Born in 1987, Luke Chmilenko grew up in the city of Mississauga, Ontario spending the majority of his life within the city. Always a fan of writing and storytelling, Luke continuously wrote small short stories over the years, but never embarked on writing a full novel until much later in life, thinking it was something beyond his ability. With his interesting in writing waxing and waning as the years passed, Luke focused on his studies, eventually finding a job in the field of IT Security and working between various jobs for several years. It wasn't until after he was married and with his wife's encouragement that he finally decided to try writing a novel, this time deciding to focus on a new genre that he had just discovered called LitRPG. Diving into his work, Luke wrote his first book over the course of several months, releasing the book as a web serial chapter by chapter for free online, garnering valuable feedback and confidence from his readers. By the time Luke finished his first book and published it on amazon, he already had a hungry audience waiting for next installation, to which he immediately threw himself into working tirelessly at his newfound passion. Today, Luke now writes full time with his wife and two cats in their Burlington home, working away on his next issue of his Ascend Online series and a brand new science fiction series named Starfall. Books of Ascend Online: Ascend Online (Book 1) (2016) Ascend Online: Hell to Pay (Book 1.5) (2017) Ascend Online: Legacy of the Fallen (Book 2) (2018) Ascend Online: Glory to the Brave (Book 3) (Forthcoming 2019) Books of Starfall: Starfall (Book 1) (Forthcoming 2019)

Marie Brennan a.k.a. M.A. Carrick Marie Brennan is a former anthropologist and folklorist who shamelessly pillages her academic fields for material. She recently misapplied her professors' hard work to Turning Darkness Into Light, a sequel to the Hugo Award-nominated series The Memoirs of Lady Trent. As half of M.A. Carrick, she is also the author of The Mask of Mirrors, first in the Rook and Rose trilogy. For more information, visit swantower.com, Twitter @swan_tower, or her Patreon.

Hi, I'm M. L. Wang, writer of sci-fi & fantasy, winner of Mark Lawrence's 5th Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off (SPFBO). I'm rarely on Goodreads, so if you need to get in touch, please see the contact page of my website: https://mlwangbooks.com/contact/

Terry Mancour is a New York Times Best-Selling Author who has written more than 30 books, under his own name and pseudonyms, including Star Trek: The Next Generation #20, Spartacus, the Spellmonger Series (more than 11 books and growing), among other works. He was born in Flint, Michigan in 1968 (according to his mother) and wisely relocated to North Carolina in 1978 where he embraced Southern culture and its dedication to compelling narratives and intriguing characterizations. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he majored in Religious Studies. Terry, his beautiful wife and three children live just outside of Durham, N.C. atop Red Mountain. He was nominated for the 2018 Audie Award for Best Fantasy for the audiobook for Spellmonger (narrated by John Lee), the first book in his Spellmonger Series. He has plotted the Spellmonger Series for at least thirty books, in addition to his Spellmonger Cadet (young adult) series, stand-alone novels, short stories and novellas set within the Spellmonger Universe, all of which will be published by Podium as audiobooks. He is also the author of a series of sequels to Golden Age sci-fi master H. Beam Piper's novel, Space Viking, as well as original sci-fi novels.

Philip C. Quaintrell is the author of the epic fantasy series, The Echoes Saga, as well as the Terran Cycle sci-fi series. He was born in Cheshire in 1989 and started his career as an emergency nurse. Having always been a fan of fantasy and sci-fi fiction Philip started to find himself feeling frustrated as he read books, wanting to delve into the writing himself to tweak characters and storylines. He decided to write his first novel as a hobby to escape from nursing and found himself swept away into the world he'd created. Even now he talks about how the characters tell him what they're going to do next, rather than the other way around. With his first book written, and a good few rejected agency submissions under his belt, he decided to throw himself in at the deep end and self-publish. 2 months and £60 worth of sales in, he took his wife out to dinner to celebrate an achievement ticked off his bucket list - blissfully unaware this was just the beginning. Fast forward a year and he was self-publishing book 1 of his second series (The Echoes Saga; a fantasy series written purely as a means to combat his sci-fi writers' block). With no discernible marketing except the 'Amazon algorithm' the book was in the amazon bestsellers list in at least 4 countries within a month. With 7 of 9 books released, the Echoes Saga has now surpassed 300k copies sold worldwide, has an option agreement for a potential TV-series in the pipeline and Amazon now puts Philip's sales figures in the top 1.8% of self-published authors worldwide. Now an official 'Full Time Author' Philip lives in Cheshire, England with his wife and toddler son, and still finds time between naps and wiping snot off his clothes to remain a movie aficionado and comic book connoisseur, and is hoping this is still just the beginning. email: philipcquaintrell@gmail.com - I reply to them all! Check out my author page on Facebook or my Instagram using Philip C. Quaintrell.