Yoon Ha Lee is a writer and mathematician from Houston, Texas, whose work has appeared in Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and The Magazine Of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He has published over forty short stories, and his critically acclaimed collection, Conservation of Shadows, was released in 2013. He lives in Louisiana with his family and an extremely lazy cat, and has not yet been eaten by gators.

Steven Barnes is a best selling, award-winning screenwriter and novelist from Los Angeles. He has written over twenty novels and worked on shows such as The Outer Limits, Stargate SG-1, and Baywatch. His true love is teaching balance and enhancing human performance in all forms: emotional, professional, and physical.

Aliette de Bodard is an engineer, a writer, and a keen amateur cook. Her love of mythology and history led her to speculative fiction early on. She is the author of The House of Shattered Wings, the first Dominion of the Fallen novel, plus numerous short stories, the Aztec noir trilogy Obsidian and Blood, and the award-nominated On a Red Station, Drifting, a space opera based on Vietnamese culture. She has won two Nebula Awards and a Locus Award.

Nnedi Okorafor, born to Igbo Nigerian parents in Cincinnati, Ohio, is an author of fantasy and science fiction for both adults and younger readers. Her Tor.com novella Binti won the 2015 Hugo and Nebula Awards; her children’s book Long Juju Man (Macmillan, 2009) won the 2007-08 Macmillan Writer’s Prize for Africa; and her adult novel Who Fears Death (DAW, 2010) was a Tiptree Honor Book.