From an early age, in the small town of Spanish Fort, Alabama, Brian delighted in conjuring fantastical worlds and unique characters. Alone in his room, he imagined them in most dire of situations, overcoming impossible odds, and snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. It was fun and gave a hyperactive child a way to occupy his mind constructively, rather than wreak havoc and get into trouble.

By the time Brian reached his teens, he was doing his level best to give his inner voice a real world platform for expression. Though it was not likely that anyone else would take time to read the fruits of his labors, he didn't care. The simple act of creation was where he derived his pleasure.

As an adult, other interests dominated his life. He continued writing, but without hopes of turning it into a career, instead focused on the dream of being a rock star. As it turned out, he wasn't cut from the right cloth and was never able to realize his ambitions.

It was in his late thirties, now with a wife and young son, his love of writing circled back into his life. And with the encouragement of those who love him, and with no small amount of inspiration of his boy, he finally found his purpose. It was in front of him the entire time. But he just didn't see it.

Many worlds, thousands of characters and more than a dozen novels later, he can look back at the events leading him to this point with a sense of humor. The various misadventures and terrible choices had become sources of inspiration, whereas before they had been thorns of regret - memories he would use to malign himself in those dark moments of reflection.

Find Brian and his books on his website here: https://www.briandanderson.com/

In his day job, Lance Robinson is an environmental social scientist who often works closely with mobile peoples. He is a sporadic nomad himself, having lived variously in countries such as Ghana, the Gambia, Colombia, and Kenya. He began writing speculative fiction as a child, and by his early twenties his stories began appearing in small press magazines. In the early 1990s, he even entered the Writers of the Future Contest two or three times. Eventually, though, his life filled up with other things and he set creative writing aside.

Recently, however, when he returned home to Canada, he decided it was also time to come back home to writing. Since then, his stories have often explored how our relationship with the natural world is intertwined with our spiritual journeys—as individuals, as communities, and as a collective humanity. Lance is also an avid astronomy and space-travel nut, and he found the germ of his story “Five Days Until Sunset” at the intersection of pondering the spiritual search that never ends and wondering what life might be like on a tidally locked, “eyeball” planet. The story also asks what it means to live in harmony with a world that is ready to kill you, and what it means to have faith in the face of inconvenient truths. Lance and his two children currently make their home in Robinson-Superior Treaty territory on the traditional land of the Anishnaabeg peoples and Fort William First Nation in the City of Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Our exodus family awoke on the new world—a paradise inexplicably teeming with Earth life, the Promise fulfilled. But 154 of us are missing. . . .—“Five Days Until Sunset” by Lance Robinson

Find Lance and his books here: https://lancerobinsonwriter.com/

Alex Kingsley (they/them) is a writer, comedian, and game designer. They graduated from Swarthmore College with High Honors and are a part of the SFWA. They are a co-founder of new media company Strong Branch Productions, where they write and direct science-fiction comedy podcast The Stench of Adventure and edit weird fiction anthology show Tales From The Radiator . Their sci-fi play “The Bearer of Bad News” was produced by the Annenberg Foundation. In addition to their fiction, their non-fiction has appeared in Interstellar Flights Press, Ancillary Review of Books, and more. Alex’s tabletop games can be found at alexyquest.itch.io, and their dramatic catalog can be found on the New Play Exchange.

For more information, visit alexkingsley.org

Twitter: @alexyquest

Mastodon: alexyquest.podvibes.co

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