Cheap Street Press was a small independent specialty press founded and operated by George and Jan O'Nale of New Castle, Virginia. For over two decades the press produced original contemporary science fiction and fantasy in a fine press format. Individual titles were produced in signed and numbered editions, on fine (sometimes handmade) paper and hand-bound in fine cloth and leather, with runs of no more than 200 copies.

Cheap Street's first production was Ervool, by Fritz Leiber, in 1980. Subsequent authors who produced work for Cheap Street included writers like Gregory Benford, Charles de Lint, Thomas M. Disch, Ursula K. Le Guin, Tanith Lee, Elizabeth Lynn, Anne McCaffrey, Andre Norton, John Sladek, Gene Wolfe, and many others. The last production of Cheap Street Press came in 2002, with Flying Saucer Rock and Roll by Howard Waldrop. In 2003, George and Jan committed mutual suicide due to increasing ill-health.

Born November 3, 1878, died April 2, 1979.
1975 Poet Laureate of Texas

Kristine Kathryn Rusch is a renowned and award-winning writer (under several pseudonyms as well as her real name) and editor of speculative fiction. Her published literary debut was the short story "Spare the Rat and Spoil the Child", released in 1987; this was the first in her long career writing short fiction, which to date has been assembled into nineteen separate collections. Several of her stories have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, and other industry awards: these include "Fast Cars" (1990), "The Gallery of Her Dreams" (1991, winner of the 1992 Locus Award), "Echea" (1998, winner of the 1998 HOMer Award and 1999 Asimov's Readers Award ), and "The Retrieval Artist" (2000). Her novelette "Millennium Babies" won the 2001 Hugo Award for Best Novelette, and she has won several additional Asimov's Readers Awards for her short fiction ("Diving Into The Wreck", 2005; "Recovering Apollo 8", 2008; "The Application of Hope", 2014; "Inhuman Garbage", 2016; and "Lieutenant Tightass", 2019). "Recovering Apollo 8" also won the 2007 Sidewise Award for Best Alternate History. Her 1989 story "Phantom" was nominated for the Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction. Rusch's short fiction has appeared in more than twenty Best Of The Year collections.

Rusch is also a well-received author of long form fiction, having written close to 100 novels since The White Mists of Power (1991). She has produced 10 novels (and several shorter works) within her "Diving Universe", and is responsible for creating several other literary universes, including "Faerie Justice", "Retrieval Artist", and "The Fey". In addition, Rusch has written books set in the Star Trek, Star Wars, and Aliens media franchises. She writes mysteries under the name "Kris Nelscott", and lighthearted romance and mystery works as "Kristine Grayson". Her 2002 "Retrieval Artist" novel The Disappeared won the 2002 Endeavour Award.

Rusch has also had a distinguished career as a professional editor and publisher. With her husband and fellow author Dean Wesley smith she co-founded the small press Pulphouse Publishing, which from 1988-1996 published 244 different titles from a wide variety of speculative writers through the hardback magazine Pulphouse, a more standard literary magazine, Pulphouse Weekly, and Author's Choice Monthly, a series of chapbooks from writers that included Lewis Shiner, Jack Williamson, Ron Goulart, Kate Wilhelm, Joe R. Lansdale, Charles de Lint, and Roger Zelazny. Pulphouse publications were nominated for numerous awards, and the hardback magazine won the 1989 World Fantasy Award for Special Award, Non-Professional.

From 1991-1997, Rusch edited the storied The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, founded in 1949 and originally edited by Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas. Under her editorship, F&SF began publishing more dark fantasy and and horror to complement its existing science fiction and fantasy corpus. She won the 1994 Hugo Award for Best Editor for her editorial work at F&SF, and the magazine itself was nominated for several industry awards during her tenure.

Rusch won the 1990 Campbell/Astounding Award for Best New Writer.

