Wayne Arthurson is an Edmonton freelance writer and novelist. His novel, Fall From Grace, is the first in a mystery/crime series published by Forge Books, and spent several weeks atop of the Edmonton Journal Bestseller list.

Devourer of speculative fiction, writer of YA. Kate runs kilometres (not miles) and is a retired drama nerd. She's a fan of dark chocolate, travelling to far off lands, and her two small kids.

By night, Scott is a published RPG writer, an award-nominated playwright, an actor, a gamer and life-long geek. By day, Scott works as a journalist, and can be heard on 630CHED and iNews880. He is also the co-host and co-producer of Edmonton-based internet talk show "The Unknown Studio" with Adam Rozenhart.

Shen grew up on Saturday morning cartoons, so is constantly disappointed when his car doesn't turn into a robot and no one appears to give him a magic bow. He is a dedicated nerd, writer, house-husband and parent (not necessarily listed in order of importance). His first published work appeared this year in Tesseracts 15.

Vadim Bulitko received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1999 and is currently an Associate Professor at the department of Computing Science at the University of Alberta. His research interests are in strong Artificial Intelligence, creativity and cognition. On the teaching side, Vadim is the head instructor for a multi-disciplinary class Computers and Games.

Dr. Carpenter is a musicologist and music critic, and a faculty member at the Augustana campus of the University of Alberta. His interests include classical music, popular music, film music, and the relationships between music and psychoanalysis. He has presented his research internationally, and has had his work published in a number of scholarly journals. Alex was recently invited to lecture at the Sigmund Freud Museum in London, and has also been interviewed several times on the CBC, on topics ranging from Mozart's operas to popular music. An avid horror movie fan, his most recent musicological work examines music in zombie cinema.

Robin Carson is a former English and Latin teacher who has read one form or another of speculative fiction for almost sixty years. He loves language in general, and English in particular, and has worked with writers all of his adult life. To him, short fiction is especially impressive because of the limitations imposed by length on every aspect of the story.

Marty Chan is a playwright, radio writer, television story editor, and young adult author. Much to the chagrin of his mother, he doesn't include engineer on his resume. In 2004, Thistledown Press launched Marty's first young adult novel, the Mystery of the Frozen Brains, which has become a hit with young readers across Canada. He is currently the Edmonton Public Library's Writer in Residence.

Andrew Czarnietzki is the Technical Director and a founding partner of 3DI (3D Interactive Inc.) Andrew has a Bachelor’s of Industrial Design from the University of Alberta, and over 10 years’ experience working with game design technology including the Unreal 3 game engine. Andrew’s professional background is that of a “technical artist”, working in both an art role and a programming role. This combination has allowed Andrew to bridge the two disciplines of the game design industry and help develop a team of world class programmers and artists.

Rodrigo is a board member of the Greater Edmonton Skeptics Society, has presented at Logicon and SkeptiCamp Alberta, and has been on the radio show Skeptically Speaking twice. As it can be harmful or even deadly to ignore reality, Rodrigo thinks that it is important in this information age that people learn more about practical logic, statistics, and how science works so they can better discern what's real and thus become better decision makers and problem solvers. Apart from enjoying the social aspects of being involved in skepticism, Rodrigo also enjoys travelling and photography.

Gail deVos' speciality is telling contemporary legends to young and not so young adults. But whatever the story, she weaves a bond between herself and listeners, calling up memories and emotions and helping us understand ourselves and the world we live in.

Stacey Douglas works in the Alberta film and television industry, either as a wardrobe assistant or in the office of various productions. In the past four years Stacey has worked on about 20 different projects including the series Blackstone, and the feature film Inception. When not working on a movie she tries to keep up with watching them. She’s simply a fan of horror, and still trying to figure out why she enjoys watching and discussing the genre.

Minister Faust. SS/FAuthor. Speaker. Indie publisher. Comic book author. Con-jacker. Doesn't suffer fools. Aching to blast Greedo first. Will insult Lord of the Rings to a room full of fantasy fans, and has. Yearns to train iron-fist kung fu just so he can smash Hollywood piece by piece.

Best known for co-writing the graphic novel Cowboys & Aliens, Andrew Foley wishes he was better known for writing comics like PARTING WAYS, THE HOLIDAY MEN, and DONE TO DEATH. In between naps, slumbers, deep sleeps, and medicinally-induced vegetative states, he continues developing his own writing projects, acts as a creative consultant for emerging comics creators, and walks his dog.

Logan Foster is a 3D artist for 3D Interactive Inc. in Edmonton Alberta. For the past 12 years Logan has worked in Alberta as a creative professional focusing on 3D and 2D art and production design & development for traditional and interactive and digital media projects. While initially starting in the digital media space, since 2004 Logan has focused on the game development sector, where he has been a key contributor to the release of over a dozen original IP and contract PC/Mac, console, mobile, social, serious and web based games.

