Catopolis

Lee Martindale’s work has appeared in such anthologies as

Turn The Other Chick, Lowport, A Time To… Outside The Box, three volumes of the Sword & Sorceress series, three of the Bubbas Of The Apocalypse series, and three chapbook collections from Yard Dog Press. She also edited the ground-breaking Such A Pretty Face. When not slinging fiction, Lee is a Named Bard, Lifetime Active Member of SFWA, a fencing member of the SFWA Musketeers, and a member of the SCA. She and her husband, George, share a Plano, Texas, home with two feline goddesses-Mistletoe and Eggnog-and fond memories of Pixel and Chiya, to whom “Old Age And Sorcery” is dedicated.

Jana Paniccia lives in Toronto, although she tries to get out of the city as much as possible, preferably to visit more places she’s never been before. Her short stories have appeared in a number of anthologies, most recently,

Children of Magic, Fantasy Gone Wrong, and Ages of Wonder. She also coedited the Prix Aurora Award wi

Jean Rabe is the author of two dozen books and four dozen short stories. She edits anthologies from time to time, and she loves to tug fiercely on old socks with her dogs. She lives in southeastern Wisconsin, in a pleasant subdivision brimming with dogs and kids. Her hobbies include playing board games, war games, and role-playing games, twirling her toes in her goldfish pond, finding places to hide her growing collection of books, and visiting all ma

Matthew Stover is the

New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Traitor and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, as well as The Blade of Tyshalle, Heroes Die, Iron Dawn, and Jericho Moon. He is a student of the Degerberg Blend, a jeet kune do concept that is a mixture of approximately twenty-five different fighting arts from around the world. He lives outside Chicago with artist and writer Robyn Drake.

Marc Tassin was enthralled by books from a very early age. He marveled that a collection of letters on a page could sweep a person away to another world, change the course of a life, or evoke powerful emotional and intellectual responses. The magic of this literary alchemy is what inspired him to try his hand at writing. In the years since, Marc has written short stories, games, and articles that explore the far reaches of fantasy and science fiction. From the bloody decks of pirate ships to the secret lives of gerbils, he’s taken his readers to strange and wonderful places. Marc lives in a small town just outside of A

Christopher Welch is a happily married freelance writer, reporter, and book reviewer originally from Akron, Ohio. He currently lives in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, where he works for the local newspaper and news radio station. His poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have appeared in various small press and professional publications. He is a staff reviewer for

Dark Wisdom magazine and a long-time member of the HWA. He earned a B.A. (with a minor in creative writing) and an M.A. in English from the University of Akron. Despite his severe allergies to them, he still thinks cats are really cool.

Robert E. Vardeman has written several dozen short stories and more than seventy science fiction, fantasy, and mystery novels. He currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his teenaged son, Chris, and a cat. Two out of three of them enjoy the high-tech hobby of geocaching.

Elizabeth A. Vaughan is the author of

Warprize, Warsworn, and Warlord, the three books that make up Chronicle of the Warlands. She believes that the only good movies are the ones with gratuitous magic, swords, or lasers. Not to mention dragons. At the present, she is owned by three incredibly spoiled cats and lives in the Northwest Territory, on the outskirts of the Black Swamp, along Mad Anthony’s Trail on the banks of the Maumee River.

Ja

Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine for her writing. Her paintings have been showcased in exhibitions at the Hayden Planetarium, NASA’s 25th A