Natania Barron

Natania Barron is a writer with a penchant for the speculative; she is also an unrepentant geek. Her work has been featured in The Gatehouse Gazette, and Thaumatrope, and she has released the most recent draft of her novel The Aldersgate as a podcast at The Aldersgate Cycle. She typically writes novels, which run the gamut from steampunk to heroic fantasy and hybrid speculative fiction.

She is also the founder of The Outer Alliance, a group dedicated to queer advocacy in speculative fiction and blogs for Wired Magazine’s GeekDad Blog as well as Geeks Are Sexy. Natania holds a BA in English/Writing from Loyola University Maryland and an MA in English with a concentration in medieval literature from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has worked as a prep chef, a barista, a bookseller, a business writer and a receptionist.

In her spare time she cooks, bakes bread, drinks coffee, crochets, blogs, plays guitar and ukulele, and enjoys nature. She lives in central North Carolina with her husband Michael, son Liam, dog Calliope, and cat Minerva.

Butch Brookshier Jr.

There were only forty eight states when Butch Brookshier Jr. was born. He was a military brat up to the age of sixteen. He’s lived in such well known tourist draws as Tonopah, Nev. and Sembach, Germany. His main working life has been spent in differing positions in the auto parts aftermarket for over twenty years.

In addition to being an SF and occasional Fantasy reader, Butch is also a fan of the Mystery/Crime genre and True Crime focusing mostly on Serial Killers. The last gives his co-workers a bit of pause. Butch currently lives in the southeastern U.S.

Aleta Johansen

Aleta Johansen lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with her somewhat cranky cat, Ginger Snap. They share the cozy and cluttered upstairs apartment in a lovely old Victorian house. She is a Gemini and therefore argues with herself constantly. She floats and flows between the roles of Academic and Artist. She writes in order to find out what is around the next bend on the tangled, and always surprising, path of her life. Her short story In the Image and Likeness was published in issue 8 of Crossed Genres. You may follow some of her adventures on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AletaMay.

Dianne Nicholson

Dianne Nicholson is a Christian living in the UK, who feels that a really good coffee bar is an important factor for city living, particularly if they sell cheesecake. She’s an (almost) teetotal non-smoker with an addiction to fresh pineapple, science fiction and the theatre, and doesn’t plan on giving up any of those any time soon.

When she isn’t reading or writing fiction, Dianne spends much of her time dealing with the dreaded curse known as “Real Life”, spending time with family, and channel-hopping in search of innovative TV.