Rhonda Eudaly is an active fixture on the Texas science fiction & fantasy scene, known not only for her (frequently but not always) comedic writings, her volunteer work at genre conventions, and her con performances as one of the Four Redheads of the Apocalypse. Eudaly's publishing debut was the short story "The Pack", published in the 2003 Yard Dog Press anthology More Stories That Won't Make Your Parents Hurl. Since then she has published in a number of different anthologies and collections, including her own collections When the Party's Over: Fairy Tale Reality Endings (2010), "Please Sir, May I Have Some More?: A Collection of Orphaned Speculative Fiction Stories (2011), and The Astronaut Stole My Sharpie and Other Stories (2019). She wrote the story "Operators Are Standing By" for the 2013 anthology Rayguns Over Texas, edited by Rick Klaw and featuring many writers from the Texas SF scene.

In 2015 Eudaly released her first novel, Tarbox Station (Yard Dog Press), a space opera/murder mystery set aboard the eponymous space station and containing strong elements of Star Trek. Her 2021 novella Vagabond (Zumaya Outworlds) tells the story of a rock band thrust into a dystopian future where music is strictly regulated by the government; the members of Vagabond find themselves teaming up with an underground all-female band called Outcast in a rebellion to save those persecuted by this autocratic regime.

Since 2006, Eudaly has also co-created a series of comedic supernatural stories called Redheads of the Apocalypse, built around the adventures (and misadventures) of the wives of/replacements for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. With her collaborators Linda L. Donahue, Julia S. Mandala, and Dusty Rainbolt, Eudaly not only writes stories in this series but performs at cons in skits featuring the Redheads. (She performs as Zoe, the widow of Death.) These performances are only the most visible part of Eudaly's participation in regional cons, where she frequently appears as a panelist as well as works behind the scenes as a volunteer organizer and conrunner (as does her husband Jimmy Simpson).

In her professional life, Eudaly worked from 2014-2022 as a planning analyst for the Ciry of Dallas' Office of Emergency Management.

Eudaly maintains a website, entitled "The Plot Bunnies Ate My Brain", at https://www.rhondaeudaly.com/, where she writes on not only her life and work, but her very strong opinions about different varieties of pens. Eudaly currently lives in Arlington, TX, near Dallas.

Larry Taylor was a reader and writer who expressed his “fandom” by organizing conventions to which he could invite writers, artists, athletes, and actors whom he admired, for his own enjoyment as well as others’. From the time as a boy when his mother bought the Encyclopedia Britannica for him, he was a voracious reader, and the movie theater was also a frequent boyhood destination. He met his future wife, Laurie Gelb, while attending the University of Houston, where he chaired the University's first sf/f convention, Collegecon, in 1980 and 1981. Guests at these UH shows included Harlan Ellison, Burne Hogarth, Gil Kane, Robert Sheckley, Robert Silverberg, George Takei, Walter Koenig, and Leonard Nimoy.

Among the conventions that Larry attended simply as a fan was AggieCon (1981). He was friends with Becky Matthews, the con chairperson at that time.

After leaving the University of Houston, Larry briefly owned a Montrose bookstore, Metropolis, with his wife, during which time their son Sean was born. Thereafter, Larry organized and promoted diverse conventions in the Houston area, featuring various combinations of comic books, toys, sf/f, sports and non-sports cards, and movie memorabilia, until moving to the East Coast in 1997. While in Houston, he also operated part-time retail comic shops at the Four Seasons, Westbury, and Cole’s (Pearland) flea markets at various times, also attending other conventions as a dealer.

Many of Larry’s shows featured well-known artists and writers, e.g., Spain Rodriguez, Don Rosa, John Severin, William Stout, and the Hernandez Brothers, as well as Houston figures such as columnist Jeff Millar and Astros players. However, Larry also produced many dealer-driven shows to allow fans to enjoy interacting with other fans and dealers without a large admission cost, and sometimes for free.

Larry contributed to several charities through auctions at his shows and at the shop of his friend, Roy Bonario, also well known in Houston fandom.

Numerous comic book industry professionals first attended his shows as fans or emerging artists, including Doug Hazlewood, Chip Mosher, Joe Nozemack, Martin Thomas, and Shannon Wheeler.

Later in life, Larry’s fiction writing was recognized with several honors and awards. He died in Seattle in 2014.

