Sheila Deeth grew up in the UK and has a Bachelors and Masters in mathematics from Cambridge University, England. Now living in the States near Portland Oregon, she enjoys reading, writing, drawing, telling stories and meeting her neighbors' dogs on the green.

William Cook is a native of central Connecticut and grew up in the small town of Southington, midway between New Haven and Hartford. He has also lived in upstate New York, in and around Albany, and in Riverside, Rhode Island, on the shores of Narragansett Bay. In 1989 he moved to the Pacific Northwest.

His education began in a Catholic seminary in Connecticut and continued in another seminary in New York, for a total of eight years of study. He left the seminary with a Bachelor's Degree in Philosophy, specializing in Existential Phenomenology (try saying that three times!). After doing his time for the draft board as a conscientious objector working as a hospital orderly, he attended the State University of New York at Albany, where he got a Master's Degree in Social Work. He then worked as a mental health therapist for 37 years before retiring in 2011.

In 2014, he released his first novel, "Songs for the Journey Home," which draws upon some of his experiences in the seminary. He sees it as a saga of spiritual discovery.

His first collection of short fiction, "The Pieta in Ordinary Time and Other Stories," was published in March, 2016. "Catch of the Day," another collection of short stories, was published in February, 2018. "Before Our House Fell into the Ocean: Stories of Love and Death" was released in September of 2021.

Many of his short stories first saw print in the yearly anthologies published by the Northwest Independent Writers Association. "The Last Refuge" was released in the 2015 Anthology, "Asylum." Another, "The Paleographer," appeared in "Artifact," published in November, 2016. "The Affect Bridge" was included in "Bridges" in 2017. "The Girl on the Boardwalk" made its appearance in "Carnival," released in November, 2018. "Bad Seed" was his entry into "Doorways," which was published in November of 2019. "The Sword" is in "Escape" (2020); "The List" is in "Forbidden" (2021); "This Vale of Tears" is in "Guests" (2022); "Clancy on the Ledge" is in "Harbinger" (2023). "Chrysalis" will be in the 2024 anthology.

His novel, "Seal of Secrets," was released in December, 2016. It begins The Driftwood Mysteries, a series of suspense/thrillers set on the Oregon coast. The second installment of these murder mysteries is "Eye of Newt," a short story which made its first appearance in "Catch of the Day," and is now available as a stand-alone mini-book. The third is "Woman in the Waves," a novel published in November of 2018. The fourth is the novel "Dungeness and Dragons," released in April 2020. The fifth is the short story "Paper," which was first published in the collection, "Before Our House Fell into the Ocean: Stories of Love and Death," in September of 2021. It is now a mini-book. The sixth and final installment in the series is the novel, "Gallery of Gangsters," released in August of 2022.

Cook feels his life has been extraordinarily blessed. He can now spend his time writing for pleasure and providing babysitting time for his grandchildren. (At last count, there were 15 grandchildren and three great grandchildren!) His wife Sharon has retired from her job as a flight attendant and is an artist who displays her paintings and collages at Currents Gallery in McMinnville, Oregon, and the Lori Austin Galleries in Santa Rosa and Sebastopol, California.

Neil Orint grew up on Vashon Island, Washington and now lives in Seattle. His epic young adult fantasy novel Discovery of Geminus takes readers on a thrilling adventure into Geminus, a twin planet of Earth, where Henry, Kate, Max, and their dog Rocky meet sasquatches, yetis, and other magical beings of Pacific Northwest mythology. With their newfound courage and magical powers, the friends must defeat the bloodthirsty conquistador Pizarro and his murderous crew to restore balance to Geminus.

Neil has published short stories in recent NIWA anthologies, and his story Towers and Bridges was a Finalist in the 2017 PNWA Literary Contest. He's currently working on the next volume in the Discovery of Geminus series.

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest has given him an innate appreciation of the region's natural beauty and you can find him hiking and backpacking through forests, alpine meadows and over mountains. He also has a lifelong interest in the region's mythology that features prominently in his work.

Agathon McGeachy holds a BSME and worked for 20 years as a machine designer, the last 14 years in the medical research field. He has skills as a fabricator, foundryman and machinist. As Manfred Kriegstreiber he participated in SCA tournaments and left having achieved that group's highest honors. He is an accomplished ceramic sculptor. His gargoyle sculpture, "Just Keeping an Eye on Things" was Best 3d Art in Show (non-jewelry) at Worldcon in Spokane 2015. In 2020 he sold his first short story "Call Me Max" to the NIWA Anthology "Escape" His short stories have earned Honorable Mentions three times in 2020 from Writers of the Future.

Rowe recently left the coastal town of Winchester Bay, Oregon where he owned a 51 foot commercial fishing boat called the Ceres. He worked at a big box home store in Portland, Oregon before finally taking on the mantle of full-time author.

He was a nuclear power plant operator serving aboard the USS Norfolk, SSN 714, in the U. S. Navy. He went on to become a power plant operator and then Plant Operations Supervisor in the civilian world, and now has downsized from the mainstream in order to partake in his life-long dream of writing.

Rowe says of himself:

I’m writing all of the time. I may not be sitting at the computer with a document open, but I’m thinking about my characters and their issues, and how to resolve their problems all of the time. I started ‘thinking’ about "Paradigm Lost, Jamari and the Manhood Rites, Part I" FIVE years before I ever wrote down a single word. I talked about it with friends and partners. In my life, I relate things that happen to me as a gay man to what those events would feel like to the characters in my novel. When I finally sat down to put it all ‘on paper’, I had the bulk of it completed in three months and then spent the next 4 months polishing, cutting, pasting, etc.

As I have completed several novels, the next one is growing in importance with each passing day that I spend on promotions and the ‘business’ side of this endeavor. The characters are beginning to haunt my dreams at night. “Where are you?” they want to know. “When are we coming out again? When do we get to start the next adventure?” A couple seem to sense that things aren’t going to go well for them. They seem to be offering other options . . .

I have had a difficult time in applying my work to any specific genre. It contains elements of Post Apocalypse (Dystopian), Science Fiction, Survivalist, Fantasy, Spiritual, LGBTQ and even a bit of Naturalist. What I really set out to do was to allow readers to see culture in a new way; to see sex in a new way, perhaps even to develop their own understanding of the beauty of that very human endeavor. The secondary goal was to make homosexuality normal. In order to accomplish these two goals I had to build a society that had discarded our current taboos and strictures. I had to destroy the culture I was raised up in and then create an entirely new culture from scratch.

How long have I known I was going to write? I thought I would want to write as far back as 7th grade. I enjoyed reading so much that I actually got reprimanded for reading in class at times. I suspect if I had been reading the text assigned it would have been okay, but, I was addicted to fiction early and upgraded to Science Fiction early in High School. I wrote many short stories and poems in H.S. I won several writing contests and was given a scholarship to college based on my writing. The most important thing I ever heard about writing though was that I needed to live a little bit before I would have anything interesting to say. In retrospect, I always could say something accurately and with flair, but, I did need to live a little in order to develop my story-line and know how to present it so it gets the attention it deserves.

Jonathan Michael Erickson has loved science fiction and fantasy since he was a kid. A lifelong learner, Jonathan holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from UC Berkeley, an MFA in creative writing from Antioch Los Angeles, and a PhD in depth psychology and somatics from Pacifica Graduate Institute. In addition to his writing projects he is also a graduate school instructor, a life coach, a nature enthusiast, an animal lover, and occasionally takes the stage as a comedy improviser. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Learn more at JonathanMichaelErickson.com