Gayleen Froese is a novelist and musician from western Canada. She is the author of the "Touch" series of paranormal mysteries, including Grayling Cross, which was released earlier this year and is set in Edmonton. Froese’s non-fiction and humour writing has appeared in publications including See Magazine, Avenue Magazine, and The Rat Creek Press.

Jayne Gackenbach received her Ph.D. in psychology in the U.S. at Virginia Commonwealth University in 1978. She is currently with the Psychology Department at Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. For the first 2/3rds of her career she focused on research and writing into nighttime dreams. But then her son got a Nintendo and her interest in video games was born. Since then she has done over a decade of research, publication and media interviews on video game play.

David Gaider has worked as a narrative designer for video game developer BioWare since 1999. He is the lead writer on the Dragon Age series (including Dragon Age: Origins™ and Dragon Age 2™) and has previously worked on such titles as Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn™, Star Wars ®: Knights of the Old Republic™, and Neverwinter Nights™.

Author Barb Galler-Smith resides in Edmonton with her fabulously supportive husband, John, and two Yorkies, Darby and Sailor Moon. She's a former Compuserve IMP, a member of Edmonton's Cult of Pain writers group, and a new groups of emerging writers called "the Scruffies".  She's also busy editing with OnSpec magazine where she gets to read lots and lots of stories. She terribly proud her recent novel DRUIDS, a collaboration with US Author Josh Langston, was nominated for 2010 Aurora Award for Best Novel in English.  The second book in the series in scheduled for Spring 2011.

Residing in a northern Alberta community, Judith unhappily endures snow in the winter, and runs away from bees in the summer. A firm believer that Canadian teen fiction can be sexy, action packed and snarky as hell – Judith writes paranormal stories with attitude. Under My Skin, the first book in the SKINNED series was published in 2010 with Leap Books. Second Skin (2011) and Skin of My Teeth (2012) complete the series.

Dave Gross is the author of two and 1/2 of the Pathfinder Tales novels, as well as several earlier novels and stories in the Forgotten Realms setting. He has edited magazines from Dragon to Star Wars Insider to Amazing Stories.

Barry Hammond published a novel, Cold Front, with New American Library in 1982 and his short fiction and poetry has appeared in over 50 literary magazines and anthologies in three countries. He's currently a bookseller at Greenwoods' Bookshoppe in Edmonton, and poetry editor (and former fiction editor) for On Spec since 1991. His book reviews have appeared in The Edmonton Journal, Vue Weekly, See Magazine, Pacific Rim Review, Legacy and Independently Reviewed. He's also a music and DVD reviewer for Penguin Eggs, Canada's Folk, Roots, and World Music magazine.

Amber's writing credits include novels, poetry, short stories, book reviews and prose poems. In 2010, her story, "In the Storm", won the Antigonish Review's Sheldon Currie award. Moving from novel length to short-short, her Story 365 project commits her to writing and posting a story every day for a year. The stories can be viewed on her website. First line suggestions more than welcome!

Cath Jackel is a civil servant by day, a renaissance dancer by night, and a twenty-four hour bibliophile. She is the proud holder of one and one-eighth Aurora awards for organization. The fraction is shared with the concom of ConText '89, the first Canadian convention entirely dedicated to Canadian SF writers and writing. The solo award was for organizing the Canadian publishing suite at the 1994 Worldcon in Winnipeg. Cath would love to chat with you about books, galliards, and the best places to eat in Edmonton.

Maria Jenkins is a local music teacher and Harry Potter enthusiast. She began attending Harry Potter conventions in 2006 and founded the Edmonton Harry Potter Club in 2007.

Dr. Torah Kachur is a world traveller, basketball player, self-professed super nerd and a Sessional Professor at the University of Alberta in Biological Sciences. She is also a creator, writer and co-host of Science in Seconds (www.scienceinseconds.com), a website that lets you 'Know Everything'.

Jennifer Kennedy writes fantasy and science fiction, under the byline J.Y.T. Kennedy. Her most recently published speculative fiction story was 'Touching Down' in NeoOpsis magazine. Her fantasy novel, Dominion, was published by DragonMoon Press. She lives just east of Edmonton

Kyle is Co-Founder and Lead Developer for Itzy Interactive. Growing up in rural ALberta, he's been an avid gamer since his days of playing Gorf on his Commodore Vic-20. He eventually chose a career in Finance. A decade in the brokerage industry, a layoff, and uncertain economy and the birth of his first son cause him to reevaluate his career goals. Now, after graduating with honours from NAIT’s DMIT program with an emphasis on Game Programming and Design he’s ready to pursue a career dream he’s had since childhood and make some videogames.

