Nnedi Okorafor was born in the United States to Nigerian parents of Igbo descent. Her novels include Who Fears Death (winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel), Akata Witch (an Amazon.com Best Book of the Year), Zahrah the Windseeker (winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for African Literature), and The Shadow Speaker (winner of the CBS Parallax Award).

Her work spans several genres and age ranges, as evidenced by her short story collection Kabu Kabu and science fiction novel Lagoon (finalist for Best Novel in the British Science Fiction Association Awards and the Red Tentacle Awards).

Her latest release, Binti, won both the Hugo Award for Best Novella and the Nebula Award for Best Novella. Nnedi is an associate professor at the University at Buffalo, New York. She splits her time between Buffalo and Chicago with her daughter Anyaugo and family.

Paul James McAuley was born in Gloucestershire on St George's Day, 1955. He has a Ph.D in Botany and worked as a researcher in biology at various universities, including Oxford and UCLA, and for six years was a lecturer in botany at St Andrews University, before leaving academia to write full time.

He started publishing science fiction with the short story "Wagon, Passing" for Asimov's Science Fiction in 1984. His first novel, 400 Billion Stars won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1988, and 1995's Fairyland won the Arthur C. Clarke and John W. Campbell Awards. He has also won the British Fantasy, Sidewise and Theodore Sturgeon Awards. He lives in London.

Ian McDonald was born in 1960 in Manchester, England, to an Irish mother and a Scottish father. He moved with his family to Northern Ireland in 1965. He is the author of Luna: New Moon and Luna: Wolf Moon. He has won the Locus Award, the British Science Fiction Association Award, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. He now lives in Belfast.

Neil Clarke is the editor of Clarkesworld and Forever Magazine; owner of Wyrm Publishing; and a five-time Hugo Award Nominee for Best Editor (short form).

He currently lives in New Jersey with his wife and two children.