About the Author
Patrick Nielsen Hayden, called by the Washington Post "one of the most literate and historically aware editors in science fiction," is the winner of three Hugo Awards and the World Fantasy Award for his editorial work?. He is the editor or co-editor of several original and reprint anthologies, including the Starlight series and the young adult anthologies New Magics and New Skies. As an editor at Tor Books for over 25 years, he is responsible for publishing the debut novels of many of the field's best writers, including Maureen F. McHugh, Susan Palwick, Cory Doctorow, Jo Walton, and John Scalzi.
James Alan Gardner is a 1989 graduate of the Clarion West Science Fiction Writers Workshop, and has had several science fiction stories and novellas appear in publications such as Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Amazing Stories, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He is the author of Expendable, Commitment Hour, Vigilant, Hunted, Ascending, Trapped, and Radiant. He was the grand prize winner of the 1989 Writers of the Future contest, has won the Aurora Award, and has been nominated for the Hugo and Nebula Awards. He lives in Canada.
Yoon Ha Lee is the author of Ninefox Gambit, which won the Locus Award for Best First Novel and was shortlisted for the Hugo, Nebula, and Clarke awards; its sequels, Raven Stratagem and Revenant Gun, were also Hugo finalists. His middle grade novel Dragon Pearl won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature and was a New York Times bestseller. He lives in Louisiana with his family and a very lazy catten, and has not yet been eaten by gators.
Nnedi Okorafor, born to Igbo Nigerian parents in Cincinnati, Ohio on April 8, 1974, is an author of fantasy and science fiction for both adults and younger readers. Her children's book Long Juju Man won the 2007-08 Macmillan Writer's Prize for Africa, her adult novel Who Fears Death was a Otherwise Honor Book, and her 2025 novel Death of the Author won the NAACP Image Award for outstanding literary work in the fiction category. She holds a PhD in Literature and two Masters degrees in Journalism and Literature.
PAUL PARK is the author of A Princess of Roumania, and numerous other novels. He published his first novel in the 1980s and swiftly attracted notice as one of the finest authors on the "humanist" wing of American SF. His powerful, densely written narratives of religious and existential crisis on worlds at once exotic and familiar won him comparisons with Gene Wolfe and Brian Aldiss at their best. He lives in North Adams, Massachusetts.
Matthew Sanborn Smith is an American science fiction writer whose work has appeared at Chizine, Albedo One, GUD Magazine, and Challenging Destiny. He contributes to StarShipSofa and has his own podcast.
MICHAEL SWANWICK has received the Nebula, Theodore Sturgeon, World Fantasy and Hugo Awards, and has the pleasant distinction of having been nominated for and lost more of these same awards than any other writer. His novels include Stations of the Tide, Bones of the Earth, two Darger and Surplus novels, and The Iron Dragon's Mother. He has also written over a hundred and fifty short stories - including the Mongolian Wizard series on Tor.com - and countless works of flash fiction. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Marianne Porter.
Harry Turtledove (he/him) is an American fantasy and science fiction writer who Publishers Weekly has called the "Master of Alternate History." He has received numerous awards and distinctions, including the Hugo Award for Best Novella, the HOMer Award for Short story, and the John Esthen Cook Award for Southern Fiction. Turtledove’s works include the Crosstime Traffic, Worldwar, Darkness, and Opening of the World series; the standalone novels The House of Daniel, Fort Pillow, and Give Me Back My Legions!; and over a dozen short stories available on Tor.com. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, novelist Laura Frankos, and their four daughters.