Bruce Sterling is one of the most acclaimed writers of late 20th-century science fiction, being (along with William Gibson) one of the founders of the influential cyberpunk subgenre. Born in Brownsville, TX, Sterling grew up in India. He returned to the United States and graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in journalism in 1976. His career as a writer of fiction began that year, with the publication of his story "Man-Made Self" in the anthology Lone Star Universe. His first novel, Involution Ocean was published the next year, in 1977.

Sterling's other novels includeThe Artificial Kid (1984), Schismatrix (1985), Islands in the Net (1988, winner of the 1989 Campbell Memorial Award and nominees for the 1989 Hugo Award for Best Novel), Heavy Weather (1994), Holy Fire (1996, winner of the 1997 SF Chronicle Award for Bets Novel and nominated for the 1997 Hugo Award for Best Novel), Distraction (1998, nominated for the 1999 Hugo for Best Novel), Zeitgeist (2000), The Zenith Angle (2004), The Caryatids (2009), and Love Is Strange (2012). The first four of these novels were important works in the cyberpunk subgenre. Sterling collaborated with William Gibson in writing the alternative history novel The Difference Engine, a pioneering work of steampunk fiction that was nominated for the 1992 Nebula Award for Best Novel and several other honors.

Sterling has also written a large body of short fiction, including "Spider Rose" (1982, nominated for the 1983 Hugo Award for Best Short Story), "Swarm" (1982, nominated for the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novelette), "Dinner in Audoghast" (1985, nominated for the 1986 Hugo for Best Short Story), "Green Days in Brunei (1985, nominated for the 1986 Nebula for Best Novella), "Flowers of Edo" (1987, nominated for the 1988 Hugo for Best Novelette), "Our Neural Chernobyl" (1988, nominated for the 1989 Hugo for Best Short Story), "Dori Bangs" (1989, nominated for the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Short Story), the classic cyberpunk story "Mozart in Mirrorshades" (1985, co-written with Lewis Shiner) and many others.

Rigsby L. Barclay was born August 2, 1878, on the Barclay ranch in Falls County, Texas. Rigsby, the son of W. A. and Martha Ledbetter Barclay, a pioneer family of central Texas. Barclay was a graduate of Texas A&M College, earning a degree in Engineering in 1889, and married Louzelle Rose on April 19, 1904. Barclay had experience in the gold mining industry in Mexico and owned several businesses in Temple, Texas including an automobile sales firm and a laundry and dry cleaning business. Barclay dies on October 26, 1946 at the age of 68 due to a stroke.

Born in Wilmington Beach, North Carolina to Brownrigg Hefferron Dewey and Esther Hashagen, B. H. Dewey, Jr. graduate from Texas A&M University and from the University of Texas Law School. He practiced law in Brazos county beginning in 1941, served 41 months in World War II, represented Bryan in the Texas Legislature from 1953-1962 and became Brazos County Justice of the Peace, Precinct 2 in 1965.

Bill (Allen Billy) Crider was born July 28, 1941, in Mexia, Texas. He received a B.A. degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1963, a Master's degree from North Texas State University in 1966, and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1972. Crider taught in high school for two years, followed by college teaching at Howard Payne University. From 1983 forward, he taught at Alvin Community College, where he chaired the English Department.

Crider is a prolific writer who writes in a variety of genres, including mysteries, westerns, horror, and young adult novels. He was best known for his mystery novels, particularly the "Sheriff Dan Rhodes" series. Crider is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, Private Eye Writers League, and the Western Writers of America. He has been awarded the "Anthony Award" for best first novel (Too Late to Die), and the "Golden Duck Award" for best the best juvenile science fiction novel of 1998 (Mike Gonzo and the UFO Terror).

Bill Crider passed away on February 12, 2018, at his home in Alvin, TX, from cancer.

