction and others. Lately, my sci fi stories have appeared in Tesseracts 21 (Edge Publishing) and inGlass, Gardens & Solarpunk Summers and “Glass and Garden, Solarpunk Winters” (World Weaver Press), as well as “Solarpunk: Dalla disperazione alla strategia” (Future Fiction), all available for order from the publishers or online. Another is forthcoming in "Solarpunk Creatures." I think that a well-written story should move you, and perhaps, wake you up a morsel. I'm also the proud Director of "Youth Imagine the Future—a Festival of Writing & Art", held across a large chunk of Eastern Ontario, Anishnaabe and Haudenosaunee territory. The art and stories that the youth, grades 7-12, created were dazzling last year. Excited to see this year's batch! Please check the website: Youthimaginethefuture.com Why not run a similar sort of festival in your region, or at your college or university? Climate Anxiety and Climate Depression are growing among young people. A festival like this helps to turn folx toward positive, realistic solutions. We know the problems caused by the Climate Crisis. We don't need any more dystopias. We need to see how different solutions might help us to have a better future.

I am a sci-fi geek from upstate New York, where I crochet, watch Doctor Who, and threaten to run over people in my wheelchair. My work has been featured in several anthologies and my debut novella Anachronism is now available. I write weird and hopeful sci-fi and fantasy full of LGBTQIA+ characters, disabled characters, and the occasional Jurassic Park references. I hope my stories can be a safe and welcoming place no matter your gender, ability, race, religion, or orientation. I write stories I want my grandma to read without blushing - sex may be mentioned (I do love a good innuendo) but will never happen on the page, violence is handled with care and is not gory, and most stories do not contain swear words (the ones that do are used sparingly and only when appropriate to the character). I'm that nerd who can recite the periodic table backwards, can talk about dinosaurs for hours, and has a betta fish named Fincess Leia. My debut novel, JACK JETSTARK'S INTERGALACTIC FREAKSHOW, will be published by World Weaver Press in 2019. Find my work here. I'm on the Twitter and I have a blog.

American author Gregory Scheckler lives in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. He enjoys both Star Trek and Star Wars and he isn’t afraid to say so in public. He and his wife are avid telemark skiers, and enjoy mountain biking and hiking too. He wrote the science fiction novels Biomimic Generations, StarFold and the Infinite Things Series (all forthcoming) as well as numerous short stories, including the collections Water Taxi in a River of Vampire Fish, Future Build, and Moon Dust Infinity. Writings credits include World Weaver Press, The Berkshire Review, the Mind’s Eye Liberal Arts Journal, and Thought & Action: Journal of the National Education Association. Selected visual arts credits include Ferrin Gallery, the Washburn Historical and Cultural Museum, Duluth Art Institute, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, the Bennington Museum, the Berkshire Museum, and the National Science Foundation. In addition to writing and exhibiting, Gregory Scheckler currently serves as Professor of Art at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, where he teaches critical thinking, creativity and innovation.