Catopolis

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Donald J. Bingle has had a wide variety of short fiction published, primarily in DAW themed anthologies but also in tie-in anthologies for the

Dragonlance and Transformers universes and in popular role-playing gaming materials. Recently, he has had stories published in The Dimensions Next Door, Fellowship Fantastic, Front Lines, Imaginary Friends, and Pandora’s Closet. His first novel, Forced Conversion, is set in the near future, when anyone can have heaven, any heaven they want, but some people don’t want to go. His most recent novel, Greensword, is a darkly comedic thriller about a group of environmentalists who decide to end global warming… immediately. Now they’re about to save the world; they just don’t want to get caught doing it. Don can be reached at orphyte@aol.com, and his novels can be purchased through www.orphyte.com/donaldjbingle

Richard Lee Byers is the author of over thirty fantasy and horror novels, including

Unclean, Undead, The Enemy Within, and Dissolution. His current projects include Unholy (the concluding volume in the “ Haunted Land ” trilogy) and the screenplay for The Plague Knight, a major movie release. A resident of the Tampa Bay area, the setting for much of his horror fiction, he spends much of his leisure time fencing, playing poker, and shooting pool, and is a frequent guest at Florida science-fiction conventions.

Having lived catless for decades, Edward Carmien is now co-owned by two tabbies, one friendly, one skittish, brothers rescued by and adopted from the local pound. After averaging roughly a story a year for almost a dozen years, he is soundly beating that average, and his work can be found most recently in

Black Gate 12 and other places one can discover by Googling his last name. Ed rides motorcycles (ABC #7573), teaches, canoes, avoids yardwork, shoots photos, tries to keep up with his kids, and does sundry other things in Princeton, New Jersey, where the elm tree didn’t quite die out.

Elaine Cunningham spends most of her waking hours reacting to subliminal messages from her two Siamese. She moonlights as a

New York Times bestselling author of twenty-one books and about three dozen short stories. Kirkus Review named Shadows in the Starlight, the second book in her Changeling Detective urban fantasy series, to their list of Top Ten SciFi Books of 2006. (Elaine suspects that the list’s compilers have cats and further suspects that those cats communicate with her Siamese-probably through MySpace.) She is still busily writing fantasy novels and short stories but is also branching out into historical fiction. And her first editorial project, Lilith Undead-an anthology of tales based on the Lilith mythology-was recently published. A former music and history teacher, Elaine now focuses most of her musical energies on the Celtic harp, which is, oddly enough, the only instrument the cats actively enjoy.

Esther M. Friesner is the author of thirty-three novels and over one hundred fifty short stories and other works. She won the Nebula Award twice as well as the Skylark and the Romantic Times Award. Best known for creating and editing the wildly popular

Chicks In Chainmail anthology series (Baen Books), her latest publications are the Young Adult novels Temping Fate, Nobody’s Princess, and Nobody’s Prize. She lives in Connecticut with her husband, is the mother of two grown children, and harbors cats.

Paul Genesse told his mother he was going to be a writer when he was four years old, and he has been creating fantasy stories ever since. He loved his English classes in college but pursued his other passion by earning a bachelor’s degree in nursing science in 1996. He is a registered nurse on a cardiac unit in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he works the night shift keeping the forces of darkness away from his patients. Paul lives with his incredibly supportive wife Tammy and their collection of frogs. He spends endless hours in his basement writing fantasy novels, short stories, and crafting maps of fantastical realms. His novel

The Golden Cord: Book 1 of the Iron Dragon Trilogy, was released in 2008, but his current project is Medusa’s Daughter, a fantasy set in ancient Greece. He encourages you to contact him online at www.PAULGENESSE.com.

Ed Greenwood has published over one hundred and eighty fantasy novels and

Dungeons & Dragons^® game products and is the award-winning creator of the famous Forgotten Realms^® fantasy world. His novels include the bestselling Spellfire and Elminster: The Making of a Mage and their many sequels, the Band of Four saga, and the Knights of Myth Drannor trilogy, which begins with Swords of Eveningstar.

Bruce A. Heard has written many role-playing books and articles, including the

Alternity Player’s Handbook and Gamemaster Guide, and many articles for Dragon magazine. Currently he lives and writes in Lake Villa, Illinois.

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 winning DAW anthology Under Cover of Darkness, with Julie E. Czerneda, released in 2007.

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 manner of museums.

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 Ann Arbor, Michigan, with his wife, Tanya, and their two children.

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.

Janny Wurts has pursued her love of imaginative invention in both story and visual form. She has authored eighteen. books, a collection of short fiction, and over thirty contributions to fantasy and science fiction anthologies, with most books bearing her own jacket and interior art. She has received the Cauldron Award from

Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine for her writing. Her paintings have been showcased in exhibitions at the Hayden Planetarium, NASA’s 25th Anniversary Exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and as part of the Delaware Art Museum ’s permanent collection. Her artwork has received two Chesley Awards and three Best of Show Awards at the World Fantasy Convention.