Nicola Brugger-Dethmers received her undergraduate degree in creative writing at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, and is currently pursuing an MFA in Children's Literature at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia. She lives in Michigan with her husband and three cats. 

Margaret Bulleyment began writing fiction after a long career in comparative education. This encompassed an international school in Stockholm; an American High School on a NATO base and teaching Music, English and Expressive Arts with inter-cultural diversions to the former Czechoslovakia and  a children's opera workshop in Canada. In 2007, she won first prize in the Swanwick Writers' Summer School Competition for the first 1,000 words of her children's book Chime Child, which she has almost completed. In 2008 she won third prize in the Kenneth Grahame Society's Centenary Competition for her story The Toad Rush, which is about to be published in their The Wind in the Willows Short Stories anthology. Recently, she won third prize in the Society of Civil and Public Service Writers' Annual Froud Competition for Writing for Children. She enjoys lunching, singing and researching family history. The latter is centred on the river Dart, but that's another watery story…

Tiffany Burke has been writing in her head for years, but has only recently put finger to keyboard. She lives with her daughter, her friendly dog and her antisocial cat in South Shields, where she works as a Church of England priest.  She has just completed her first novel for older children and is hoping to see it published in the New Year.  She enjoys knitting and other crafts but is, sadly, an appalling cook.

Nicola Caines was born in Somerset in the 1950’s and grew up on the Welsh borders, an area rich in folklore, which probably influenced her development as a writer.  She’s always been keen on fairytales, myths and legends. She mostly writes short stories: science fiction, fantasy, fairytales, anything that inspires her.  She’s written stories for children, adults, teens, and has recently completed a Young Adult fantasy novel.  She lives in the West Midlands with her husband and two cats.  She also leads several meditation groups and enjoys country walks and reading.

Justin Carroll is a writer and aspiring novelist, who moonlights writing marketing materials for a global financial company. When not working or aspiring, he fritters away precious time playing games and doing geeky things. Previously short-listed for several international short story competitions, his story, Careful What You Wish For, published by Wyvern, was nominated for a British Fantasy Award. Me and My Shadow is his second published short story.

Jenni Clapham is 21 and currently lives in Northumberland, although she moves around a lot. In 2003, she was the David St John Thomas Trust Young Writer of the Year. She enjoys writing fantasy and real-world short stories, has been published in anthologies, and is working on novels that she hopes to make presentable enough to sell one day. She likes to read, listen to music, climb, and has never grown out of playing with ponies – in fact she can now pretend it’s her day job. 

Sarah Dalton is a 27-year-old writer from Sheffield. Although primarily interested in speculative fiction she is known to dabble with surrealist flash fiction and has work published in the Medulla Literary Review, the British Fantasy Society’s Dark Horizons and PANK magazine. Sarah graduated from Sheffield University with a degree in Psychology and is currently working on her first novel of Dystopian Young Adult fiction set in the UK.

Aubrie Dionne is a flutist, teacher, and author in the New England region. Her young adult fantasy novel, Dreams of Beauty, is published by SynergEbooks. Her writings can also be found in the September 2009 issue of Niteblade Magazine and the Nightbird Publications 2009 anthology. She teaches at Plymouth State University and at a local community music school. www.authoraubrie.com

Conda V. Douglas

Conda’s greatest love is writing short stories. Heart of Ice comes from her first visit to Canterbury Cathedral, which was also her first experience of a cold spot. In spring of 2012, her mystery novel, Starke Naked Dead will be released, along with the first in her ‘tween fantasy trilogy, The Mall Fairies: Exile. For more about Conda Douglas, visit her blog, Conda’s Creative Center http://condascreativecenter.blogspot.com/.

Alice Godwin lives in Sydney, Australia and has been published both online and in print at Dotdotdash, Emerald Tales, Eclecticism, Drops of Crimson, Three Crows Press, Midnight Echo and australian reader. She won the Australian Horror Writers Assoc short story award in 2008, and has been shortlisted in the 2008 and 2009 Irish Aeon Award. Coming out in 2010 are five anthologies that will include her stories, Skulls & Crossbones, Nocturnal Illumination, All about Eve, Shades of Sentience and First Time Mothers. She has won the Wyvern Flash Fiction competition and the 2010 Short Story Competition.

You can find her webpage at http://www.oneworldoneart.com/profile/AliceGodwin.

Boo Irwin lives in Manchester with her slightly neurotic dog, Rex.  She works full time in a law firm and in her free time writes young adult fiction.  Stephanie has a BA Hons and Postgraduate Diploma in Literature and is currently researching Peruvian legends for her second novel.

