Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of the Lady Astronaut duology and historical fantasy novels: The Glamourist Histories series and Ghost Talkers. She's a member of the award-winning podcast Writing Excuses and has received the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, four Hugo awards, the RT Reviews award for Best Fantasy Novel, the Nebula, and Locus awards. Stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Asimov's, several Year's Best anthologies and her collections Word Puppets and Scenting the Dark and Other Stories. Her novel Calculating Stars is one of only eighteen novels to win the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards in a single year.