As a child, Vincent was never satisfied with his drawings and sketches.  He wanted the figures to come off the paper so he could view them properly.  While working on a history degree in the early 1990s, he took a sculpture course as an elective and was instantly hooked.  Since then, Vincent has been utilizing traditional bronze-casting techniques to produce art that reflects his lifelong fascination with the Sci-Fi and Fantasy genres.

Vincent has received numerous awards and commissions.  He was awarded Best 3-D at World Fantasy 2006 and a Body of Work award at World Fantasy 2007.   In 2009, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America commissioned him to design and produce the Ray Bradbury Award, which was presented to Joss Whedon.  He has had art published in Spectrum 14, 15 and 16.  In 2008 and 2009 he was the recipient of the Chesley Award for Best 3-D.

Vincent is a current member of the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists.  He is a past member of the Texas Sculpture Association and the Texas Society of Sculptors. He currently lives in north Texas with his wife Michelle.

His sculptures can be viewed at: www.villafrancasculpture.com.

Crystalwizard is both an author and a graphic artist, though running a publishing company that produces both books and a magazine leaves precious little time to do either. Some of her short stories and poems can be found on her bio page on the Bewildering Stories website, and a decent selection of her art is available in her gallery on artwanted.com.

She also spends better than 40 hours a week, every week, as an AIX systems administrator and still manages to find time to freelance for the local community newspaper. People have been known to ask her when she sleeps. Her answer is usually “Sleep? What’s that?”

Teddy Harvia (aka David Thayer) is a well-known humorous fan artist from Dallas, Texas. Born in Oklahoma he soon rectified that situation and became a true Texan. In his 20s, Teddy discovered Science Fiction and the world of conventions. Art was an early part of his life and became a central part of his fan life.

Over the years he has contributed several hundreds of illos and cartoons to hundreds of fan publications. In recognition of his ability Teddy Harvia has been nominated for the Hugo as Best Fan Artist a multitude of times (at least fourteen), actually winning this honor on four separate occasions.

His first Hugo was delivered in 1991 at Chicon IV, followed by another in 1995 at Intersection. However in 1997, he declined the nomination in order to be the presenter at the LoneStarCon 2 Hugo Award Ceremonies, receiving that year the Rebel Award instead. Since then he’s received additional Hugos in 2001 at the Millennium PhilCon and in 2002 at the ConJose WorldCon.

Away from this world of Science Fiction, and as a means to finance it, Teddy writes and edits technical manuals. Currently, he is working on a galactic war romance novel.

Teddy Harvia’s website can be found at http://web2.airmail.net/tharvia.

Dr. Paul Abell is the Lead Scientist for Planetary Small Bodies assigned to the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. His main areas of interest are physical characterization of near-Earth objects (NEOs) via ground-based and spacecraft observations, examination of NEOs for future robotic and human exploration, and identification of potential resources within the NEO population for future resource utilization. Paul has been studying potentially hazardous asteroids and near-Earth objects for over 10 years and is a visiting astronomer at the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility at Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawai’i. He was a telemetry officer for the Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous spacecraft Near-Infrared Spectrometer team and is a science team member on the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Hayabusa near-Earth asteroid sample-return mission. Paul was also a member of the Hayabusa contingency recovery team and participated in the successful recovery of the spacecraft‘s sample return capsule, which returned to Woomera, Australia in June 2010. Paul, his wife Amy Sisson, and their feline companions have lived in Houston, Texas since December 2003.

            K.D. Wentworth has sold more than seventy pieces of short fiction to such markets as Fantasy and Science Fiction, Hitchcock’s, Realms of Fantasy, Dying For It, Return to the Twilight Zone, and The Chick Is in the Mail. She is a two-time Nebula nominee for short fiction and currently has seven novels in print, the three most recent being This Fair Land, an alternate history Cherokee fantasy, published by Hawk, Stars/Over/Stars, published by Baen, and The Course of Empire, written with Eric Flint, also from Baen. She’s currently working on several new novels with Flint and serves as Coordinating Judge for the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest.

            K. D. Wentworth’s website can be found at http://www.kdwentworth.com.

            Wil Upchurch is a long time game editor for such titles as DARK INHERITANCE, DAWNFORGE, MIDNIGHT, SKRAAG: CITY OF ORKS, and WILDERNESS AND WASTELAND. Check out his thoughts on the gaming industry at his online journal.

            Wil Upchurch’s website can be found at http://wilthoughts.livejournal.com.

            Mel Tatum is the author of “Billy Frank, the POW and the Geneva Convention,” published in Yard Dog Press’ International House of Bubbas Anthology and “Timeline,” in the Flush Fiction anthology forthcoming from Yard Dog. She is also the author of numerous other things you’ve probably never heard of since they were published in academic black holes known as law reviews and include phrases such as “jurisdictional quandary” and “full faith and credit.” Mel spends her days happily torturing law students under the guise of teaching them new and different aspects of Criminal Procedure and Indian law.

