Esther Alter is a trans Ashkenazi Jew. Her stories, games, and programming projects can be found at subalterngames.com. Follow her on Twitter @subalterngames.
Bendi Barrett is a speculative fiction writer, game designer, and pretend-adult living in Chicago. He’s published interactive novels through Choice of Games, and his novella Empire of the Feast is forthcoming via Neon Hemlock. He also writes gay erotic fiction as Benji Bright and runs a Patreon for the thirsty masses. He can be found at Benmakesstuff.com and on twitter as both @bendied and @benji_bright.
Jen Brown (she/her) weaves otherworldly tales about Black, queer folks righteously wielding power. An Ignyte Award nominated writer, her stories have appeared in FIYAH Literary Magazine, Tor.com’s Breathe FIYAH anthology, Baffling Magazine, Anathema: Spec From the Margins, PodCastle, and was recently translated for Crononauta’s Matreon publication. She tweets at @jeninthelib, & you can find more of her work at jencbrown.com.
Jacob Budenz is a queer writer, multi-disciplinary performer, educator, and witch with an MFA from University of New Orleans and a BA from Johns Hopkins. The author of Pastel Witcheries (Seven Kitchens Press 2018), Budenz has work in journals including Wussy Mag, Ghost City Review, Taco Bell Quarterly, and more as well as anthologies by Mason Jar Press, and Lycan Valley Press. At the beginning of 2020, Budenz received a Baker Innovative Projects grant to stage Simaetha: a Dreambaby Cabaret, at the historic Carroll Mansion in downtown Baltimore, and their collection of stories, Tea Leaves, is forthcoming by Amble in 2023. Follow Jake’s work at jakebeearts.com or @dreambabyjake on Instagram and Twitter.
Christopher Caldwell is a queer Black American living abroad in Glasgow, Scotland. His work has appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Strange Horizons, and Fiyah among others. He is an Ignyte Awards finalist, Clarion West Alumnus, and a recipient of the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship. He is @seraph76 on twitter.
Nino Cipri is a queer and trans/nonbinary writer, editor, and educator. They are a graduate of the Clarion Writing Workshop and the University of Kansas’s MFA program, and author of the award-winning debut fiction collection Homesick (2019) and the novellas Finna (2020) and Defekt (2021). Nino has also written plays, poetry, and radio features; performed as a dancer, actor, and puppeteer; and worked as a stagehand, bookseller, bike mechanic, and labor organizer. One time, an angry person on the internet called Nino a verbal terrorist, which was pretty funny.
Dare Segun Falowo is a writer of the Nigerian Weird. Their work draws on cinema, pulp fiction & the surreal. They are queer and neurodivergent. Their work is published in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, the Dark Magazine and others. Their novella, “Convergence in Chorus Architecture” which appeared in the Dominion Anthology, was longlisted for the 2020 BSFA for Short Fiction. They haunt Ibadan, Nigeria where they are learning to express more of their truth in words, watercolor and spirit.
Maxwell I. Gold is an author of weird fiction and dark fantasy, writing short stories and prose that primarily center around his cosmic and profane Cyber Gods Mythos. Maxwell’s work has appeared in numerous publications including Spectral Realms, Weirdbook Magazine, The Audient Weird, Hinnon Magazine and Space and Time Magazine. Maxwell studied philosophy and political science at the University of Toledo and is a proud Columbus, Ohio native and currently is an active member of the Horror Writer’s Association and the Dramatists Guild.
Tessa Fisher is a PhD candidate and possibly the world’s only openly trans lesbian astrobiologist. When she’s not doing science, her passions include burlesque dancing, singing in her city’s LGBT women’s chorus, yoga, and writing LGBT-positive science fiction and fantasy. Her work has appeared in Vulture Bones, Fireside, Glass and Garden: Solarpunk Winters, Analog, and is forthcoming in the anthology Rosalind’s Siblings. She resides in Phoenix, AZ, along with her wife, and a fairly aloof bearded dragon. You can find her on Twitter @spacermase.
Jewelle Gomez is the author of four plays and seven books including the first black, lesbian vampire novel, The Gilda Stories, in print for more than 30 years and recently optioned by Cheryl Dunye for a TV mini-series. Find her online at jewellegomez.com and on Instagram & Twitter at @VampyreVamp.
S. M. Hallow is a comic artist and writer obsessed with fairytales. To learn more, follow Hallow on Twitter @smhallow.
Rien Gray is a queer, nonbinary author living in Ireland. Their comfort zone is dark romance and exploring trauma recovery in fiction, owing to personal experiences with C-PTSD. They have a series of F/NB romantic suspense novels with NineStar Press, and can be found on twitter @RienGray.
J. Kosakowski is a queer writer born and raised in New York City. While they do not enjoy long walks on the beach, they do happen to enjoy discussing all things crochet, cannibalism, and mythology. Their work has appeared in Baffling Magazine and Daily Science Fiction. They can be found at jkosakowskiwrites.wordpress.com and on Twitter @kosakowski_j.
