Toh EnJoe spent a few years as a postdoc prior to his writing career. He won the Akutagawa Prize in 2012, and the English translation of his debut effort, Self-Reference ENGINE, earned a Philip K. Dick Award Special Citation in 2014.
Gakuto Mikumo worked at a motorcycle importer before winning the Japan SF Rookie of the Year Award in 1999. He is also a member of the Mystery Writers of Japan and the creator of various beloved “light novel” series including Strike the Blood.
Kafka Asagiri resigned from his post at an auto company in 2012 to pursue his lifelong dream of becoming a scenarist. His series Bungo Stray Dogs features literary masters such as Osamu Dazai, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and H. P. Lovecraft as characters.
Yoshinobu Akita, a former phototypesetter operator, is the author of Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, a fantasy adventurer series boasting over ten million copies sold in total. He has also novelized Redeemable Dream, another Shirow Masamune property.
Tow Ubukata grew up in Singapore and Nepal before entering a Japanese high school. He has worked in a variety of genres and media, from the videogame Shenmue to the novel Mardock Scramble to the TV anime Ghost in the Shell: Arise.