Catherynne M. Valente is a New York Times Bestselling author of fantasy and science fiction novels, short stories, and poetry. She has written over a dozen volumes of fiction and poetry since her first novel, The Labyrinth, was published in 2004. She has been nominated for the Hugo (2010), Locus (2010 & 2011) and World Fantasy Awards (2007 & 2009). In the Night Garden won the James Tiptree Jr. Award for expanding gender and sexuality in SFF (2007). Feminist re-fabulator.

“We all live inside the terrible engine of authority, and it grinds and shrieks and burns so that no one will say, lines on maps are silly. Where you live, the awful machinery is smaller, harder to see. Less honest, that's all.”