Brenda Chapman (“Thicker Than Water”) enjoys writing about secrets and the human entanglements that drive people to do what they do. A former teacher, she is the author of the Jennifer Bannon young adult mystery series (watch for Trail of Secrets, Napoleon Publishing, spring 2009) while her short stories have been published in Canadian Living and When Boomers Go Bad. Brenda lives in Ottawa and works as a senior communications advisor for the federal government. She is also serving a second term as Chair of Capital Crime Writers. You can visit her website at www.brendachapman.ca.

Two years ago Jann Everard found a fifty-year-old cake in the home of an aging relative and turned it into a story for the Globe and Mail. “What Moves You” continues her exploration of how people react when aging family members must leave their homes. When Jann’s not writing, she’s raising two sons in Toronto and studying toward a Certificate in Publishing at Ryerson University .

Kathleen Gerard (“When the Moon Became a Star”)’s writing has appeared in various literary journals and anthologies, as well as featured on National Public Radio (NPR-USA). Her short fiction has been nominated for “Best New American Voices,” a national prize in literature, and awarded the Perillo Prize for Italian American Writing. In addition, several of her plays have been staged and performed regionally and off-Broadway in New York City . She lives in Northern New Jersey and can be reached at katgerard@aol.com.

Katharine O’Flynn is a frequent contributor to Storyteller. Her work has also appeared or is forthcoming in Kalliope, Blueline and in Short Stuff and In Other Words, anthologies of new English writing in Quebec . She is currently working on a novel in the Quebec Writers Federation Mentorship Programme. She tell us: The idea for “Lifestyles” came as I sat through a boring literary reading, wishing I were doing something more rewarding, like climbing a mountain, and amusing myself by imagining the life stories of other people in the audience.

A pathological nomad and recovering stunt woman, Kristene Perron has a soft spot for the back country of Baja California , Mexico and characters like those in “The Devil, the Desert, and Mr. Smith,” who live on the fringe. Her story “Attempted” won second place in the Writer’s Digest Magazine’s Short-Short Story Competition (2007) and another of her stories received an honourable mention in their Genre Fiction Competition (2007). She currently has a story awaiting publication in Grey’s Sporting Journal and is working on a novel (and learning to open coconuts), in the Cook Islands .

David Routledge (“Just Arrived”) has been reading science fiction since he was ten. He grew up to be a radio astronomer—insofar as he grew up. David has published in Storyteller and Neo-Opsis. He lives in Edmonton with his very understanding wife, and offers reasonable rates to relatives and acquaintances who may wish not to appear as characters in his stories. He has no friends.

Based in Toronto , Rebecca M. Senese (“In the Walls”) writes horror, mystery and science fiction, often all at once in the same story. Garnering an Honorable Mention in The Year’s Best Science Fiction and nominated for numerous Aurora Awards, her work has appeared in TransVersions, Future Syndicate, Deadbolt Magazine, On Spec, The Vampire’s Crypt, Storyteller and Into the Darkness, amongst others. Check out her website at www.rebeccasenese.com.

C. June Wolf lives and writes in Vancouver . As polar caps melt, seas rise. Vancouver is on the sea. No place for an old, sick man on his own—unless he has something precious in the sky. She told us: I knew an unhappy version of Mr. Cowmeadow. We were neighbours and friends for twenty years. I took care of him a lot as he got older and sicker, and I knew him well, and watched his suffering. He had a pretty sad childhood, in which he was poorly loved. so when he was dead I wrote a story in which he got to have, and be, the person who loved him exactly enough. (In other words, both the son and the father represent my friend.) It was a way of dealing with my grief about both his life and his death.