            Davette Shands earned the Chesley in 1998 for Best Monochrome – Unpublished for “Waiting for Antony”, depicting Cleopatra’s yearning for Marc Antony. She has shown her artwork at numerous conventions but has not had the time recently to pursue it, due to her writing and acting. She has had one script produced, “LaPlace Transform”, by Starling Productions and has recently finished another script, “Beslan Remembered”, which is competing in various screenplay contests around the country. At present she has approximately nine other scripts in various stages of development. Later this spring she will be one of the leads for the film “Porcelain Doll”, a horror movie to be directed by Eric Savad.

Brandon Sanderson was born in December of 1975 in Lincoln, Nebraska. As a child Brandon enjoyed reading, but he lost interest in the types of titles often suggested for him, and by junior high he never cracked a book if he could help it. This all changed in 8th grade when an astute teacher, Ms. Reader, loaned Brandon a copy of Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly. Brandon thoroughly enjoyed this book, and went in search of anything similar. He discovered such authors as David Eddings, Melanie Rawn, Robert Jordan, Anne McCaffrey, and Orson Scott Card. Brandon continued to be an avid reader through junior high and high school. He liked epic fantasy so much that he even tried his hand at writing some. His first attempts, he says, were dreadful.

In 1994 Brandon enrolled at Brigham Young University as a Biochemistry major. From 1995-1997 he took time away from his studies to serve as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Brandon often says that it was during this time in Seoul, Korea that he realized that he didn’t miss chemistry one bit, but he did miss writing. Upon his return to BYU Brandon became an English major, much to the dismay of his mother, who had always hoped he would become a doctor.

Brandon began writing in earnest, taking a job as the night desk clerk at a hotel because they allowed him to write while at work. During this era he went to school full time during the day, worked nights to pay for his schooling, and wrote as much as he could. He says it made for a rather dismal social life, but he finished seven novels during his undergraduate years. Brandon submitted many manuscripts for publication…and accumulated quite a pile of rejection letters. In spite of this he continued to be a dedicated writer.

Volunteering for The Leading Edge, BYU’s Sci Fi/Fantasy magazine, was a wonderful experience for Brandon. He read lots of submissions, formed some lifelong friendships, and even served as Editor in Chief during his senior year.

Brandon learned much about the business side of being a writer by taking a class from David Farland, author of the popular Runelords series. One piece of advice Dave gave Brandon was to attend conventions, such as WorldCon and World Fantasy, in order to connect with industry professionals. Brandon and a small group of friends who were also aspiring writers began to do so. He eventually met both his current agent and one of his editors at conventions.

It was in 2003, while Brandon was in the middle of a graduate program at BYU, that he got a call from an editor at Tor who wanted to buy one of Brandon’s books. Brandon had submitted the manuscript a year and a half earlier, and had almost given up on hearing anything, so he was surprised and delighted to receive the offer. In May of 2005 Brandon held his first published novel, Elantris, in his hands. Tor also published Brandon’s Mistborn trilogy, his new stand-alone novel Warbreaker, and has plans to release other Sanderson titles in the future.

In 2004 after graduating with his Master’s degree in creative writing from Brigham Young University, Brandon was asked to teach the class he had taken as an undergraduate student. In spite of his busy schedule, Brandon continues to teach this one section of creative writing focused on science fiction and fantasy because he enjoys helping aspiring writers. It also gets him out of the house, he says.

In July of 2006 Brandon married Emily Bushman. Emily and Brandon ran in many of the same circles at BYU during their student days, since Emily majored in English as well. They never met, however, until a mutual friend set them up on a blind date in 2005. Emily had spent seven years as a teacher, but chose to quit with the birth of their son Joel in October of 2007. Emily now works from home part time as Brandon’s business manager.

Brandon’s repertoire expanded into the children’s market when Scholastic published Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, a middle-grade novel, in October of 2007. Nancy Pearl gave this book a very favorable review on National Public Radio, which pleased Sanderson fans immensely. Since the release of Alcatraz Brandon has enjoyed visiting schools and libraries and interacting with his younger readers.

In November of 2007 Brandon was asked to complete Wheel of Time saga after the passing of Robert Jordan. Brandon is now hard at work on this epic project. For more information about Brandon’s work, visit www.brandonsanderson.com.

Tim Powers has written over a dozen novels encompassing the entire range of speculative fiction, from his swashbuckling tale of Blackbeard in On Stranger Tides to his take on time travel in The Anubis Gates. He is the recipient of multiple Philip K. Dick Awards, World Fantasy Awards, and Locus Awards.

He was born in Buffalo, NY, on Leap Year Day in 1952, but has lived in southern California since 1959. Powers’ first two novels, The Skies Discrowned and Epitaph in Rust, were both published in 1976. His subsequent novels include The Drawing of the Dark, The Anubis Gates (winner of the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award and the Prix Apollo), Dinner at Deviant’s Palace (winner of the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award), On Stranger Tides, The Stress of Her Regard, Last Call (winner of the World Fantasy Award), Expiration Date, Earthquake Weather, Declare (winner of the World Fantasy Award), and Three Days to Never. Powers has taught at the Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop at Michigan State University six times, and has three times co-taught the Writers of the Future Workshop with Algis Budrys.

For more information on the man and his body of work (including an online gallery of Tim’s artwork), check out www.theworksoftimpowers.com