Samuel Sykes began writing his debut novel, Tome of the Undergates (the first book in his Aeon's Gate trilogy) when he was seventeen.

Since then, he has also written Black Halo, The Skybound Sea and the Bring Down Heaven trilogy that begins with The City Stained Red. He currently lives in the US, where he is working on his next novel.

Joe Abercrombie is the author of the First Law Trilogy (The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings). His standalone novels (Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country) are also set in the First Law world.

His novels have been shortlisted for the World Fantasy Awards, British Fantasy Awards, John W. Campbell Award and the David Gemmell Legend Awards.

His covers are also award winning, and have won both the David Gemmell Legend Award and the World Fantasy Award for best artwork. Joe formerly worked as a freelance film editor and is now a full time writer who lives in Bath with his family.

Jason M. Hough is the New York Times bestselling author of Gears of War: Ascendance, The Dire Earth Cycle and the near-future Zero World, which Publisher's Weekly called "a thrilling action rampage that confirms Hough as an important new voice in genre fiction." He's been a 3D artist, animator, and game designer (Metal Fatigue, Aliens vs. Predator: Extinction, and others), and has worked in high-performance cluster computing and machine learning.

Kristen Britain lives in New Mexico where she writes full time and pursues interests including reading, guitar playing, and illustration.

She enjoys exploring the magical places around her and can often be found paddling a canoe in stillwater, ambling through the woods to mountain summits, or sitting along the rocky shore listening, watching, and daydreaming.

Anthony Ryan lives in London and is the New York Times bestselling author of the Raven's Shadow and Draconis Memoria series.

He previously worked in a variety of roles for the UK government, but now writes full time. His interests include art, science and the unending quest for the perfect pint of real ale.

Terry Brooks is the New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty books, including the Dark Legacy of Shannara adventures Wards of Faerie and Bloodfire Quest

The Legends of Shannara novels Bearers of the Black Staff and The Measure of the Magic; the Genesis of Shannara trilogy Armageddon's Children, The Elves of Cintra and The Gypsy Morph; and The Sword of Shannara.

The author was a practising attorney for many years but now writes full time. He lives with his wife, Judine, in the Pacific Northwest.

Brian McClellan is an American epic fantasy author from Cleveland, Ohio.

He is known for his acclaimed Powder Mage Universe and essays on the life and business of being a writer.

Brian now lives on the side of a mountain in Utah with his wife, Michele, where he writes books and nurses a crippling video game addiction.

Delilah S. Dawson is the writer of the Blud series, the Shadow series (as Lila Bowen), Servants of the Storm, Hit, Strike, and a variety of short stories and comics. Dawson teaches writing courses online for LitReactor and lives in Florida with her family.

Mary Robinette Kowal is the 2008 recipient of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, a multiple Hugo winner, and a frequent finalist for the Nebula and Locus Awards.

A professional puppeteer and voice actor, she spent five years touring nationally with puppet theatres. She lives in Chicago with her husband Rob and nine manual typewriters.

Seanan McGuire is the author of the Hugo, Nebula, Alex and Locus Award-winning Wayward Children series, the October Daye series, the InCryptid series, and other works.

She also writes darker fiction as Mira Grant. Seanan lives in Seattle with her cats, a vast collection of creepy dolls, horror movies, and sufficient books to qualify her as a fire hazard.

She won the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and in 2013 became the first person to appear five times on the same Hugo ballot.

Jim Butcher is the author of the Dresden Files, the Codex Alera and the Cinder Spires series. His resume includes a laundry list of skills which were useful a couple of centuries ago, and he plays guitar quite badly. An avid gamer, Jim plays tabletop games in varying systems, a variety of video games and LARPs whenever he can make time for it. He currently resides mostly inside his own head, but his head can generally be found in his home town of Independence, Missouri.

Mark Lawrence was born in Champagne-Urbanan, Illinois, to British parents but moved to the UK at the age of one. He went back to the US after taking a PhD in mathematics at Imperial College to work on a variety of research projects including the ‘Star Wars’ missile defence programme.

Returning to the UK, he has worked mainly on image processing and decision/reasoning theory. He says he never had any ambition to be a writer so was very surprised when a half-hearted attempt to find an agent turned into a global publishing deal overnight.

His first trilogy, The Broken Empire, has been universally acclaimed as a ground-breaking work of fantasy, and both Emperor of Thorns and The Liar’s Key have won the Gemmell Legend award for best fantasy novel. Mark is married, with four children, and lives in Bristol.

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.

Rachel Caine is the author of over thirty novels, including the bestselling Morganville Vampires series. She has been an accountant, an insurance investigator and a professional musician, playing with such musical legends as Henry Mancini, Peter Nero and John Williams. She and her husband, fantasy artist R. Cat Conrad, live in Texas.