 Kirsty Ferry is married with a son and lives in the Northeast of England. She is in the final year of a Diploma in Literature and Creative Writing with the Open University and won the English Heritage/Belsay Hall national creative writing competition in 2009. She was also a finalist in the English Heritage 'Day out with a Difference' competition. She has had work accepted and published in magazines such as First Edition, Peoples Friend and Ghost Voices, been published on the flash fiction website 6s and has a story appearing in the Mertales anthology with Wyvern Publications. She has also been shorlisted for the Halloween Whodunit anthology with Pill Hill Press and has a particular passion for writing anything with a dark, Gothic or ghostly slant!

Larry Lefkowitz

The stories, poetry and humour of Larry Lefkowitz have been published in many print journals and online in the US, Israel and Britain, including: the Literary Review, Acapella Zoo, Thema, Runes, American Film, Arc, The Abacot Journal Third Wednesday.

Tasha Noble lives in Hampshire UK, with her husband, two children, an elderly cat who likes to sit on her laptop when she's typing, and eleven gerbils.  She is currently editing her first novel, The Memory Cloak, aimed at young adults. You can find her on Protagonize.com, a collaborative fiction site, where she is one of the most popular and prolific writers.  She can be found on http://www.protagonize.com/author/Tasha_Noble

Dulcinea Norton-Smith's name should have been Charlotte Emily Kate. That was the plan, but when she was born her mother had a momentary lapse in judgement and called her 'Dulcinea' (with an excessive number of middle names to boot). With such a literary name what choice did she have but to aspire to be a writer (or a Princess)! Had she been called Charlotte Emily Kate then perhaps she would have chosen a slightly more sensible, impossible dream to quest for.
Dulcinea is a Civil Servant and freelance ghost writer. She also writes and owns a pregnancy and parenting website,and a perfume blog and is  the founder of the writer's and artist's forum Pen & Palette.
Dulcinea has nine short stories due for book or magazine publication in 2009 and 2010 including two for the Wyvern Publications book Dragontales. She is currently working on two YA novels and a book for tweens.   Dulcinea can be found on her blog

Victoria Piontek first fell in love with fantasy when she and her older sister discovered a battered set of C.S Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia in their barn. The two girls took the books to their room and spent every night reading side by side. By the time they had finished the series Victoria believed in magic and knew that real magic could be found behind the cover of a book.  Victoria’s passion for books and language has never waned. She spent several years teaching English to middle school students in New York City’s Washington Heights and Education Methods to teachers at PACE University. She is currently working on an MFA in Children’s Literature at Hollins University. She lives in New York City with her three young children, husband and their dog. 'Where Dragons Soar' is Victoria first published work of fiction.

Emma Pollard is a new author of teenage and adult fiction. She is currently working on creating a three-book series based on ‘Battle of the Barracuda’. You can visit Emma’s website and get updates at www.evpollard.com. Emma lives in Hertfordshire with her partner, Rich. She used to be in the Royal Air Force, but now works for a wildlife charity, where she gets to spend time outdoors, write, and meet a wide variety of people (and animals) as part of her job, which is a good recipe for general happiness.

Cherie Reich is an aspiring writer and library assistant. Her published stories can be found in the magazine Emerald Tales Vol. 1, No. 3 "Winter Solstice" issue and Vol. 2, No. 2 "It was a bright and sunny day" issue and the anthology All About Eve, published by WolfSinger Publications.  Her e-book Once Upon a December Nightmare will be published by Wild Child Publishing. She was a third place winner for Roanoke Valley's BIG READ writing contest; her alternative ending story A Lesson Learned will be published in the Virginia English Bulletin. She currently lives in Virginia with her family and pets. For more information, please visit her website: http://cheriereich.webs.com.

Tim Reed is a twenty-seven year old who works in a bookshop, supplements it with freelance proofreading, and writes young adult fantasy books in his spare time. He self-published the first of his four book fantasy series ‘Everlace: Knives of the Night’ with Penpress in 2006, and is currently looking for a mainline publisher or literary agent after a heavy re-edit of Book One, and completion of its sequel. He has been a member of the Mythopoeic Society, the British Fantasy Society, and associate of the SFEP(Society of Editors and Proofreaders) in the past. He lives in Surrey with family, and enjoys all things fantasy – from The Magic Faraway Tree to Spirited Away, via the magical woods of Phantastes. 

