Sabaa Tahir grew up in California’s Mojave Desert at her family’s 18-room motel. There, she spent her time devouring fantasy novels, raiding her brother’s comic book stash, and playing the guitar badly. She began writing An Ember in the Ashes while working nights as a newspaper editor. She likes thunderous indie rock, garish socks, and all things nerd. Tahir currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family.

Rick Yancey is the author of the New York Times bestseller The 5th Wave, The Infinite Sea, The Last Star, several adult novels, and the memoir Confessions of a Tax Collector. His first young-adult novel, The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp, was a finalist for the Carnegie Medal. In 2010, his novel, The Monstrumologist, received a Michael L. Printz Honor, and the sequel, The Curse of the Wendigo, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. When he isn’t writing or thinking about writing or traveling the country talking about writing, Rick is hanging out with his family.

Alison Goodman is the author of the New York Times best-selling Eon/Eona duology, as well as the genre-bending Singing the Dogstar Blues and the adult thriller A New Kind of Death (originally titled Klling the Rabbit).

Alison lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her husband, Ron, and their two exuberant Parson Russell Terriers, Xander and Spike. She was the 1999 D.J. O’Hearn Memorial Fellow at Melbourne University, holds a Master of Arts, and teaches creative writing at a postgraduate level.