William A. Owens, noted folklorist, author, and educator, was born in Pin Hook, Texas on November 2, 1905, the son of Charles Owens and Jessie Ann (Chenault) Owens. He spent his childhood on the small cotton farms around tiny rural communities of Pin Hook, Novice, Faught, and Blossom. Owens was indeed a child of the poverty and hard times that had gripped the agricultural regions of the South since the Civil War and Reconstruction. These early years, were, however, tempered by the love and closeness of his family, a family that sometimes had as many as four generations living under one roof. His father had died only a few days after Owens' birth, and it was from his mother that he learned the values of hard work and self reliance. In addition, he acquired a love of reading and a desire to obtain an education beyond the one room schoolhouses of Lamar County.

In an effort to finance his education, Owens undertook numerous odd jobs as a farmer's hired hand, stock clerk, and for a short time, combination waiter and dishwasher at Dallas University. In 1924 he entered East Texas State Teachers College in Commerce. Studying long hours on his own to make up for the deficiencies in his country school education and waiting tables and picking cotton to pay his way, Owens earned a high school diploma and elementary teaching certificate. After graduation, however, there were few jobs available in country schools and Owens lacked the qualifications to teach in the larger school systems.

Owens moved to Paris, Texas and for the next few years struggled against nearly overwhelming economic hardships to continue school at the newly opened junior college. Although these were very difficult times, he never lost sight of continuing his education and becoming a teacher.

With two years of college completed and a new teaching certificate, he returned to Pin Hook to teach in the one room school he had left only five years before. After two years teaching in country schools, Owens returned to college. He attended Southern Methodist University where he received the BA degree in 1932 and the MA degree in 1933. In 1941, he received his Ph.D. from the State University of Iowa. The title of his dissertation was "Texas Folk Songs."

With the completion of the Master's degree, Owens began his profession in earnest, compiling an enviable record as an academician with legions of grateful former students. During his career Owens taught at Greenville High School in Greenville, Texas (1934-35); Wesley College in Greenville, Texas (1935-36); Mississippi State College (1936); Robert E. Lee High School in Goose Creek, Texas (1936-37); Texas A & M University (1937-40, 1941-1947); University of Texas (1946); Columbia University (1947-1974). Additionally he served as Director of Research in Folk Materials (1941) and Director of the Oral History of Texas Oil Pioneers (1952-58) at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas. He also served as Director of the Summer Session (1959-1969) and Dean of the Summer Session (1969-72) at Columbia University. During World War II, Dr. Owens took leave from Texas A & M University and served with distinction as Officer in the United States Army, receiving the Legion of Merit for "meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service in Luzon, Philippines Islands" while serving with the 306th Counter Intelligence Corps Detachment.

While his career as teacher, lecturer, and administrator has been full, he is more widely known as a gifted author. In addition to numerous articles, reviews and short stories, his books serve as monuments to his craft. His works include Swing and Turn: Texas Play-Party Games (1936); Texas Folk Songs (1950, revised in 1976); Slave Mutiny: The Revolt on the Schooner Amistad (1953); Walking on Borrowed Land (1954); Fever in the Earth (1958); Look to the River (1963); This Stubborn Soil (1966); Three Friends: Bedichek, Dobie, Webb (1969); Tales From the Derrick Floor (with Mody C. Boatright, 1970); A Season of Weathering (1973); and A Fair and Happy Land (1975).

Dr. Owens married Ann S. Wood on December 23, 1946. Their two children are Jessie Ann and David Edward.

Alan Dean Foster was born November 18, 1946, in New York. Foster has a degree in Political Science and a Master of Fine Arts in Cinema. His writing career began in 1968, with his first novel appearing in 1972. Foster received the Galaxy Award in 1979 and the Southwest Book Award for Fiction in 1990. A collection of Foster materials and manuscripts is held by Special Collections, Arizona State University, Tempe.

Gideon J. Buck wished to succeed Lawrence Sullivan "Sul" Ross as President of A & M. College on two occasions. He first wished to take the position in 1894, but Ross remained for another term. After the death of Governor Ross, Mr. Buck made another attempt to fill the vacancy of Ross's position in 1898.

Gideon Buck graduated in 1857 from Union University in Tennessee, receiving at the age of seventeen a special degree of language. Among his many education-related positions, Buck was principal of Sumpterville Academy in Alabama for two years, he filled the Chair of Languages at Madison College in Tennessee, and he later served as president of Salado College in Texas.