Nicole Luiken wrote her first book at age thirteen and had two books published while still in highschool. She has eight YA novels published. Violet Eyes and Frost won the Golden Eagle Book Award and Dreamfire won the Gold-medal Moonbeam. She has an adult fantasy novel coming out from Carina Press in March 2012.

Susan MacGregor has been a fiction editor with On Spec Magazine since 1991. Her editing credits include two anthologies: 'Divine Realms' through Turnstone Books and 'Tesseracts 15: A Case of Quite Curious Tales' through Edge Books. Her written work includes a non-fiction book 'The ABC's of How NOT to Write Speculative Fiction'. Her short fiction has appeared in On Spec, Northern Frights and other venues.

Ann Marston grew up back and forth across most of Canada, and now lives in Edmonton, Alberta. She has worked as a teacher, a flight instructor, an airline pilot and an airport manager and is deeply involved in her local Adult Literacy Project. She has two children, Laura who is a fourth generation pilot, and Daniel, who is a computer genius. She writes fantasy because everyone knows pilots don't live in the real world anyway. Ann is the author of The Rune Blade trilogy and the Sword in Exile trilogy, as well as a number of short stories.

Jessica is a wearer of many hats and makes no apologies. Above all, she loves material culture, stuff, junk and things. The stuff in your forgotten drawer, the junk at a flea market, the things you want to buy. Currently, her time is spent producing content for Crabcat Industries.

First art show made enough $$ for first word processor. Other art shows bought writing time. Published in non-fiction (cookbooks, historical anthology, river guide, heritage river study) and Adult, YA and kid fiction (flash, short & novella). Fantasy Anthology “Woman of the Apocalypse” 2009 won Aurora Award (Billie’s novella = “Hungersnot” is one of 4 novellas in the anthology). 4 novels in progress, 2 fantasy, one YA Mystery & 1 Can Lit. Mundane job = Communication Manager for a non-profit watershed organization.

Mike Perschon teaches English at Grant Macewan University here in Edmonton. Currently working towards a PhD in Comparative Literature at the University, his dissertation topic of steampunk has lead to a number of related publications in Verniana, The Journal of Neo-Victorian Studies, Exhibition Hall, and Locus magazine. He speaks on Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror at academic conferences and fan conventions, and has been virally disseminating his research at steampunkscholar.com.

Alina Pete is the artist and creator of the popular web-comic, Weregeek. Her work focuses on gaming and geek popular culture. Alina has been creating comics online for over 5 years, and has a sizeable fan base. She has appeared as a guest at previous Pure Speculation conventions, since 2008.

Lifelong Star Trek fan, Samantha Power currently serves as the News Editor at Vue Weekly. In her spare time she rewatches Trek series, reads any and all science fiction and hosts the daytime metal show Heavy Metal Lunchbox on CJSR.

Helen developed a love of science fiction early in life which helped to develop her passion for science. She is completing an undergrad degree in Biological Sciences at Grant MacEwan University and loves to discuss and encourage others in science. She is also a member of the board for the Greater Edmonton Skeptics Society and one the organizers of logiCON, an Edmonton science outreach conference.

A BSc graduate of the U of A's Medical Lab Science program, Joël Rivero specializes in molecular diagnostic techniques such as PCR and DNA fingerprinting for outbreak investigative purposes with Alberta Health Services. As a medical lab technologist, he's helped detect for the province a plethora of pathogenic perpetrators (e.g. HBV, HCV, HIV, HSV, Influenza H1N1) at the molecular level. Joël currently teaches Infection Control and Molecular Diagnostics at NAIT. Other interests include marathon running, cavorting within the a cappella quintet "Apocalypse Kow," the Edmonton Oilers, quantum leaping, root beer, and all things Hungapino. He also plays a mean *insert your favorite 8-bit VG theme here* on the pipe organ.

Dr. Roccia combines 15 years experience teaching English literature, grammar, rhetoric, editing, business writing, and popular culture at Grant MacEwan University with 16 years of freelance writing and editing. His work has been featured in Avenue Edmonton, Edmontonians, and Comic Talks 2005, and he’s appeared as a regular pop culture commentator on movies, rhetoric, and the TV series Smallville for ACCESS Television’s Media Sense program.

Adam loves podcasting. So, along with colleague Scott C. Bourgeois, he started a podcast all about Edmonton. He also, it turns out, has an unhealthy obsession with zombies. So, along with colleague Scott and a few other local survivalists, he created YEGZombeers, an infrequent meeting over beers to talk about the inevitable zombie apocalypse. That qualifies him to moderate a panel on the very topic, it would seem. And if you show any sign of infection, he will remove your head from your torso.

