G. V. Anderson is a World Fantasy Award-winning writer of speculative fiction. Her short stories have been selected for Best of British Science Fiction 2018 and can be found in such places as Strange Horizons, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Lightspeed. She resides in Dorset, UK and is currently working on her first novel.
Ashley Blooms was born and raised in Cutshin, Kentucky. Blooms received her MFA as a John and Renee Grisham Fellow at the University of Mississippi. She’s been awarded scholarships from the Clarion Writer’s Workshop and Appalachian Writer’s Workshop, served as fiction editor for the Yalobusha Review, and worked as an editorial intern and first reader for Tor.com. Her stories have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, and Shimmer, among others. Her nonfiction has appeared in the Oxford American.
World Fantasy Award-winning author Gregory Norman Bossert’s short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Conjunctions, The Dark, Kaleidotrope, The Saturday Evening Post, Tor.com, and other venues. He works as a previzualization/layout supervisor at the legendary Industrial Light & Magic, now a division of the Walt Disney Company, where his credits include Rogue One, The Revenant, Tomorrowland, Jurassic World, and Avengers: Age of Ultron. He also designs and build experimental musical instruments; pictures and audio samples on the Sudden Sound Studios website.
Born in California, raised in New York, and educated in New Zealand and Australia, J. S. Breukelaar is the author of the novels American Monster and Aletheia and the short-story collection Collision. Short fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in Black Static, Juked, Unnerving, Lightspeed, Gamut, LitReactor, and in anthologies such as Welcome to Dystopia and Women Writing the Weird. She holds a BA from the University of Canterbury, a graduate diploma in creative writing from the University of Technology, Sydney, and a PhD in writing and film studies from the University of New South Wales. Breukelaar lives in Sydney, Australia with her family where she teaches literature and writing at Sydney University and Western Sydney University. She is also an instructor and columnist at LitReactor.com.
P. Djèlí Clark is an Afro-Caribbean-American writer of speculative fiction. His story “The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington,” published in Fireside, won the 2018 Nebula and 2019 Locus Awards for Best Short Story, and was a finalist for both the 2019 Hugo Award and the 2019 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. His fiction has also appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Daily Science Fiction, Fantasy, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, and Tor.com, as well as anthologies Hidden Youth: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, Griots: Sisters of the Spear, Myriad Lands, and Steamfunk. A debut novel set in an alternate 1912 Cairo of djinn, airships, and magic will soon be published.
Anya Johanna DeNiro lives and writes in Minnesota. Her short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, One Story, Strange Horizons, Persistent Visions, and elsewhere. She’s been a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Award. DeNiro is the author of the collections Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead and Tyrannia and Other Renditions and the novel Total Oblivion, More or Less.
Jeffrey Ford lives in Ohio and teaches writing at Ohio Wesleyan University. His latest novel is Ahab’s Return: or, The Last Voyage. He has contributed over 130 short stories to numerous periodicals including The Oxford Book of American Short Stories, Conjunctions, Puerto Del Sol, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, MAD Magazine, Weird Tales, Clarkesworld, Tor.com, Lightspeed, Subterranean, and Fantasy. Anthology appearances include Echoes, Robots vs. Fairies, Haunted Nights, Black Feathers, The Starlit Woods, The Doll Collection, and many more. He is the recipient of four World Fantasy Awards, two Shirley Jackson Awards as well as the Nebula, Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, and Edgar Allan Poe Awards.
A. T. Greenblatt is a mechanical engineer by day and a writer by night. She lives in Philadelphia where she’s well acquainted with all four seasons and is known to frequently subject her friends to various cooking and home brewing experiments. Greenblatt is a graduate of Viable Paradise XVI and Clarion West 2017. Her stories have appeared in Uncanny, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, Podcastle, and others. She has been a finalist for a Nebula and a Parsec Award.
Jim C. Hines is the author of the Magic ex Libris series, the Princess series of fairy tale retellings, the humorous Goblin Quest trilogy, and the Fable Legends tie-in Blood of Heroes. His latest novel is Terminal Uprising, book two in the humorous science fiction Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse trilogy. Many of his more than fifty short stories can be found in his four collections. He’s an active blogger, and won the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer. Hines lives in Michigan with his wife and two children.
Brian Hodge has authored eleven novels; over 120 short stories, novelettes, and novellas; and five collections. More of everything is in the works. All of them trying to communicate something or other to whoever might come along later. At least some of them trying to explore possibilities for the what and the why. Hodge lives along the Colorado Front Range with his soulmate, Doli, where he also dabbles in music and photography; loves everything about organic gardening except the thieving squirrels; and trains in Krav Maga, grappling, and kickboxing, which are of no use at all against the squirrels.
Kat Howard’s short fiction has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, anthologized in annual “best of” anthologies, and performed on NPR. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Roses and Rot and the Alex Award-winning An Unkindness of Magicians. Her latest book is collection A Cathedral of Myth and Bone: Stories. Howard is also the writer of the Books of Magic series, set in the Sandman Universe. She lives in New Hampshire.
