Michi Trota

Michi Trota is a five-time Hugo Award winner, British Fantasy Award winner, and the first Filipina to win a Hugo Award. Michi is Editor-in-Chief of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) and Senior Editor of Prism. She is also co-editor of the WisCon Chronicles Vol. 12 with Isabel Schechter (Aqueduct Press), has written for Chicago Magazine, and was the exhibit text writer for Worlds Beyond Here: Expanding the Universe of APA Science Fiction at the Wing Luke Museum in Seattle, WA. She’s been featured in publications like the 2016 Chicago Reader People Issue, Chicago Tribune, and The Guardian, and has spoken at the Adler Planetarium, the Chicago Humanities Festival, and on NPR about topics spanning feminism, media representation, and pop culture. Michi is a firespinner with the Raks Geek Fire+Bellydance troupe, past president of the Chicago Nerd Social Club Board of Organizers, and lives with her spouse and their two cats in Chicago.

Photo credit: Patricia Nightshade

Ali Trotta

Ali Trotta is a poet, editor, dreamer, word-nerd, and unapologetic coffee addict. Her poetry has appeared in Uncanny, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Nightmare, Fireside, Strange Horizons, Mermaids Monthly, and Cicada magazines, as well as in The Best of Uncanny from Subterranean Press. She has a poem forthcoming in Asimov’s. Her short fiction has appeared in Curtains, a flash fiction anthology. A geek to the core, she’s previously written TV show reviews for Blastoff Comics, as well as a few personal essays. Ali’s always scribbling on napkins, looking for magic in the world, and bursting into song. When she isn’t word-wrangling, she’s being a kitchen witch, hugging an animal, or pretending to be a mermaid. Follow her on Twitter as @alwayscoffee or subscribe to her TinyLetter. Four of her poems, including three for Uncanny, were Rhysling Award nominees.

L. Tu

L. Tu was born in China and now lives on the US east coast.

The Uncanny Unicorn

The Uncanny Unicorn is FULL OF MYSTERY AND GOOD ADVICE!

Michael R. Underwood

Michael R. Underwood has circumnavigated the globe, danced the tango with legends, and knows why Tybalt cancels out Capo Ferro. He also rolls a mean d20.

He is the author several series, including the comedic fantasy Ree Reyes series (Geekomancy, Celebromancy, Attack of the Geek) and Genrenauts, a science fiction series in novellas. By day, he’s the North American Sales & Marketing Manager for Angry Robot Books.

Mike lives in Baltimore with his fiance and their ever–growing library. In his rapidly–vanishing free time, he studies historical martial arts and makes pizzas from scratch. He is a co–host on the Hugo–nominated Skiffy and Fanty Show.

Valerie Valdes

Valerie Valdes is a co-editor of Escape Pod and the author of the Chilling Effect trilogy. Her next novel, Where Peace Is Lost, is forthcoming in 2023. Her short fiction and poetry have been featured in Uncanny Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, and several anthologies. In her spare time, she streams video games on Twitch and roleplays with the Strange Friends crew. She lives in Georgia with her husband, children and cats.

Catherynne M. Valente

Catherynne M. Valente is the New York Times bestselling author of forty works of speculative fiction and poetry, including Space Opera, The Refrigerator Monologues, Palimpsest, the Orphan’s Tales series, Deathless, Radiance, and the crowdfunded phenomenon The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (and the four books that followed it). She is the winner of the Andre Norton, Tiptree, Sturgeon, Prix Imaginales, Eugie Foster Memorial, Mythopoeic, Rhysling, Lambda, Locus, Romantic Times’ Critics Choice, and Hugo awards. She has been a finalist for the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. She lives on an island off the coast of Maine with a small but growing menagerie of beasts, some of which are human.

Monica Valentinelli

Monica Valentinelli writes stories, games, essays, and reference books in her Midwestern studio. She’s a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Creative Writing program who now writes full-time. Monica’s original work has been published by small presses including Apex Book Company and Stone Skin Press. When she’s not obsessing about deadlines, she designs jewelry and dabbles in watercolors and acrylics. For more about Monica, visit booksofm.com.

Carrie Vaughn

Carrie Vaughn’s work includes the Philip K. Dick Award-winning novel Bannerless, the New York Times Bestselling Kitty Norville urban fantasy series, over twenty novels and upwards of 100 short stories, two of which have been finalists for the Hugo Award. Her most recent work includes a pair of novellas about Robin Hood’s children, The Ghosts of Sherwood and The Heirs of Locksley. She’s a contributor to the Wild Cards series of shared world superhero books edited by George R. R. Martin and a graduate of the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop. An Air Force brat, she survived her nomadic childhood and managed to put down roots in Boulder, Colorado. Visit her at www.carrievaughn.com.

Ursula Vernon

Ursula Vernon is a children’s book author. She also writes for adults as T. Kingfisher. Her work has won the Nebula, Hugo, Sequoyah, and Mythopoeic Awards. More information can be found at redwombatstudio.com