Rich Larson was born in Galmi, Niger, has studied in Rhode Island and worked in the south of Spain, and now lives in Ottawa, Canada. Since he began writing in 2011, he’s sold over a hundred stories, the majority of them speculative fiction published in magazines like Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, F&SF, Lightspeed, and Tor.com. His work appears in numerous Year’s Best anthologies and has been translated into Chinese, Vietnamese, Polish, French and Italian. Annex, his debut novel and first book of The Violet Wars trilogy, comes out in July 2018 with Orbit Books. Tomorrow Factory, his debut collection, follows in October 2018 with Talos Press. Besides writing, he enjoys travelling, learning languages, playing soccer, watching basketball, shooting pool, and dancing kizomba.

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.

Lorina Stephens has worked as editor, freelance journalist for national and regional print media, been a festival organizer, publicist, lectures on many historical topics from textiles to domestic technologies, teaches, and continues to work as a writer and artist. Her short fiction has appeared in Polar Borealis, On Spec, Strangers Among Us, Postscripts to Darkness, Neo-Opsis, Stories of the Deluge, and Sword & Sorceress X. Book credits include: Tesseracts 22: Alchemy and Artifacts, co-editor with Susan MacGregor, Edge Publishing, 2019 The Rose Guardian, Five Rivers Publishing, 2019 Caliban, Five Rivers Publishing, 2018 Stonehouse Cooks, Five Rivers Publishing, 2011, From Mountains of Ice, Five Rivers Publishing, 2009, And the Angels Sang, Five Rivers Publishing, 2008, Shadow Song, Five Rivers Publishing, 2008, Recipes of a Dumb Housewife, Lulu Publishing 2007, Credit River Valley, Boston Mills Press 1994 Touring the Giant’s Rib: A Guide to the Niagara Escarpment; Boston Mills Press 1993 You can follow her at: lorinastephens.com @LorinaStephens https://www.facebook.com/LorinaStephen...

Raised in Simcoe and Bradford, Ontario, James Alan Gardner earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Applied Mathematics from the University of Waterloo. A graduate of the Clarion West Fiction Writers Workshop, Gardner has published science fiction short stories in a range of periodicals, including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Amazing Stories. In 1989, his short story "Children of the Creche" was awarded the Grand Prize in the Writers of the Future contest. Two years later his story "Muffin Explains Teleology to the World at Large" won an Aurora Award; another story, "Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream," won an Aurora and was nominated for both the Nebula and Hugo Awards. He has written a number of novels in a "League of Peoples" universe in which murderers are defined as "dangerous non-sentients" and are killed if they try to leave their solar system by aliens who are so advanced that they think of humans like humans think of bacteria. This precludes the possibility of interstellar wars. He has also explored themes of gender in his novels, including Commitment Hour in which people change sex every year, and Vigilant in which group marriages are traditional. Gardner is also an educator and technical writer. His book Learning UNIX is used as a textbook in some Canadian universities. A Grand Prize winner of the Writers of the Future contest, he lives with his family in Waterloo, Ontario.

Born in Tunis to German parents, Ursula Pflug grew up in Toronto and attended the University of Toronto and The Ontario College of Art and Design. She travelled widely, living on her own in Hawai'i and in New York City as a teen in the late seventies. Formerly a graphic artist, Pflug began concentrating on her writing after moving to the rural Kawarthas to raise a family with the internationally known new media sculptor Doug Back. Her first novel, the critically acclaimed magic realist/fantasy Green Music was published by Tesseract Books in 2002. Her long awaited story collection After the Fires was published by Tightrope Books in 2008. ATF received advance praise from Matthew Cheney and Jeff VanderMeer and an Honourable Mention from the Sunburst Award jury. It was short-listed for the Aurora Award. Her second novel, the YA/Adult crossover The Alphabet Stones (Blue Denim, 2013) received advance praise from Charles DeLint, Tim Wynne-Jones, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Candas Jane Dorsey, Jan Thornill and more. The Alphabet Stones was a finalist for the ReLit. In 2014 a YA/Adult flash novel, Motion Sickness (illustrated by SK Dyment) appeared from Inanna, and was also a finalist for the ReLit Award. Motion Sickness received advance praise from Heather Spears. In addition, a new story collection, Harvesting The Moon, was published by PS in Great Britain, with advance praise from Jeff VanderMeer and an introduction by Candas Jane Dorsey. Also in 2014, Pflug`s first edited book, the fundraiser anthology They Have To Take You In, appeared from Hidden Brook Press. The beneficiary was The Dana Fund, administered by the CMHA, a no-overhead fund to benefit women and families in transition. THTTYI includes stories from Michelle Berry, Jan Thornhill, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Silvia Moreno-Garcia and more. 2015 saw the publication of Playground of Lost Toys (Exile) co-edited with Colleen Anderson. Playground was shortlisted for the Aurora Award. 2017 and 2018 saw the publication of two novellas, Mountain and Down From (Snuggly). Mountain (Inanna) was a finalist for The Sunburst Award, and received advance praise from Heather Spears and Candas Jane Dorsey. In 2020 her third story collection, Seeds, appeared from Inanna. 2021 will see the release of a new edited anthology, Food of My people, co-edited with Candas Jane Dorsey. A writer of both genre and literary short fiction, Pflug has published over ninety stories in award winning publications in Canada, the United States and the UK, including Strange Horizons, Fantasy, Lightspeed, Now Magazine, The Nine Muses, Quarry, Tesseracts, Leviathan, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Nemonymous, Back Brain Recluse, Transversions, Bamboo Ridge, Bandersnatch, Postscripts, Herizons, Chizine and many others. She has had several solo or co-authored plays produced by professional companies, and was a contributing editor at The Peterborough Review for three years. Pflug’s first published short story, “Memory Lapse at The Waterfront” has been reprinted in After The Fires. Pflug wrote the script and storyboard for the short film version, directed by Carol McBride. “Waterfont” toured festivals and was purchased by WTN. Pflug has received numerous Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council and Laidlaw Foundation grants in support of her novels, short fiction, criticism and plays. She has previously been a finalist for the KM Hunter Award, the Descant Novella Contest, the Three Day Novel Contest, the Aurora Award and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee. Pflug mentors private clients in creative writing and has taught short fiction writing at Loyalist College, The Campbellford Resource Centre, and Trent University (with Derek Newman-Stille.) For several years she was artistic director at Cat Sass Reading Series, in Norwood, Ontario, showcasing local, national, and internationally touring authors. The series received funding from The Writers Union of Canad

Kelley Armstrong has been telling stories since before she could write. Her earliest written efforts were disastrous. If asked for a story about girls and dolls, hers would invariably feature undead girls and evil dolls, much to her teachers' dismay. All efforts to make her produce "normal" stories failed. Today, she continues to spin tales of ghosts and demons and werewolves, while safely locked away in her basement writing dungeon. She's the author of the NYT-bestselling "Women of the Otherworld" paranormal suspense series and "Darkest Powers" young adult urban fantasy trilogy, as well as the Nadia Stafford crime series. Armstrong lives in southwestern Ontario with her husband, kids and far too many pets.