Michael Collins was born in 1964. He was educated in Belfast, Dublin and Chicago. His short stories have been awarded the Hennessy/Sunday Tribune Award in Ireland and the Pushcart Prize in America, and his novel The Keepers of Truth was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the International IMPAC literary award. His latest novel is The Death of All Things Seen (July 2016).

Kári Gíslason is a writer and creative writing teacher. He has taught English Literature and Writing at the University of Iceland, the University of Queensland, and Bond University, and currently lectures in Creative Writing and Literary Studies at Queensland University of Technology. His first book, The Promise of Iceland (UQP, 2011), told the story of his Icelandic family history. The Ash Burner (UQP, 2015), was his first novel. In 2017, he will publish Saga Land (HarperCollins/ABC Books), a book about Iceland coauthored with Richard Fidler.