I am a multi-award-winning African Australian writer, and have a deep passion for stories by people of colour, stories that engage with difference. I write across genres and forms, and my award-winning works are mostly Afrocentric. I am especially curious about unique voices in black speculative fiction in transformative stories of culture, diversity, climate change, writing the other, and betwixt.

I am Wes McKinney, creator of the Python pandas project and author of Python for Data Analysis. I have been using Python for data work since 2007 and have worked extensively in the open source community to build accessible and fast data processing tools for Python programmers.

"My friends are my estate." This quote from Emily Dickinson (which I like so much, I’ve put in my novel!) gives a proper dignity to the concept of friendship. Friends can be overlooked in fiction, often just there to show that the main character isn’t a complete loner. Friendships are portrayed as less interesting and important than romances. Yet in real life, romantic relationships come and go, whilst friends are there for you, no matter what. Or at least, the best ones are. I’m a passionate believer in stories which reflect the importance, and complexity, of what, for many of us, are our longest-lasting relationships.

I was an author of history and travel books before turning to children’s fiction. My books for the publishers Pen and Sword tell the stories of the places associated with the Princes in the Tower, the boys who mysteriously disappeared from the Tower of London during the reign of King Richard III, and King Arthur, the semi-mythical King of the Britons during the Dark Ages. I hope readers enjoy reading them as much as I have enjoyed researching and writing them!

I am a writer with a passion for historical fiction. My latest novel, For Those In Peril, is the first in a series of naval thrillers, partly inspired by my own family’s World War II experiences. My grandfather even makes a cameo as the gruff Liverpudlian chief engineer on the SS John Holt. As a journalist for more than 20 years, I had many rich opportunities to talk to the elderly members of our communities – most memorably, taking a pair of D-Day veterans back to the beaches of Normandy. It’s an honour to keep their memories alive.

Over a long lifetime, I’ve been intrigued to observe many variations on the themes of marriage, widowhood, divorce, and adultery among my friends, patients, and clients. The majority of marriages are probably happy, but these are not usually very interesting to write about, so marriages in fiction often involve some kind of conflict which leads to a more or less satisfactory resolution. I am a retired doctor, originally from England, and now living in New Zealand with my second husband, to whom I have been married for over 40 years.

My passion for mythic stories began at the age of five, when my father had me tested and found I was reading over two hundred words a minute. He quickly saw the need to feed my thirsty young mind and placed epic fantasy books (most beyond my comprehension) in my tiny hands. As for my absorption with stories that impact the soul, I'd have to say my strongest interest came from my need for it.

That need has shaped me and shaped my writing, much more than any list of qualifications, which include being a licensed minister, a professional pianist and cinematic composer, and now a published author.

I became enthused about using mathematical models to understand the natural world as an undergraduate, got trained to do so, and spent my career working on a wide variety of applications. Most recently, I translated ideas from disease modeling to understand cyber variability and security.

These five memoirs depict—and, at least partly, invent—boyhoods wildly different from mine. I've never met the writers, but I know these guys. Our challenges and fears, and hopefully triumphs, are common to queer kids. Are they shared by all kids, regardless of orientation? I'll keep reading memoirs to find out.

Epictetus has rung my bell ever since I first encountered him forty years ago as a young graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. I was, and am, consistently moved by his frank, emphatic, almost confrontational style of teaching. Whenever I read his Discourses, it lifts my spirits, inspires me, and makes me feel wiser—even stronger.

So, I naturally want to read the insights other authors have about his earnest, gripping brand of Stoicism. The wisdom of Epictetus’ teachings never fades. He equips his readers with the philosophical tools for crafting a life of freedom, resilience, and joy. Who doesn’t want that?