Cassandra Khaw writes many things. Mostly these days she writes horror and video games and occasional flirtations with chick-lit. Her work can be found in a number of anthologies and periodicals Apex, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Clarkesworld, Gamut, Lightspeed, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Nightmare, Uncanny and more. Her latest novella from Tor, A Song for Quiet, is a piece of Lovecraftian Southern Gothic that she worries will confuse those who purchased Bearly a Lady, her frothy paranormal romantic comedy.
Hugo-award winning author, Mary Robinette Kowal is a novelist and professional puppeteer. Her novel The Calculating Stars won the 2019 Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards. Her stories have appeared in venues such as Asimov’s, Fireside, Popular Science, Shimmer, Strange Horizons, Uncanny, and others as well as her collections Scenting the Dark and Other Stories and Word Puppets. Kowal also has over twenty years of experience as a puppeteer. She has performed for LazyTown (CBS), the Center for Puppetry Arts, Jim Henson Pictures, and founded Other Hand Productions. Her designs have garnered two UNIMA-USA Citations of Excellence. When she isn’t writing or puppeteering, Kowal brings her speech and theater background to her work as a voice actor. She lives in Chicago with her husband.
Science fiction and fantasy writer Naomi Kritzer lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her short story “Cat Pictures Please” won the 2016 Hugo and Locus Awards and was nominated for the Nebula Award. Short fiction—some of which is collected in Cat Pictures Please and Other Stories—has appeared in Apex, Uncanny, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Asimov’s, Realms of Fantasy, and elsewhere. Kritzer’s near-future YA thriller Catfishing on Catnet will be published this fall.
Tim Lebbon is the author of over forty horror, dark fantasy, and tie-in novels, including The Silence, Relics, Coldbrook, The Cabin in the Woods, the Noreela series of fantasy books, the New York Times bestselling novelization of the movie 30 Days of Night, Alien: Out of the Shadows, Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void, and several books with Christopher Golden, including Blood of the Four, The Map of Moments, and The Secret Journeys of Jack London. He’s also written hundreds of novellas and short stories. Novels The Silence and Pay the Ghost have become films and more of Lebbon’s work is currently in development for the big screen.
Valya Dudycz Lupescu has been making magic with food and words for more than twenty years, incorporating folklore from her Ukrainian heritage with practices that honor the Earth. She’s a writer, content developer, instructor, and mother of three teenagers. Lupescu is the author of The Silence of Trees, the founding editor of Conclave: A Journal of Character, and co-author of Geek Parenting. She earned her MFA in writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her poetry and prose have been published in anthologies and magazines that include Kenyon Review, Culture, Gargoyle Magazine, Gone Lawn, Strange Horizons, and Mythic Delirium.
Anya Ow was born in Singapore. She moved to Melbourne, Australia, where she practiced law for a few years. Ow now works in an ad agency as a designer and as the chief briber of studio dogs. Her first novel, The Firebird’s Tale, was published in 2016. Anya’s short stories have appeared in venues such as Uncanny, Strange Horizons, Daily Science Fiction, and Aurealis.
Kit Power lives in the UK and writes fiction that lurks at the boundaries of the horror, fantasy, and thriller genres, trying to bum a smoke or hitch a ride from the unwary. His fiction has appeared in anthologies such as New Fears 2, The Black Room Manuscripts, Masters of Horror, and Easter Eggs and Bunny Boilers. His novella, Lifeline, was released in 2014 and his debut novel Godbomb in 2015. In his secret alter ego of Kit Gonzo, he also performs as front man (and occasionally blogs) for death cult and popular beat combo The Disciples of Gonzo.
Tim Powers is the author of numerous novels including Hide Me Among the Graves, Three Days to Never, Declare, Last Call, Anubis Gates, Medusa’s Web, and On Stranger Tides, which inspired the feature film Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. He has won the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award twice, and the World Fantasy Award three times. His most recent novel is Alternate Routes; his sixth short story collection Down and Out in Purgatory was published in 2016. Powers lives in Southern California with his wife, Serena.
Before earning her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, M. Rickert worked as kindergarten teacher, coffee shop barista, balloon vendor at Disneyland, and in the personnel department of Sequoia National Park where she spent her time off hiking the wilderness. She now lives in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, a small city of candy shops and beautiful gardens. She has published numerous short stories and two collections: Map of Dreams and Holiday. Her first novel, The Memory Garden was published in 2014, and won the Locus Award for best first novel. Her first collection, Map of Dreams, was honored with both the World Fantasy and Crawford Awards. Her latest collection, You Have Never Been Here, was published in 2015.
Eden Royce is descended from women who practiced root, a type of conjure magic in her native Charleston, South Carolina. She now writes dark fiction about the American South from her home in the English countryside where she lives with her husband and cat. Royce’s short fiction can be found in Apex, Strange Horizons, Fiyah, Fireside, Abyss & Apex, PodCastle, and elsewhere. Her debut novel, Tying the Devil’s Shoestrings, a middle grade Southern Gothic, will be published in 2020. She is the recipient of the Speculative Literature Foundation’s Diverse Worlds grant and a contributor to Graveard Shift Sisters.