Jocelyn currently resides in a town near Athabasca, Alberta. When she is not getting used to the country life and shaking her fist at wild animals on ‘her’ land, she loves reading and watching science fiction. Jocelyn spent five years volunteering and producing Adamant Eve Feminist News Radio in Edmonton and is an expert at getting her feminism on.

Rachelle has been a science fiction and fantasy fandom geek since she was young, back when the internet was mostly just words and enthusiasm. She is currently the President of the Greater Edmonton Skeptic Society, a local science advocacy organization, and the Director of LogiCON, an Edmonton science outreach conference. She also volunteers on the locally run radio and podcast Skeptically Speaking, and occasionally appears on air interviewing other science geeks and experts.

Desiree is the host of the live radio talk show and podcast Skeptically Speaking, interviewing experts on all manners of science, reason, critical thought and assorted geekery. Skeptically Speaking airs live every Friday night at 6 pm MST on CJSR in Edmonton, streams live at Skepticallyspeaking.com, and is rebroadcast by several radio stations in Canada and the United States. The show is also available as an MP3 download on the website and iTunes.

Morgan is a local writer, actor, and dyed in the wool geek. She loves everything from comic books, to anime, to RPGs and Horror. You may have seen her as Queen Kate Parr in the 2011 Fringe hit "Tudor Queens." Or you may have seen her Sterling-nominated performance in the Sterling-nominated 2010 Fringe show "Game Face" co-written with Scott C. Bourgeois. During the day she helps create reality television on hunting network WildTV. At night, she sometimes takes off her clothes as part of the Burlesque-Theatre troupe Send in the Girls, or rips artistically-challenged films to pieces as a part of Turkey Shoot at Metro Cinema. Her favourite horror film is "Alien".

Gail Sidonie Sobat is an award-winning author of 8 books for children, YA & adult audiences. She completed a Master’s degree in English at the U of A, specializing in fantasy and has taught, written and published articles on this subject as well as childrens/YA literature, in general. Her critically-acclaimed Ingamald fantasy trilogy was nominated for a number of awards, and her long-awaited SF children’s picture book, In the Graveyard, illustrated by Spyder Yardley-Jones, has just been published.

Matthew Tang has a background in computers, event organization, and design theory, but for fun? Advanced board games, dance choreography, social video games, and judging and competing in tournaments for Magic the Gathering - in which he has been dominating the Albertan scene since early 2000. He is also the city’s most active higher-ranking Judge for Magic the Gathering - this year, Matthew was able to judge a PTQ in Japan.

Diane has been with On Spec since the beginning of the magazine, and currently serves as Managing Editor. She could not do this without the loyal support of her hardworking editorial staff and the amazing support staff. Her own fiction has been seen on the pages of On Spec, as well as in the Northern Frights (on the Mosaic Press backlist) anthology, and Divine Realms (Ravenstone Books). Nowadays, she is happy to work with Pure Speculation, and run the Con*Spec stream of programming at the annual Edmonton Festival.

Trent has written for CBC Radio (The Irrelevant Show), See Magazine, Canadian Emergency News, FFWD Magazine, Notebook Magazine and Horrornews.net. Trent is also a member of Mostly Water Theatre, a multi-media sketch comedy troupe that has been dubbed as ”a perfect mix of boneheadedness and sophistication”. He has also been a wilderness canoe guide for close to ten years and considers the deep dark woods a therapy that only comes at the cost of comfort. When not being overwhelmingly stuffed into various projects, Trent likes to relax while watching horror movies or trying to invent the perfect three chord song.

Spyder Yardley-Jones is an internationally recognized cartoonist, painter, sculptor and illustrator. Spyder's artwork has been on exhibition in the USA and Canada, most recently in the McMullen Gallery, the Tu Gallery, Harcourt House Gallery and the Art Gallery of Alberta. He teaches cartooning and art in junior and senior high schools as Artist-in-Residence, and for 15 years has been part of the instructional team at YouthWrite. His detailed, medieval maps of Hinterlund and Gyldden, the fictional fantasy settings of Gail Siddonie Sobat's YA "Ingamald" series, appear in her books. His work includes illustrations for Mark Kozub's novel, The Uptown Browns, cartoons in the 3-book series Bachelor's Guide to Ward Off Starvation, cover design for Natasha Deen's novel, True Grime, and most recently his fully-illustrated book, In the Graveyard, written by Gail Siddonie Sobat.

Jared graduated from the U of A with a BA, majoring in Anthropology. Soon after he worked for the United Nations in Kosovo as an evidence analyst. Following his time with the UN, his career path led him through the U of A Transplant Program for eight years before starting as a full-time Investigator with the Medical Examiner's Office in June 2008.