Barth Anderson
Barth Anderson's short fiction has appeared in Asimov's, Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, and a variety of other quality venues. Seven of his stories have received honorable mentions in The Year?s Best Fantasy and Horror, and Barth was the winner of the Spectrum Award for best short fiction in 2004. This year, his novel The Magician and The Fool was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. A sustainable foods advocate, Barth blogs regularly at www.fairfoodfight.com.

Eleanor Arnason
Eleanor is the author of five published novels, and a number of short stories and poems. She won the first James Tiptree, Jr. award, and the Mythopoeic Society's Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for her novel "A Woman of the Iron People", the Spectrum Award (for "Dapple") and the HOMer Award (for her novelette Stellar Harvest). Stellar Harvest also was nominated for a Hugo Award in 2000. In 2003 she was nominated for two Nebula Awards, for her novella "Potter of Bones" and her short story "Knapsack Poems", also the Minnesota Book Award for "Ring of Swords".

Brian Attebery
Brian Attebery is the author of Decoding Gender in Science Fiction, published by Routledge. The book grew partly out of the experiences of editing the Norton Book of Science Fiction with Ursula K. Le Guin and of serving as a judge for the Tiptree Award (in what Karen Joy Fowler calls the "coveted token male position"). He has also written two award-winning books on fantasy and is now editor of the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts.

Lois McMaster Bujold
Lois McMaster Bujold is an acclaimed Science Fiction and Fantasy author, having won the Hugo Award for best novel four times, matching Robert A. Heinlein's record. Her novella "The Mountains of Mourning" and "Paladin of Souls" won both the Hugo and Nebula Award. In the fantasy sphere, The Curse of Chalion won the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature and was nominated for the 2002 World Fantasy Award for best novel. Best known for her series of novels featuring Miles Vorkosigan, earlier titles are generally firmly in the space opera tradition, while in more recent volumes Miles becomes more of a detective. In A Civil Campaign, Bujold explores yet another genre: a high-society romance with a plot that pays tribute to Regency romance novelist Georgette Heyer (as acknowledged in the dedication). Her book Ethan of Athos, set in the same universe as her Vorkosigan books but with different characters, explores how an all-male society might work. Website: http://www.dendarii.com/

Monica Ferris
Monica’s first mystery novel series (as Mary Monica Pulver) were about Peter Brichter, a Minnesota police detective. The first in that series, “Murder at the War” was nominated for an Anthony as Best First Novel. Subsequently she collaborated Gail Frazer (writing as Margaret Frazer), writing six novels of the tales of a medieval nun at the priory of Saint Frideswide, in the days of Thomas Chaucer (son of Geoffrey Chaucer). In 1998 Monica began writing her current and most successful series for Berkley featuring amateur needleworking sleuth Betsy Devonshire, set in current-day Excelsior, Minnesota (the Crewel World series after the first book in the series). She has also written a number of short stories both by herself and in collaboration. Her website is: http://www.monica-ferris.com

Catherine Lundoff
Catherine Lundoff is the editor of the fantasy and horror anthology Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades: Lesbian Ghost Stories (Lethe Press, 2008). She is also the author of the erotica collections Crave: Tales of Lust, Love and Longing (Lethe Press, 2007) and Night’s Kiss (Torquere Press, 2005) as well as over sixty published short stories. She is a Golden Crown and Lesbian Fiction Readers Choice Award winner, a Spectrum Award short fiction finalist and a contributor to Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy: An Encyclopedia (Greenwood Press, 2008). Website: http://www.visi.com/~clundoff.

Lee Martindale
Lee believes in enjoying life, making a difference, and writing good stories. Evidence that she does all three can be found in numerous venues ranging from three SWORD AND SORCERESS volumes, through multiple Yard Dog Press projects, to Esther Friesner’s TURN THE OTHER CHICK. She's edited a groundbreaking anthology (SUCH A PRETTY FACE), released a CD of original filk music (THE LADIES OF TRADE TOWN) and an audiochapbook CD (TO STAND AS WITNESS: THREE ARTHURIAN TALES). Her latest works include PREJUDICE BY THE POUND, a collection of essays and editorials from ten years of Rump Parliament Magazine, and stories in CATOPOLIS, WITCH WAY TO THE MALL and WARRIOR WISEWOMAN 2.

Lyda Morehouse
Lyda Morehouse is the award-winning author of the AngeLINK series, and the alter ego of Tate Hallaway, the New York Times best-selling romance writer of the Garnet Lacey vampire chick-lit books. (If all goes according to plans,) a prequel to the AngeLINK books, RESURRECTION CODE, and a reissue of the Shamus Award winning ARCHANGEL PROTOCOL has been published by small press publisher Mad Norwegian Press. Tate's latest book BETTER DEAD THAN WED came out in May 2009. Lyda lives in St. Paul, MN with her partner of twenty three years and their son Mason, five cats, and many, many fish. Lyda (and Tate) can be found all over the web, including YouTube, but you can start with http://www.lydamorehouse.com

Warren Rochelle
Warren Rochelle, Associate Professor of English at the University of Mary Washington, in Fredericskburg, Virginia, earned a Ph.D. (1997) in English and an MFA (1991) in creative writing from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro , after receiving an M.S. (1978) in library service from Columbia University and a B.A (1977) in English from theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill . Dr. Rochelle has had his work published in several journals including Foundation (1999, 2002, 2005, 2006) and Extrapolation (1996, 1999, 2006, 2007), as well as in two essay collections, More Lights than one on the Fiction of Fred Chappell (2004) and Teaching Ideas for University English: What Really Works(2004). His critical work, Communities of the Heart: The Rhetoric of Myth in the Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin, was published by Liverpool University Press in 2001. His creative works have appeared in various journals such as The North Carolina Literary Review, Forbidden Lines, Aboriginal Science Fiction, Colonnades, and Graffiti, as well as the Asheville Poetry Review, GW Magazine, Crucible, The Charlotte Poetry Review, Romance and Beyond, and in The Silver Gryphon (2003), a short story collection. Dr. Rochelle also is the author of two novels: The Wild Boy (2001) and Harvest of Changelings (2007).

Daniel Wallace
Daniel is a local sci-fi writer in the Twin Cities, specializing in familiar universes like Star Wars, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Indiana Jones, and Smallville. Some of my books include The Art of Superman Returns, The Marvel Encyclopedia, The DC Comics Encyclopedia, and the New York Times bestselling Star Wars: The New Essential Guide to Characters.