text: Tom Crosshill is an award-winning author, public speaker, and salsa teacher. Originally from Latvia, Tom moved to the US as a teen and now lives wherever his adventures take him. A black belt in aikido, he has operated a nuclear reactor, worked on Wall Street, and toiled in a Japanese zinc mine, among other things. On a chance trip to Havana, Tom fell in love with salsa. After years of study with the world's top dancers and several long stays in Cuba, he wrote "The Cat King of Havana". Tom's fiction has been nominated for the Nebula Award (thrice), the Latvian Literature Award and the WSFA Small Press Award. He has won the ESFS Award for Best Author and the Writers of the Future Award. In 2013, he was a resident at the world-famous International Writing Program at the University of Iowa -- where he started "The Cat King of Havana". To find out more about Tom's fiction -- and to read some of his short stories -- visit his website. Photo by Spigana