Paul Tanner is a life-long science-fiction fan, having joined the Science Fiction Book Club at age 10 to collect the Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs (with Frazetta covers!), and persuaded his dad to hand over copies of Analog magazine. He retired from a successful career producing software, along with five patents and four academic papers. He writes the CompSciFi blog to help science-fiction authors incorporate believable computers and communication technology into their fiction. He also writes his own science-fiction stories in that less well-specified language, English, earning an MFA from Southern New Hampshire University. He is an atheist but respects people of all other faiths, often giving his characters true-to-life belief systems and watching them lean into questions of identity. He attends around five SF conventions each year with his Doctor Who scarf and a bag of Jelly Babies, and sometimes even remembers to bring his guitar.