Kathleen Alcalá's most recent book is a republication of Spirits of the Ordinary: A Tale of Casas Grandes by Raven Chronicles Press (see book giveaway!) The Deepest Roots: Finding Food and Community on a Pacific Northwest Island, is now in paper from University of Washington Press. Combining memoir, historical records, and a blueprint for sustainability, Alcalá explores our relationship with food at the local level, delving into our common pasts and cultures to prepare for the future. With degrees from Stanford, the University of Washington, and the University of New Orleans, Kathleen is also a graduate and one-time instructor of the Clarion West Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop. Kathleen Alcalá has received a Western States Book Award, the Governors Writers Award and two Artist Trust Fellowships. She is a recent Whitely Fellow, a previous Hugo House Writer in Residence, and teaches at Hugo House and the Bainbridge Artisan Resource Network. Her sixth book, The Deepest Roots: Finding Food and Community on a Pacific Northwest Island, explores our relationship with geography, food, history, and ethnicity. “Not one tale is like another, yet all together they form a beautiful whole, a world where one would like to stay forever.” Ursula K. Le Guin on Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist. “Alcalá’s life work has been an ongoing act of translation… She has been building prismatic bridges not just between the Mexican and American cultures, but also across divides of gender, generation, religion, and ethnicity.” —Seattle Times

Hiromi’s first novel, Chorus of Mushrooms (1994), received the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book in the Caribbean and Canada region and was co-winner of the Canada-Japan Book Award. Her short stories and poetry have been widely published in literary journals and anthologies. Her second novel, The Kappa Child (2001), was a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Regional Book, and was awarded the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award. Her first children’s novel, The Water of Possibility, was also published that year. Hopeful Monsters, a collection of short stories, was released in 2004. Her YA/Crossover novel, Half World (2009), was long-listed for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and received the 2010 Sunburst Award and the Carl Brandon Society Parallax Award. Her long poem, co-written with David Bateman, came out in Fall 2009. Wait Until Late Afternoon is her first book-length poetry publication. Darkest Light, companion book to Half World, will be released in 2012 with Penguin Canada. Hiromi is an active member of the literary community, a writing instructor, editor and the mother of two children. She has served in numerous writer-in-residencies and is currently in BC, working on Darkest Light.

TANANARIVE DUE (tah-nah-nah-REEVE doo) is the award-winning author of The Wishing Pool & Other Stories and the upcoming The Reformatory ("A masterpiece"—Library Journal). She and her husband, Steven Barnes, co-wrote the Black Horror graphic novel The Keeper, illustrated by Marco Finnegan. Due and Barnes co-host a podcast, "Lifewriting: Write for Your Life!" A leading voice in Black speculative fiction for more than 20 years, Due has won an American Book Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a British Fantasy Award, and her writing has been included in best-of-the-year anthologies. Her books include Ghost Summer: Stories, My Soul to Keep, and The Good House. She and her late mother, civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due, co-authored Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights. She and her husband live with their son, Jason.