Seif El Rashidi‘s work appears in Loose Leaves. He was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt. His work in urban preservation has led him to write about architecture and cities, and he tries to add a literary dimension to his writing whenever he can. Four Aces is one of his earliest pieces of creative writing (and his first published). He wrote it in 2001, but forgot about it, and only fished it out from his old computer in 2008, when he moved to the UK and decided to dedicate more of his free time to creative writing. He is currently the coordinator of the Durham World Heritage Site.