Gary K. Wolfe editor, is Emeritus Professor of Humanities at Roosevelt University and the author, most recently, of Evaporating Genres: Essays on Fantastic Literature and Sightings: Reviews 2002-2006. He has received numerous awards for his critical writing including the British Science Fiction Association Award, the Pilgrim Award from the Science Fiction Research Association, the Distinguished Scholarship Award from the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, and the World Fantasy Award. He writes regular review columns for Locus magazine and the Chicago Tribune, and co-hosts with Jonathan Strahan the Hugo-nominated Coode Street Podcast.

Born in Bristol, Pennsylvania, and raised mainly in Texas, Poul Anderson (1926-2001) published more than fifty SF novels over the course of his long career, winning multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards. A native of Milville, Wisconsin, Clifford D. Simak (1904-1988) was inducted as a Grand Master of the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1977. Born in New York City, Daniel Keyes (1927-2014) won a Nebula Award for Flowers for Algernon (1966) and became a creative writing professor at Ohio University. Born in Euclid, Ohio, Roger Zelazny (1937-1995) was hailed as a leading voice of SF's "New Wave," winning six Hugo and three Nebula Awards.