James Alan Gardner (thinkage.ca/~jim) earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in applied math from the University of Waterloo, then promptly quit academia to write science fiction instead. Since then he has published eight novels, as well as numerous short stories that have appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Amazing Science Fiction, On Spec, and several anthologies. He has won the Writers of the Future Grand Prize and two Aurora Awards; he has also been a finalist for both the Nebula and the Hugo.

He recently joined the faculty of the Waterloo Unlimited high-school enrichment program at the University of Waterloo. In his spare time, he has earned a second-degree black sash in Shaolin Five-Animal kung fu, and now teaches kung fu on a regular basis. (He also writes computer documentation but tries to keep that a secret.)