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.

Yoon Ha Lee (yoonhalee.com) is the author of several critically acclaimed short stories and the Machineries of Empire trilogy for adults: Ninefox Gambit, Raven Strategem, and Revenant Gun. Yoon draws inspiration from a variety of sources, e.g. Korean history and mythology, fairy tales, higher mathematics, classic moral dilemmas, and genre fiction.

James Alan Gardner has twice won the Aurora Award from the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association, as well as the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for short fiction, and the Asimov's Reader's Choice Award.

He lives in Ontario.

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. He has written ten novels, over a hundred and fifty short stories, and countless works of flash fiction.

Charlie Jane Anders' latest novel is The City in the Middle of the Night. She's also the author of All the Birds in the Sky, which won the Nebula, Crawford and Locus awards, and Choir Boy, which won a Lambda Literary Award. Plus a novella called Rock Manning Goes For Broke and a short story collection called Six Months, Three Days, Five Others. Her short fiction has appeared in Tor.com, Boston Review, Tin House, Conjunctions, the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Wired Magazine, Slate, Asimov's Science Fiction, Lightspeed, ZYZZYVA, Catamaran Literary Review, McSweeney's Internet Tendency and tons of anthologies. Her story "Six Months, Three Days" won a Hugo Award, and her story "Don't Press Charges And I Won't Sue" won a Theodore Sturgeon Award. Charlie Jane also organizes the monthly Writers With Drinks reading series, and co-hosts the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct with Annalee Newitz.