Lerzan Aksoy is an acclaimed expert in the science of loyalty management. She is associate professor of marketing at Fordham University, New York. Lerzan has co-authored and co-edited several books on loyalty and service: Loyalty Myths, Customer Lifetime Value and Profit Maximization Through Customer Relationship Marketing.
Maria Alexander has committed a number of literary crimes—against Gothic.net, Chiaroscuro Magazine, Paradox Magazine and other publications. She’s been fined with several Honorable Mentions by the Year’s Best Horror & Fantasy, appearances on the preliminary ballot for the Stoker Award and being a finalist in the 2003 Moondance Short Fiction Competition sponsored by Coppola and Oprah. In 2005, more of her stories will skulk doggedly in anthologies by Penguin and ROC Books. You can find a full rap sheet at www.thehandlesspoet.com. She dwells marginally in Los Angeles with two ungrateful cats and a fish who hates you.
Christopher Allen is the managing editor and founder for ComicBookGalaxy.com. He has also written for The Comics Journal, Kevin Smith’s MoviePoopShoot.com, Ain’t It Cool News and NinthArt.com, and is one of the 2006 judges for the comics industry’s prestigious Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards. He has two children and lives in San Diego.
Mark Allen, a resident of Santa Cruz, Calif., is known and admired by athletes around the world for his extraordinary six Ironman championships. Called The Greatest Triathlete of All Time by Triathlete Magazine, Mark has been on the cover of every major sports magazine and readers and the media will be hungry to know how he became “the fittest man alive.” Mark is not only presenting fitness guidelines for life, he is sharing the philosophy of physical and spiritual health he learned as a student of Brant Secunda that made the difference in his becoming a champion. This is the first time in print that he has ever told the real story of how he won the Ironman.
Peg Aloi has been a practicing witch for a decade and a half. She often rants about film and TV for The Witches’ Voice Web site. She is also a film critic for The Boston Phoenix and a professor of film studies. Her favorite on-screen depiction of The Old Religion is the 1973 film “The Wicker Man.”
A Hugo and World Fantasy Award nominee, Lou Anders is the editorial director of Prometheus Books’ science fiction imprint Pyr (www.pyrsf.com), as well as the anthologies Outside the Box (Wildside Press 2001), Live Without a Net (Roc 2003), Projections: Science Fiction in Literature & Film (MonkeyBrain December 2004), FutureShocks (Roc January 2006) and Fast Forward 1 (Pyr February 2007). He is the author of The Making of Star Trek: First Contact (Titan Books 1996) and has published more than 500 articles in such magazines as The Believer, Publishers Weekly, Dreamwatch, Star Trek Monthly, Star Wars Monthly, Babylon 5 Magazine, Sci-Fi Universe, Doctor Who Magazine and Manga Max. His articles and stories have been translated into Danish, Greek, German, Italian and French. Visit him online at www.louanders.com.
The Penguin Who Knew Too Much (August 2007) is eighth in Donna Andrews’s Meg Langslow series from St. Martin’s Press. She has also written the Turing Hopper series (Berkley Prime Crime), featuring an artificial intelligence as the sleuth. When not writing, Donna can be found puttering in her garden, making small inroads on her massive to-be-read collection and playing with her computers. She’s vice president of the Mid-Atlantic chapter of Mystery Writers of America, national chapter liaison for Sisters in Crime, the author liaison for Malice Domestic and a member of the Private Investigators and Security Association. For more information visit donnaandrews.com.
Kevin J. Apple, Ph.D., is an assistant department head and associate professor at the Department of Psychology at James Madison University. He enjoys teaching a wide variety of classes including general psychology, research methods and the psychology of the Holocaust. His main research interests include both the intergroup bias and methods for assessing classroom learning. When not teaching classes or doing research, he is most likely spending time with his wife and two children or watching a reality television show. His favorite “Survivor” player is Ethan Zohn. Kevin admires Ethan for being a fierce competitor who played the game with integrity.
Jennifer Armstrong is a staff writer at Entertainment Weekly and the co-founder of alternative online women’s magazine SirensMag.com.
Catherine Asaro is author of 14 novels as well as short fiction (published and upcoming) and is acclaimed for her multiple award-winning Skolian Empire series, which combines adventure, hard science, romance, fast-paced action and themes that challenge the status quo. Her standalone novel The Quantam Rose won the 2001 Nebula Award. Her October 2003 novel, Skyfall, was honored with the Romantic Times Book Club award for “Best Science Fiction Novel.” Asaro’s novella “Moonglow,” in Charmed Destinies (November 2003), was followed by her fantasy novel The Charmed Sphere (February 2004), part of the Luna Books launch. Also published in February 2004 was Irresistable Forces, a six-author anthology for NAL, edited by Asaro and including stories by Lois McMaster Bujold and Catherine, among other award-winning, bestselling authors. Sunrise Alley, her next novel, is due out in August 2004, and Triad, the latest in the Skolian Empire Series, will be published in December 2004. Asaro has a Ph.D. in chemical physics from Harvard.
Originally from Chicago, Kurek Ashley has taken himself from being $20 away from being homeless in two countries to now being a millionaire residing on the Sunshine Coast of Australia, while working in over 13 countries around the world, speaking to over 10,000 people a year at his powerful workshops. Kurek is regularly interviewed for stories on his own life and his methods for teaching personal and professional development in magazines, newspapers, TV and talk back radio shows. Kurek is the author of four top-selling personal development audio programs: “Fire Up Your Life,” “Massive Momentum—Serious Success,” “The Powers In The House” and “Power Up To Peak Performance” and the creator of The Life Success Club. Kurek has been referred to as the “Perfect balance between Wayne Dyer and Anthony Robbins.”
