Janny Wurts is the author of the Cycle of Fire series, co-author of the worldwide bestselling Empire series with Raymond E. Feist, and is currently working on the Wars of Light and Shadow series.

She often paints her own covers and is also an expert horsewoman, sailor, musician and archer.

Deborah A. Wolf has some personal knowledge of life as a barbarian warrior, having grown up in a wildlife refuge in Alaska. She later worked as an Arabic linguist for the US Army.

Before Wolf's formative years in Alaska, she spent some of her early years on a deserted island. She has a love of different cultures where she can use those settings to create giant monsters, as well as flora and fauna. Deborah currently lives in northern Michigan.

Adrian Tchaikovsky is the author of the acclaimed Shadows of the Apt fantasy series and the epic science fiction blockbuster Children of Time.

He has won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, a British Fantasy Society Award, and been nominated for the David Gemmell Legend Award.

In civilian life he is a lawyer, gamer and amateur entomologist.

Brian Staveley is the author of the award-winning fantasy trilogy, The Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne, which has been translated into a dozen languages worldwide, The Ashes of the Unhewn Throne trilogy, and Skullsworn, a stand-alone novel set in the same world. After teaching literature, philosophy, history, and religion for more than a decade, Brian began writing fiction. He now lives on a steep dirt road in the mountains of southern Vermont, where he divides his time between fathering, writing, mountain biking, splitting wood, skiing, and adventuring, not necessarily in that order.

Matthew Ward has frequently been accused of living in worlds of his own imagination, though really he lives near Nottingham with his extremely patient wife and several attention-seeking cats.

Alex Marshall is a pseudonym for Jesse Bullington, acclaimed author of several novels in different genres including The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart and The Enterprise of Death. He lives in Florida.

Bradley Beaulieu is an award-winning epic fantasy novelist who runs the successful SF and fantasy podcast Speculate.

He lives in Wisconsin, USA.