When she’s not writing, Sherman is teaching, editing, knitting, and traveling. She lives in New York City with Ellen Kushner, piles of books, some nice Arts and Crafts wallpaper, and a very Victorian rock collection.
Dave Smeds is the author of novels such as The Sorcery Within and Piper in the Night. His short fiction has appeared in magazines such as Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Realms of Fantasy, and anthologies such as In the Field of Fire, Full Spectrum 4, Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn, Best New Horror 7, The Shimmering Door, and a dozen volumes of the Sword and Sorceress series. Known primarily for writing high fantasy, his work also includes hard science fiction, contemporary fantasy, horror, and erotica. Some of the latter was collected in Earthly Pleasures under the pseudonym Reed Manning. His latest book is the high-fantasy collection Raiding the Hoard of Enchantment.
Brian Stableford’s recent fiction includes a series of novels and novellas featuring Edgar Allan Poe’s proto-detective Auguste Dupin, which includes The Quintessence of August, The Cthulhu Encryption, and Journey to the Core of Creation. He is also translating numerous French scientific romances and other exotica from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Recent works in the series include Louise Michel’s anarchist thriller The Human Microbes and Félicien Champsaur’s Ouha, King of the Apes, about the missing link between Tarzan and King Kong.
Ellen Steiber has written many books for young readers, as well as a number of essays on mythology, gemstones, and jewelry. A Rumor of Gems is her latest novel, and she is currently working on the sequel. Some of her most recent essays have appeared in Demigods and Monsters, The World of the Golden Compass, and Nyx in the House of Night: Mythology, Folklore and Religion in the P.C. and Kristin Cast Vampyre Series.
“In the Season of Rains” grew out of the author’s realization that her own writing seemed to draw on many mythic traditions other than her own. There is only one mention of Lilith in the five books of Moses, but references to her have been found on stone tablets dating back to 2000 B.C. The lines of poetry that Lilith quotes are from the King James translation of “The Song of Songs.” The story was also inspired by the Sonoran desert, where Steiber shares a home with her husband and a mischievous young cat. The garden behind her house bears a passing resemblance to Enrique’s garden in the story. Please visit her website at www.ellensteiber.com.
Michael Swanwick lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Marianne Porter. Swanwick’s latest novel is Dancing with Bears (2011), a post-utopian adventure featuring confidence artists Darger and Surplus, currently available in paperback. Swanwick is at work on two new novels.
Mark W. Tiedemann began publishing science fiction stories professionally after attending the Clarion West Writers Workshop in 1988. He has subsequently published more than fifty short stories, numerous reviews and essays, and ten novels. Compass Reach was shortlisted for the Philip K. Dick Award in 2002 and Remains was shortlisted for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 2005.
He served on the board of the Missouri Center for the Book for nine years, five as president, during which time he oversaw the creation of the Missouri State Poet Laureate post. He is a lifelong resident of St. Louis, Missouri.
Elizabeth Wein lives in Scotland with her husband and two children. She is the author of The Winter Prince and the Mark of Solomon duology, consisting of The Lion Hunter and The Empty Kingdom. The Lion Hunter was shortlisted for the Andre Norton Award in 2008.
Wein’s most recent novel, Code Name Verity, is a Boston Globe/Horn Book Award Honor book. The author describes it as “a World War II spies ’n’ pilots thriller.” Wein is the holder of a private pilot’s license and an increasing collection of random wartime ephemera.
Conrad Williams is the award-winning author of seven novels, four novellas, and more than one hundred short stories, some of which have been collected in Use Once Then Destroy and Born with Teeth. He has also edited an anthology of weird cowboy fiction, Gutshot. He lives in Manchester, England, with his wife and three sons. His latest novel is Loss of Separation (2011).
Jane Yolen, often called “the Hans Christian Andersen of America,” is the author of more than three hundred books, most (but not all) for children. Her books and stories have won two Nebula awards, a World Fantasy Award, a Caldecott Medal, three Golden Kite awards, three Mythopoeic awards, two Christopher Medals, a Jewish Book Award, and a nomination for the National Book Award, among others. She is also the winner (for body of work) of the Kerlan Award, the World Fantasy Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Grand Master award, the Skylark Award from the New England Science Fiction Association, the Catholic Library’s Regina Medal, and the 2012 de Grummond Medal. Six colleges and universities have given her honorary doctorates. For more information, visit her website at: www.janeyolen.com.
A Biography of Ellen Datlow
ELLEN DATLOW IS AN ACCLAIMED, AWARD-WINNING science fiction, fantasy, and horror editor.
Born and raised in New York, Datlow aspired to be a veterinarian when she was a child, but changed her plans when she realized how much she preferred reading and writing to math and science. Her first publishing job was in the New York office of Little, Brown & Co. in 1973. During the next eight years she worked at a handful of other publishing companies before finally finding her calling in 1981 as an editor of short fiction at OMNI magazine, where she worked until 1998. She has also worked at the online magazine Event Horizon and at scifi.com.
Datlow has edited more than fifty anthologies, including the bestselling collections Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy, Supernatural Noir, and Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror. She has published important science fiction and fantasy writers such as Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Ursula K. Le Guin, Clive Barker, William S. Burroughs, and many more.
She has also edited or co-edited numerous critically acclaimed anthologies of speculative fiction, including the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror series. She often collaborates with renowned co-editor Terri Windling, with whom she worked on Snow White, Blood Red, a work of adult fairy tales that has been one of their most successful projects together.
Datlow is the recipient of several awards, including multiple Shirley Jackson awards and Bram Stoker awards, Hugo Awards for Best Professional Editor, Hugo Awards for Best Short Form Editor, and Locus Awards for Best Editor, to name just a few. She also received the Karl Edward Wagner Award for “outstanding contribution to the genre.” In 2011, she was the recipient of a Life Achievement Award by the Horror Writers Association. Datlow also co-hosts a popular reading series, Fantastic Fiction, at the KGB Bar in New York City, where she resides.