Buck left Salado College to join the Confederate Army. He entered as a private and was appointed Drill Officer of his regiment with the rank of First Lieutenant. After the war, he practiced law for twelve years. The collection includes many letters written by Buck's friends and colleagues, recommending him for the position of President of A & M, College of Texas.

Willmund Reaux Glaeser (7 June 1897-Aug. 1966), of Houston, Tex., was a wireless operator working out of the office of Kilbourne and Clark, on freighter ships and tramp steamers plying routes up the coast of South America, through the Panama canal (22 Jan. 1920), and up the Gulf and east coasts of the United States as far as New York. Several times during his sailing career, Glaeser also took ship for New Orleans and Galveston, Tex., then traveled by train to visit family and friends in Houston, Tex., and the surrounding area.

As a soldier in World War I, Glaeser was first based in a training camp, Camp Logan, Tex., now Memorial Park in Houston, Tex., but probably received the majority of his wireless training when he served with Company C of the 221st Field Signal Battalion, based at Camp Alfred Vail, N. J., from which he was demobilized sometime around Feb. 1919.

The first half of Glaeser'sdiary records life aboard the freighter S.S. Sag Harbor, on which he signed 21 Oct. 1919. As of 8 May 1920, having been relieved by another radioman on the S. S. Sag Harbor, Glaeser transferred to the S.S. Chester W. Chapin, a tourist excursion ship with the New England Steamship Co., based in New York City, sailing to New Haven and New London, Conn.Glaeser transferred again 6 June 1920 to the S.S. Richard Peck, a Long Island passenger steamer which sailed down the Connecticut River to New York City and back.

Having bought stock in the Century Adding Machine Co., Glaeser eventually was offered a job to set up an exclusive "Texas Sales Agency for Century Adding Machine Co.," but it seems Glaeser thought better of accepting the offer.

Along the way, Glaeser also completed a La Salle Extension University CPA [Certified Public Accountant] course, receiving a "2A rating." By 18 Nov. 1920 Glaeser had secured a position with the New York based A. H. Bull Steamship Company in its Accounting Dept.

The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas was established in 1871. It became Texas A & M University in 1963.

Charles H. Alvord was born in Michigan on October 16, 1872. He eventually moved to Texas where he had a major influence at A&M College. His positions held at A&M include Assistant Professor of Agriculture from September 15, 1899, to July 1, 1902. He retired from A&M in 1945 and was appointed to a position in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

William E. Whitsett, Jr. was born in Glasgow, Kentucky in 1837. He moved to Texas and became a Texas Ranger in 1860 under command of Col. M.T. Johnson. Whitsett was a member of the Confederate Army in Sam Bell Moxey’s Ninth Texas Cavalry Regiment in 1861. He was discharged from the service in June of 1865 after having participated in many battles, including Westport, Jackson, and Chickamauga. In 1870, Whitsett married Nancy Jane Lattimore.

Jesse Lawrence Easterwood (1888-1919), known as "Red,"a veteran World War I aviator, and pioneer in military aviation, was born 5 Dec. 1888 in Wills Point, Tex. In 1905, he enrolled in Texas A & M College, now Texas A & M University, as a member of B Company Infantry. Very popular with the other cadets, Easterwood also played second base on the college baseball team.

Easterwood left college in 1909 to become a businessman in Mexia, Tex. In 1917, however, on the day the United States declared war on Germany, Easterwood sold his business and volunteered as an aviator. He received his early training at Pensacola, Fla., and was one of the very first Americans to qualify as a naval aviator. He served as an instructor at Pensacola briefly, then was transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for engineering training.

On 12 March 1918 Easterwood set sail for Europe with the first group of American pilots going overseas to serve in World War I. During his tour with the Royal Flying Service, flying one of the first ten Handley-Page bombers, Easterwood completed 16 missions deep behind German lines. He also served with the French air force and the Italian air force, ferrying the first Caprioni bomber from Italy to France.