Jessy Marie Roberts lives in a "haunted" house in Western Nebraska with her husband, Alva, and two dogs, Tucker and Snags. She grew up in Morgan Hill, California. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Pill Hill Press, a small, independent publisher of speculative fiction (www.pillhillpress.com). You can read more about Jessy and her stories at jessymarieroberts.weebly.com. 

Shoshana Rowse has been writing for several years, mostly in the realms of dark fantasy and supernatural fiction. Her first novel The Alhazriel is a coming of age tale of mystery and magic and will be published later this year by Little Acorn Press. Shoshana has lived and worked in Israel, Australia and New Zealand. She currently lives in London with a witch-black cat and far too many gargoyles and books. For more information, please visit www.shoshanarowse.com.

Kelly Said grew up a mile closer to the sun than most, in a small town nestled within the foothills of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. She once lived in a red house near the community cemetery, where tales of a vampire buried there, and how a tree had sprouted from the stake in its heart, haunted her imagination. That legend, combined with a healthy appetite for reading, inspired her to pursue creative writing. Sanctuary is her first published story. Kelly continues to enjoy life in Colorado with her husband and their two snugglelicious terriers. She also likes to hang out here: www.kellysaid.com

Holly Stacey started life as an archaeologist and adventurer - she began writing just a few years later when she started primary school.  Her writing has been included in anthologies by Pill Hill Press, Bridge House, Rebel Books, and Wyvern Publications.  She mostly writes dark teen fiction often with a folklore twist. Her teen novel, The Faerie Conspiracies is available on the buy from amazon and available to order from most bookstores. You can read more about Holly on her blog page: http://inkydoom.blogspot.com/

Jonty Stern was born in 1971 to a mother of Christian origins and a father who hailed from the Jewish tradition. His father was a Senior Lecturer in International Relations; his maternal grandfather was a Professor of East African Languages; his sister is a Professor of English at Oxford.  Jonty himself read Welsh Studies at Lampeter and is currently studying Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics, the Parks and Gardens of London and Westminster Guiding, having just completed two courses in London Archaeology. He's worked in museums and market research and was a finalist on "Big Brother" in 2007 and a contestant on "The Weakest Link" in 2009.

Joyce Taylor lives in Norfolk and her local landscapes are a huge inspiration in her writing. As she wrote ‘Calcifired’, familiar scenery was always present in her mind and she took two Norfolk legends, the Babes in the Wood and Wayland Smith, as the starting points for her fantasy. She likes to imbue favourite places with fictional qualities, so although readers of her short and full-length fiction might recognise a setting, the events and characters are straight from her imagination. She has written children’s stories all her life. Her first two short stories have been accepted for publication. At the moment she is finishing a fantasy short story for older teens and polishing a novel for children of 12+, about mixed heritage brothers who long to escape from a physically abusive foster placement and return to their homeland of St Lucia.

Carmel Waldron spent the first two and a half years of her life under a Morrison shelter in a Victorian terraced house in South-west London.  She went to a girls’ convent grammar school where she spent most of her time reading in the wonderful library and hiding from the PE teachers.  She belatedly took a B.A.(Hons) in English Literature and History and a PGCE course and went into teaching and later became Head of Faculty, a position she lived with for 16 years. During this time she wrote and directed three musicals at school as well as adapting three Shakespeare plays as musicals. After she retired she went back part-time to teach A Level Language and Literature courses.  She currently writes A Level Literature Guides for ZigZag Education and runs Formby Youth Theatre, as well as writing fiction. 

Flora Winters enjoyed being grounded to her room as a child because it gave her time to read undisturbed. Nowadays, she spends much of her time in her dorm room at Mills College with a sign taped to the door stating: “Caution: Do Not Enter. Writer at Work.” Underneath is a sticker: “Do not thou meddle in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and good with ketchup.” Whether or not she actually keeps a pet dragon to eat trespassers is debatable . . .

Raven Wyrstone has published a short story with Wyvern Magazine and a children's book, The Howling Moon, with Wyvern's children's imprint Pixiefoot Press. She writes all things magical and has found inspiration through her great grandmother who was a Romani gypsy.

Nicole Zoltack lives in Pennsylvania with her loving husband and ever-growing family. Completely obsessed with the Middle Ages, it comes as no surprise that that time period is her favourite historical setting for her stories. She is the author of Woman of Honor and Knight of Glory, both medieval fantasy romances, available from Desert Breeze Publishing. She has published several short stories in anthologies, including The Cupid Diaries: Moments in Time and Be Mused – An A-MUSE-ing Anthology. To learn more about Nicole and her works, visit her website at www.NicoleZoltack.com.