N. K. Jemisin is a Brooklyn-based author and the winner of three Hugo Awards for her novels The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky.

She previously won the Locus Award for her first novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and her short fiction and novels have been nominated multiple times for Hugo, World Fantasy and Nebula awards, and shortlisted for the Crawford and the James Tiptree, Jr. Awards.

She is a science fiction and fantasy reviewer for the New York Times.

Victor LaValle is the author of six previous works of fiction. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, the Shirley Jackson Award and the Key to Southeast Queens.

He lives in New York with his wife and children and teaches at Columbia University.

Alyssa Wong writes award-winning fiction, comics, and games. Their stories have won the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the Locus Award.

Alyssa was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and their fiction has been shortlisted for the Hugo, Bram Stoker, and Shirley Jackson Awards.

Alyssa’s comics credits include Star Wars: Doctor Aphra, Marvel (Shang-Chi, Iron Fist, Alligator Loki, Extreme Carnage), DC (Batwoman, Wonder Woman), and Adventure Time. Alyssa has also written for Overwatch and Blizzard Entertainment’s Story and Franchise Development.

Nina Allan is a novelist and short story writer. Her previous fiction has won several prizes, including the British Science Fiction Award for Best Novel, the Novella Award and the Grand Prix de L'Imaginaire for Best Translated Work. She lives and works in Rothesay, on the Isle of Bute. The Dollmaker is her third novel.

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.

Fran Wilde is an author and technology consultant. In 2015, her debut novel, Updraft, won the Andre Norton Award for Best Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy and was nominated for the Best Novel Nebula Award.

While not working on her Bone Universe books, Wilde writes short stories for various popular SFF publications and blogs about food and genre for Cooking the Books, the popular social-parenting website GeekMom, and at The Washington Post.

Carrie Vaughn is the New York Times Bestselling author of more than twenty novels and over eighty short stories. She's best known for the Kitty Norville urban fantasy series about a werewolf who hosts a talk radio advice show for supernatural beings.

She's also a contributor to the Wild Cards series of shared-world novels edited by George R.R. Martin. She has been nominated for various awards, including the Hugo and RT Reviewer Choice Awards.