 Within the City of the Swan—Aliette de Bodard lives in Paris, where she works as a computer engineer. Since writing and debugging programs did not allow her to indulge her love for history and mythology, she turned her hand to writing speculative fiction: her short stories have appeared in previous issues of Shimmer and are forthcoming in Interzone and in Writers of the Future XXIII. |
 Penny Wise–Kurt Kirchmeier currently resides in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan with his lovely wife and a gaggle of fictional children. Although he admits to jumping genres rather frequently in his writing, his heart will always belong to contemporary fantasy. Kurt’s fiction has appeared in a variety of print and on-line magazines including All Possible Worlds, Flashquake, The Horror Fiction Review, and Reflection’s Edge. Visit www.kurtkirchmeier.com. |
 A Very Young Boy with Largely Clipped Wings—A native of Colorado, Michael Livingston holds degrees in History, Medieval Studies, and English. He is a winner of the Writers of the Future Contest and has published in a variety of genres and venues. He currently serves as an Assistant Professor of English at The Citadel. Visit www.michaellivingston.com. |
 Flying and Falling—Kuzhali Manickavel lives in a small temple town on the coast of South India. Her work can be found at Caketrain, Smokelong Quarterly, Gambara, Ghoti and Opium. |
 Monologue with Birds and Burin—Daniel A. Rabuzzi lived in Norway and Germany, earning degrees in folklore and history. An executive in an education non-profit by day, Daniel explores a world called Yount by night and on weekends. Having finished one novel about Yount, Daniel is working on a sequel and hopes to share Yount with other pilgrims soon. |
 Even Songbirds Are Kept in Cages–Josh Vogt is a recent transplant from Colorado to New York City, where he is immersed in the business side of publishing while chasing the dream of a writing career. He has been published in Leading Edge magazine, and won first place in the speculative fiction category of the 2006 Pikes Peak Writers Conference contest. Visit his website at www.jrvogt.com. |
 Dresses, Three—Angela Slatter has finally been awarded her MA. Comments from examiners included “Wow, you should really get these stories published.” 2007 will see her begin a PhD in Creative Writing, continue to push pieces of paper around a desk, try to construct a more aerodynamic paper airplane, and string large numbers of paperclips together in an effort to create chainmail for modern office warfare. 2008 looks like more of the same. She needs some more sleep. |
