Steven Erikson is the pen-name of Steve Lundin. Although born in Toronto, Steve grew up in Winnipeg. He began his career as an archaeologist and worked in this profession for 18 years. In 1983 he dropped out of a Master's program in anthropology to attend a creative writing program at the University of Victoria, and went on to receive a Master's at the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop.
His first book was a collection of short stories entitled A Ruin of Feathers (1993) from TSAR Books. His novel Stolen Voices (1992/3), was the co-winner in the Anvil Press Three-Day Novel Contest. Other books followed: Revolvo and Other Canadian Tales (TSAR, 1997) and This River Awakens (Hodder & Stoughton, 1998).
As Steven Erikson, he is the author of the projected 10-book series entitled The Malazan Book of the Fallen (Bantam UK, TOR Books). The first six books in the series are now complete, with the seventh forthcoming. The first of these novels, Gardens of the Moon (1999), was shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award, and the subsequent works—Deadhouse Gates (2000), Memories of Ice (2002), House of Chains (2003), Midnight Tides (2004) and The Bonehunters (2006)—have attracted a worldwide audience.
He has also written a number of novellas, published by PS Publishing and Night Shade Books. The novella "Fishin' with Grandma Matchie" was included in Best Short Novels 2006 (ed. Jonathan Strahan, SFBQ).
His last novel as Steve Lundin was When She's Gone (Great Plains Publishing, 2004), a dystopic hockey novel set in Winnipeg recounting the fall of the Winnipeg Jets.
He has lived in Winnipeg three times as well as just south of London, England, and presently resides in Victoria, BC with his wife Clare and their son Bowen.
James Alan Gardner was raised in Bradford and Simcoe, Ontario and currently lives in Kitchener, Ontario. He holds a B.Math and M.Math in Applied Mathematics from the University of Waterloo; a black sash in Shaolin Five Animal Kung Fu from Waterloo Kung Fu Academy; and is an occasional pianist, singer and actor but full-time owner of bunny rabbits. In 1989 he graduated from the Clarion West Science Fiction Writers Workshop and also won the grand prize in the Writers of the Future contest. His stories and novellas have appeared in publications such as Nature, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Amazing Stories and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and are frequently anthologized (such as in Tesseracts 4, 5 and 6; Nebula Awards 33, Future Washington and Galileo's Children [both 2005]; and Mythspring [2006]).
Jim collected 14 of his short works for his 2005 anthology Gravity Wells, which was shortlisted for the 2006 Sunburst Award. His SF novels include Expendable (1997), Commitment Hour (1998), Vigilant (1999), Hunted (2000), Ascending (2001), Trapped (2002) and Radiant (2004).
He served on the 1998 jury for the Philip K. Dick Award, presented annually for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the US. Jim's work has won Aurora Awards and been nominated for Hugo, Nebula, Aurora and Sunburst Awards. He says that writing science fiction and fantasy is his "vocation—not just a job, but a calling."
Tom Henighan has published 14 books, including literary and cultural studies, fiction, poetry, and short stories. His academic course in science fiction and fantasy was one of the first in Canada, and his television lectures on science fiction were the first ever seen coast to coast. He has supervised theses on such writers as J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Olaf Stapledon, H.P. Lovecraft and Brian Aldiss, and on the fantasy writing of Percy Shelley and the Brontës. He is now Professor Emeritus at Carleton University in Ottawa.
Henighan, former Associate Editor of Ottawa Revue and one of the founders of Arc poetry magazine, has been a consultant to many of Canada's major arts institutions, including the Canada Council for the Arts, The National Gallery of Canada, The National Arts Centre, The Canadian Museum of Civilization, the Ontario Arts Council and the City of Ottawa Cultural Division.
Henighan's fiction (three novels and two collections of stories, with more forthcoming) has been described by the Encyclopedia of Fantasy (UK) as "finding mythic echoes in the spaces of the great Canadian wilderness." He has been listed in Canadian Who's Who since 1988 and is included in the Dictionary of Literary Biography (Canada).
His next book, Demon in My View (a YA, due out early in 2007), will be a post-apocalyptic fantasy set in the Canada of 2099. The second volume of his Viking Realm series, Viking Terror, has just been published to very favourable reviews and is available from the Dundurn Press Group, Toronto.
Toronto author Emily Pohl-Weary's fifth book, Strange Times at Western High, was published in September 2006 by Annick Press. It's a young adult mystery featuring detective/zine queen Natalie Fuentes and her gang of urban misfits.
Pohl-Weary's previous books include a novel (A Girl Like Sugar), a book of poetry (Iron-on Constellations), an anthology (Girls Who Bite Back: Witches, Mutants, Slayers and Freaks), and the Hugo Award-winning biography of her grandmother's life (Better to Have Loved: The Life of Judith Merril, co-authored with Merril).
She's currently writing a four-part comic (illustrated by Willow Dawson) called Violet Miranda: Girl Pirate. She also edits lit/art hybrid Kiss Machine magazine.
Caitlin Sweet grew up in Toronto and still lives there with her family. She is a graduate of Montreal's McGill University. She has been a trombone teacher, a bookstore clerk, an ESL instructor in Mexico and Canada, and an administrative assistant at the University of Toronto. She is now a writer, mother and doula (labour and birth assistant).
Caitlin's first novel, the fantasy A Telling of Stars, was nominated in 2004 for the William L. Crawford Memorial Fantasy Award, given annually by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts based upon a first novel or series of novels; for an Aurora Award for Best Novel in English; and for the Locus Best First Novel Award. It was also chosen as a "Recommended Read" by the 2004 Sunburst Award jury. Its prequel, The Silences of Home, was nominated for a 2006 Aurora Award, and placed fourth in the Editors' Choice "Best Novels of 2005" list. Both books were published by Penguin Canada.