Robert Shearman has worked as writer for television, radio, and the stage. He is probably best known for being one of the writers for the BAFTA Award-winning revived Doctor Who series starring Christopher Eccleston. (His episode “Dalek,” was nominated for a Hugo Award.) Shearman’s first collection of short stories, Tiny Deaths, won the World Fantasy Award, was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize, and nominated for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize. His second collection, Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical won the Shirley Jackson Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Edge Hill Short Story Reader’s Prize. His third collection, Everyone’s Just So So Special won the British Fantasy Award. His first collection published in North America, Remember Why You Fear Me was shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson and British Fantasy Awards.
Angela Slatter is the author of numerous works of short fiction and supernatural crime novels Vigil, Corpselight, and Restoration as well as eight short story collections, including The Girl with No Hands and Other Tales, Sourdough and Other Stories, The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, and A Feast of Sorrows: Stories. She has won a World Fantasy Award, a British Fantasy Award, a Ditmar, an Australian Shadows Award, and six Aurealis Awards. She has an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing. Slatter is currently working on a new novel, Morwood, a gothic fantasy.
Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam’s fiction and poetry has appeared in over fifty magazines and anthologies such as Clarkesworld, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, Uncanny, Black Static, Interzone, and Fairy Tale Review. She has also appeared on LeVar Burton Reads. Stufflebeam won the Grand Prize in the SyFy Channel’s Battle the Beast contest; Syfy turned her story set in the world of The Magicians into an animated short. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program and created and coordinates the annual Art & Words Collaborative Show in Fort Worth, Texas. Stufflebeam lives in Texas with three cats.
Steve Rasnic Tem’s collaborative novella with his late wife Melanie Tem, The Man on the Ceiling, won the World Fantasy, Bram Stoker, and International Horror Guild Awards. He has also won the Bram Stoker, International Horror Guild, and British Fantasy Awards for his solo work. His novel UBO won the Bram Stoker Award. His previous novels are Deadfall Hotel, The Man on the Ceiling (written with Melanie Tem as an expansion of their novella), The Book of Days, Daughters (also written with Melanie Tem), and Excavation. Tem has published over four hundred short stories. His story collections include City Fishing (which won the International Horror Guild Award), Celestial Inventories, Twember, Here With The Shadows, and the giant 72-story treasury, Out of the Dark: A Storybook of Horrors. His latest collection is Everything is Fine Now. Transplanted from Southern Virginia, Steve is a long-time resident of Colorado. He has a BA in English Education from VPI and a MA in Creative Writing from Colorado State.
Kaaron Warren has lived in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, and Fiji, She’s authored many short stories, four novels (the multi-award-winning Slights, Walking the Tree, Mistification, and The Grief Hole), and four short story collections. Two of her collections have won the ACT Publishers’ and Writers’ Award for fiction and her most recent collection, Through Splintered Walls, won a Canberra Critic’s Circle Award for Fiction, two Ditmar Awards, two Australian Shadows Awards, and a Shirley Jackson Award. Warren’s stories have appeared in numerous publications from Australia, the US, the UK, and elsewhere in Europe.
D. P. Watt is a writer living between Scotland and England in an otherworldly, misty borderland. His collection of stories, An Emporium of Automata was reprinted in 2013 and his second collection, The Phantasmagorical Imperative and Other Fabrications, is now available in paperback. A third collection, Almost Insentient, Almost Divine, appeared in 2016 and was nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award. Watt won the Ghost Story Award 2015 for his story “Shallabalah” published in The Ghosts and Scholars Newsletter #26.
Michael Wehunt grew up in North Georgia, close enough to the Appalachians to feel them but not quite easily see them. There were woods, and woodsmoke, and warmth. He did not make it far when he left, falling sixty miles south to the lost city of Atlanta, where he lives today, with fewer woods but still many trees. His short fiction has appeared in various venues and nd his debut collection, Greener Pastures,was shortlisted for the Crawford Award and a Shirley Jackson Award finalist.
A. C. Wise was born and raised in Montreal and currently lives in the Philadelphia area. Her work has appeared in publications such as Clarkesworld, Tor.com, Shimmer, and multiple “year’s best” anthologies, among other places. Her work has twice been a finalist for the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic (and once a winner), and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. She has two collections, The Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron Saves the World Again and The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories. In addition to her fiction, she writes the Women to Read and Non-Binary Authors to Read series for The Book Smugglers.
Isabel Yap writes fiction and poetry, works in the tech industry, and drinks tea. Born and raised in Manila, she has also lived in California and London. She is currently completing her MBA at Harvard Business School. In 2013 she attended the Clarion Writers Workshop and since 2016 has served as Secretary for the Clarion Foundation. Her work has appeared in venues including Tor.com, Uncanny, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and Year’s Best Weird Fiction.
E. Lily Yu is a writer and narrative designer whose fiction has appeared in places such as McSweeney’s, Boston Review, Clarkesworld, The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year, The Kenyon Review Online, Cicada, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Her work has been shortlisted for the Hugo, Locus, Million Writers, and Nebula Awards. Yu is the recipient of the 2012 Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Born in Oregon and raised in New Jersey, she now resides in Seattle.