M. L. Krishnan originally hails from the coastal shores of Tamil Nadu, India. She is a 2022-2023 MacDowell Fellow and a 2019 graduate of the Clarion West Writers’ Workshop. Her work was selected for the Best Microfiction 2022 anthology and has appeared, or is forthcoming in The Offing, Death in the Mouth: The Best of Contemporary Horror, PodCastle, Sonora Review, Quarterly West and elsewhere. You can find her on Twitter @emelkrishnan.
Brent Lambert is a Black, queer man who heavily believes in the transformative power of speculative fiction. He resides in San Diego but spent a lot of time moving around as a military brat. Currently, he manages the social media for FIYAH Literary Magazine and just had an anthology produced with Tor.com titled Breathe FIYAH. His novella The Necessity of Chaos is forthcoming from Neon Hemlock. He can be found on Twitter @brentclambert talking about the weird and the fantastic.
A.Z. Louise is a lover of birds, a writer of words, and a believer in the healing powers of peppermint tea. After leaving their job as a civil engineer, they took up poetry and fiction instead, but they still harbor a secret love of math. Links to their work can be found at azlouise.com.
Jennifer Mace is a queer Brit who roams the Pacific Northwest in search of tea and interesting plant life. A four-time Hugo-finalist podcaster for her work with Be The Serpent, she writes about strange magic and the cracks that form in society. Her anthology Silk & Steel: A Queer Speculative Adventure Anthology, with co-editors Django Wexler and Janine Southard, may be ordered from any reputable purveyor of literature. Find her fiction and poetry online at englishmace.com.
Avra Margariti is a queer Social Work undergrad from Greece. She enjoys storytelling in all its forms and writes about diverse identities and experiences. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Glittership, Lackington’s, Fusion Fragment, Arsenika, and other venues. You can find her on twitter @avramargariti.
Mari Ness has published poetry and fiction in Tor.com, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Nightmare, Uncanny, Fireside, Strange Horizons, Diabolical Plots, and elsewhere. Her tiny collection of tiny fairy tales, Dancing in Silver Lands, is available from Neon Hemlock; her poetry novella, Through Immortal Shadows Singing, is available from Papaveria Press, and her essay collection, Resistance and Transformation: On Fairy Tales, from Aqueduct Press. She lives in central Florida, where she likes to watch blue herons fly over the lakes.
Hailey Piper is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth, Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy, and The Worm and His Kings. Her short fiction appears in Pseudopod, Cast of Wonders, Vastarien, Daily Science Fiction, and elsewhere. She’s an active member of the HWA, and she lives with her wife in Maryland, where the robots love Old Bay. Find her at haileypiper.com or on Twitter via @HaileyPiperSays.
Brian Rappatta’s short fiction has appeared in venues such as Analog, Writers of the Future, Tales to Terrify, Shock Totem, Amazing Stories, and in the anthologies Nemonymous and Chilling Ghost Stories from Flame Tree Publications. He is a graduate of the Odyssey Writers Workshop.
Jae Steinbacher is a queer nonbinary trans writer and editor. They have been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, PodCastle, Terraform, and elsewhere. Jae is a graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop and North Carolina State University’s MFA program. You can find them on Twitter @JaeSteinbacher.
Susan Taitel would like you to believe that she knows how to write a pithy author bio. If that does not sound plausible maybe you could be convinced that she is from Chicago and would like to write a pithy author bio but will settle for a dryly amusing author bio. However if that is too much of a stretch, you could consider that she lives in Minnesota and never breaks into a cold sweat at the words “author bio.” If you are foolish enough to believe that, you can find more of her lies in Cast of Wonders, Galaxy’s Edge Magazine, and Cossmass Infinities as well as on her website susantaitel.com.
Izzy Wasserstein is a queer, trans woman who teaches writing and literature at a midwestern university and writes poetry and fiction. Her work has appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, Apex Magazine, Fireside Magazine, and elsewhere. She shares a home with her spouse, Nora E. Derrington, and their animal companions. She’s an enthusiastic member of the 2017 class of Clarion West.
Rem Wigmore is a speculative fiction writer based in Aotearoa New Zealand, author of the queer solarpunk novel Foxhunt, published by Queen of Swords Press, and forthcoming sequel Wolfpack. Their other works include Riverwitch and The Wind City, both shortlisted for Sir Julius Vogel Awards. Rem’s short fiction appears in several places including Capricious Magazine, Baffling Magazine and the Year’s Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction & Fantasy anthology. Rem’s probably a changeling, but you’re stuck with them now. The coffee here is just too good. Rem can be found at remwigmore.com or on twitter as @faewriter.
A. B. Young has spent the year haunted by the possums living in their roof. As they fall asleep at night, sometimes they think the scratching is coming from inside their head. They have named the possums Gilbert and Gubar. Young has been published in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Heroines Anthology, and was one of the 2019 winners of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. They tweet at @theunrealyoung.