Periphery (32 page)

She urges you to go out and buy them so she can give up her day job and concentrate on doing what she does best.

Melissa Scott
is from Little Rock, Arkansas, and studied history at Harvard College and Brandeis University, where she earned her PhD in the Comparative History program with a dissertation titled “Victory of the Ancients: Tactics, Technology, and the Use of Classical Precedent.” She is the author of more than twenty science fiction and fantasy novels, most with queer themes and characters, and has won Lambda Literary Awards for
Trouble and Her Friends
,
Shadow Man
, and
Point of Dreams
, the last written with her late partner, Lisa A. Barnett. She has also won a Spectrum Award for
Shadow Man
and again in 2010 for the short story “The Rocky Side of the Sky” (Periphery, Lethe Press) as well as the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. She can be found on LiveJournal at mescott.livejournal.com.

Carolyn Ives Gilman
’s latest novel is a two-book series,
Isles of the Forsaken
and
Ison of the Isles
, a fantasy about culture clash and revolution in an enchantment-shrouded island nation. Her first novel,
Halfway Human
, was called “one of the most compelling explorations of gender and power in recent SF” by
Locus
magazine. Some of her short fiction can be found in
Aliens of the Heart
and
Candle in a Bottle
, both from Aqueduct Press, and in
Arkfall
, from Arc Manor. Her short fiction has appeared in
Fantasy and Science Fiction
,
The Year’s Best Science Fiction
,
Lightspeed
,
Phantom Drift
,
Bending the Landscape
,
Interzone
,
Universe
,
Full Spectrum
,
Realms of Fantasy
, and others. Her work has been translated and reprinted in France, Poland, Russia, Romania, the Czech Republic, Sweden, and Italy. She has been nominated for the Nebula Award three times and for the Hugo once.

In her professional career, Gilman is a historian specializing in 18th- and early 19th-century North American history, particularly frontier and Native history. She is currently working on a history of the American Revolution on the frontier. She has been a guest lecturer at the Library of Congress, Harvard University, and Monticello, and has been interviewed on
All Things Considered
,
Talk of the Nation
,
History Detectives
, the History Channel, and countless local and regional television and radio shows. She lives in St. Louis and works for the Missouri History Museum as a historian and curator.

Jean Stewart
grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She lives near Seattle with her partner Susie, three badly behaved dogs and a reclusive Maine Coon cat named Emily Dickinson. She has published five books in The Isis Series, and a stand-alone novel,
Emerald City Blues
. She has had stories published in numerous anthologies. She has been nominated for three Lambda Literary Awards, a Spectrum Gaylactic Award, and was awarded a Goldie by the Golden Crown Literary Society. Her last two books are
Wizard of Isis
and
Winged Isis
. Her work is available through Bella Books.

Catherine Lundoff
is the award-winning author of the lesbian erotica collections
Night’s Kiss
(Lethe Press, 2009) and
Crave
(Lethe Press, 2007) as well as the fantasy collection
A Day at the Inn, A Night at the Palace and Other Stories
(Lethe Press, 2011). She is also the author of
Silver Moon: A Women of Wolf’s Point Novel
(Lethe Press, 2012). She is the editor of
Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades: Lesbian Ghost Stories
(Lethe Press, 2008) and the co-editor, with JoSelle Vanderhooft, of the anthology
Hellebore and Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic
(Lethe Press, 2011). In her other lives, she's a professional computer geek, the spouse of her fabulous wife and an occasional teacher of writing classes at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. Website: www.catherinelundoff.com http://www.catherinelundoff.com.

Victoria Janssen
has written novel-length erotica for Harlequin Spice beginning with
The Duchess, Her Maid, The Groom and Their Lover
, which has been translated into French, German, and Russian. Her second novel,
The Moonlight Mistress
, features the early days of World War One and werewolves; it has an electronic-only “Spice Briefs” sequel out May 2012 with a cross-dressing heroine, titled “Under Her Uniform.”
The Moonlight Mistress
was translated into Italian and nominated for an RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award. Her most recent novel is
The Duke & The Pirate Queen
, a sequel to
The Duchess, Her Maid, The Groom and Their Lover
.

Under her pseudonym, Elspeth Potter, Victoria has sold more than thirty short stories to assorted print anthologies. She's a regular blogger for both
Heroes & Heartbreakers
(romance) and
The Criminal Element
(mystery). Find her on twitter @victoriajanssen or at victoriajanssen.com.

Cecilia Tan
is “simply one of the most important writers, editors, and innovators in contemporary American erotic literature,” according to Susie Bright. In 1992 Tan founded Circlet Press, a category-busting independent press that mixes science fiction/fantasy with erotica. She is the author of
Black Feathers, White Flames
,
The Prince's Boy
,
Mind Games
,
Edge Plays
,
Telepaths Don't Need Safewords
, the Magic University series, and many other books, and her short stories have appeared in
Ms. Magazine
,
Nerve
,
Best American Erotica
,
Asimov's
Science Fiction
, and tons of other places. She has also edited many erotica anthologies for other publishers including Ravenous Romance, Red Silk, Alyson Books, Masquerade Books, Blue Moon Books, and Thunders Mouth Press. She was inducted into the Saints & Sinners Hall of Fame for GLBT writers in 2010, was a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Leather Association in 2001, and won the inaugural Rose & Bay Awards for crowd-funded fiction in 2010 for
Daron's Guitar Chronicles
. She lives in the Boston area with her lifelong partner Corwin and three cats.

Sharon Wachsler
lives in rural New England, where she blogs, trains dogs, and flogs a disability rights agenda. She’s the founding editor of
Breath & Shadow
online literary journal and has received an Astraea award as an emerging fiction writer and two Pushcart nominations for poetry. Sharon's erotica appears in several dozen publications, including
Best American Erotica
2004 and 2005, and most recently in
Dormitory Heat
,
Girl Fever
, and
Best Lesbian Erotica
2012. She blogs at http://aftergadget.wordpress.com, http://occupyathome.wordpress.com (@occupy_at_home), http://sharonwachsler.blogspot.com, and writes for AbilityMaine.org. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @aftergadget.

Lynne Jamneck
is a transplanted South African who lives in Auckland, New Zealand. Short-listed for the Sir Julius Vogel and Lambda Awards, she has published short fiction in various markets, including
Jabberwocky Magazine
,
H.P. Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror
,
Fantastique Unfettered
and
Spicy Slipstream Stories
. She finished her MA in English Literature at the University of Auckland in 2012, and is working on her first speculative novel featuring a lost protagonist and a city of secrets. http://lynnejamneckdiaries.blogspot.co.nz/.