Jane Urquhart is the author of five internationally acclaimed novels (The Whirlpool, Changing Heaven, Away, The Underpainter, The Stone Carvers), three books of poetry, a collection of short fiction, as well as numerous articles and reviews. Her books have been published in many countries, including Holland, France, Germany, Britain, Scandinavia, Australia, and the United States.

As well as being nominated for the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (twice), Jane has received many awards including: France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger (Best Foreign Book Award) and Order of Arts and Letters as a Chevalier, the Trillium Award, the Marian Engel Award for an outstanding body of prose written by a Canadian woman, and the Governor General's Award for fiction.

Jane's fifth novel, The Stone Carvers, was nominated for the Booker Prize, the Giller Prize and the Governor-General's Award. The book weaves a masterfully constructed tale of love and war, passion and loss, spanning generations, moving from the wilds of 19th century Canada to the post World War I battlefields of Vimy, France, where a colossal monument is being raised to honor those Canadians who fought and died in one of the most decisive battles in the war.

Jane was born in Little Long Lac, Ontario, and grew up in Toronto. She now lives in a Southwestern Ontario village with her husband, Tony Urquhart.

William Deverell worked as a journalist for seven years, with Canadian Press in Montreal, the Vancouver Sun and the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, where he was night city editor while at law school. As a member of the British Columbia, Alberta and Yukon Bars, he was counsel in more than a thousand criminal cases, including thirty murder trials, either as defender or prosecutor.

His first novel, Needles, won the $50,000 SealAward, and the Book of the Year Award in l98l. Since then, he has published ten additional novels: High Crimes, Mecca, The Dance of Shiva, Platinum Blues, Mindfield, Kill All the Lawyers, Street Legal - the Betrayal, Trial of Passion (winner of the 1998 Hammett Prize and the Arthur Ellis Award), Slander, The Laughing Falcon, and most recently Mind Games (Fall 2003). He is author of the true crime book, A Life on Trial, based on a notorious murder trial which he defended. He is the creator of CBC's long-running series, Street Legal, which has run internationally in more than 50 countries. He also authored several one-hour radio plays performed by the CBC in the Scales of Justice series and numerous film or TV scripts.

Bill winters in Costa Rica and spends his summers on Pender Island in B.C.