Surviving World War I, after many perilous missions, Easterwood remained with the U. S. Navy, flying experimental airmail flights. By 1919, having achieved the rank of lieutenant, Easterwood was transferred to Coco Solo, in the Panama Canal Zone. Preferring to fly the planes in his unit which had the worst mechanical problems himself, Easterwood was killed 16 May 1919 while attempting the emergency landing of such a plane with severe engine trouble.

Easterwood was awarded the Navy Cross posthumously, for his heroism during World War I.

Texas A & M University also sponsored a tribute paid to Easterwood's memory. At the urging of Easterwood's high school friend from Wills, Tex., Gibb Gilchrist, who had established a Department of Aeronautical Engineering during his first year (1937) as dean of the School of Engineering at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, the new college flying field in College Station, Tex. was dedicated as the "Jesse L. Easterwood Airport" 22 May 1941. Developed first as a facility for insituting a flight-training program at Texas A & M University, the airport was later expanded to serve major carriers to and from Dallas/Fort Worth, Tex. and Houston, Tex. airports.

Dr. Charles W. Crawford graduated from TAMC in Mechanical Engineering in 1919. He taught mechanical engineering as a Professor at TAMU for many years and was the Dean of Engineering in the 1950’s. He is a well-regarded member of TAMU’s faculty and had Charles W. Crawford Improvement fund dedicated in his honor.

Roland O’ Dell Cox (1901-1978) entered Texas A&M in 1921 and graduated in 1925. He was employed at Lone Star Gas Company for 42 years and retired in 1966. After retirement from Lone Star Gas, Cox went on to earn a Master of Liberal Arts degree from Southern Methodist University in 1974.

Andrew Douglas Jackson was born in Crenshaw County, Alabama on October 11, 1875. In his early career, Andrew Douglas Jackson was a bookeeper, teacher, and newspaper editor. As an editor, he promoted the Reclamation Amendment in 1917 that was used to create the Brazos River Reclamation and Conservation District. He was later hired as a staff member of the Texas Agricultural Experimental Station starting in 1920. In 1929, he worked on various committees for the Brazos River Reclamation and Conservation District until his death in 1947. [for more information, see biography in this archival collection, box 1, folder 1]

Arthur Dietrich was a dairy farmer and wrote numerous papers, articles, and books about dairy farming from 1968 to 1981 in Dallas, TX. He married Luise Callet on September 3, 1924. They had several children and ran Arthur Dietrich Farms in Dallas. Dietrich received numerous farming awards including the American Jersey Cattle Club Distinguished Service Award in 1972.

J. V. Morton, from Dumas Texas, graduated from Texas A&M College Class of 1926 with a degree in Agricultural Engineering. He graduated from TAMC as a first Lieutenant Propt. Officer in the Second Battalion in the TAMC Corps of Cadets at the age of 20. J. V. Morton was a member of the Agricultural Engineering Society while attending TAMC.

Robson was a Quarter Master Sargent during the Spanish American War. He attended A&M College of Texas and graduated from the Corps of Cadets in 1896 as a Sargent in the United States Army.

George Washington Lewis was born in 1834 in Henry, Georgia. He married Caroline Wineford Merritt Lewis before the Civil War. He fought for the Union army during the civil war and died in Claiborne Parrish, Louisiana during the Civil War from pneumonia. His wife later remarried his brother, Moses Lewis after George Washingon Lewis’ death.

Citation: Manuscript material enclosed titled Lewis Family Tree, Undated.

Texas A&M Wesley Foundation is a Methodist student organization and endowment at Texas A&M University. It defines itself as the "organized educational ministry through which the United Methodist Church endeavors to promote and support the interests of education and campus ministry on accordance with the Annual Conference and the General Board of Education, Division of Higher Education"

Hubert Schmidt was born near Comfort, Texas on September 24, 1886. He attended Texas A&M College (TAMC) and was a part of the football team. He graduated from TAMC with a B.S. in animal husbandry. With the support of his TAMC professor Mark Francis, Hubert Schmidt enrolled in Royal Veterinary School in Berlin, Germany, and graduated in December 1912. Schmidt then worked for the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station on January 5, 1913, and worked there as a veterinarian until his retirement at the age of 65.  He worked with Dr. Mark Francis with research on fever tick in cattle and sheep. Hubert Schmidt was killed from injuries received in a car accident near Bryan, TX on January 13, 1958. His wife Gertrude passed away in May 1980 in Bryan, TX.

Jeannine Hall Gailey was born on April 30, 1973, at the Yale University Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut. She spent her childhood in Los Angeles and Oak Ridge, and her teenage and early college years in Cincinnati, before moving to Virginia, Seattle, and California. Her first degree was a B.S. in pre-med Biology; her second was an M.A. in English, both from the University of Cincinnati. She learned to program a simple computer game when she was seven years old on her father's TRS-80; this probably led to her early career, for a dozen years, as a technical writer, and then a manager of technical writers, for such companies as AT&T and Microsoft. She then returned to college to get her M.F.A at Pacific University in Oregon, and she published her first book of poetry, Becoming the Villainess, at the age of 32.

Gailey works as a poetry book reviewer and has volunteered at many Seattle-area magazines, including Seattle Review, Raven Chronicles, and Crab Creek Review. In 2012-2013, she served as the second Poet Laureate for Redmond, Washington, where her motto was "geeks for poetry, poetry for geeks." In addition to her many works published in poetry journals and elsewhere, she is the author of five books of poetry: Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist's Daughter (2015), and Field Guide to the End of the World (2016). This last work won the 2015 Moon City Press Book Prize for Poetry and the 2017 Elgin Award from the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Her latest book of poetry, Flare, Corona, was published in April 2023 by BOA Editions as #201 in the "American Poets Continuum Series".

She has won a number of awards for her work, including a 2011 Florida Publishers Association Prize for Poetry (for _She Returns to the Floating World),_which was also a finalist for the 2012 Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal. She was awarded the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize in 2007 and again in 2011. Gailey also won "Honorable Mention" in the 2008 Mainichi Haiku Contest. Several of Gailey's poems have been included in major genre anthologies, which include _The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 2007_and The Year's Best Horror, Volume Six(2014).

Gailey counts among the most influential works on her writing Grimm's Fairy Tales, the Bible, and the works of Margaret Atwood, Kelly Link, AS Byatt, and Haruki Murakami; as well as comic books from the mid-eighties, and Hayao Miyazaki's anime classics. She currently resides in Redmond, Washington, with her husband, cats, and a teeming collection of out-of-print Andrew Lang fairy books, comics, and poetry books.

Beth Cato (1980-) is originally from Hanford, California, but currently lives and writes in a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. She shares the household, to quote Cato herself, "with a hockey-loving husband, a numbers-obsessed son, and a cat the size of a canned ham."

Cato has written a large and impressive body of short fiction (over 60 stories) and poetry, which has been published in a number of magazines, including Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Mythic Delirum, Nature Magazine, and many others. Much of her short fiction was collected in Red Dust and Dancing Horses and Other Stories, published by Fairwood Press in 2017. She has been nominated for multiple Rhysling Awards, and her 2019 poem "After Her Brother Ripped the Heads from Her Paper Dolls" won the 2019 Rhysling for Short Poem. Additionally, her poem "he scores" was nominated for the 2021 Aurora Award for Best Poem/Song-English.

Cato's first novel, released in 2014, was The Clockwork Dagger, a rousing fantasy adventure with heavy elements of steampunk. The sequel, The Clockwork Crown, was released in 2015. Cato's novella Wings of Sorrow and Bone, set in her Clockwork Dagger universe, was nominated for a 2016 Nebula Award for Best Novella. Two additional stories, Final Flight and Deep Roots were released in 2016.

Her fantasy series Breath Of Earth, which is set in an alternate 1906 San Francisco, was released in fall 2016, and nominated for the 2017 Dragon Award for Best Alternate History. The novel has two sequels: Call of Fire, published in late 2017, and Roar of Sky in 2018. Cato's latest fantasy novel, A Thousand Recipes for Revenge is the first in a duology involving food-based magic and entitled Chefs of the Five Gods, and was released by 47North in June 2023.