RICHARD K. MORGANwas born September 24, 1965 in Norfolk, England. He graduated Queens’ College, University of Cambridge and taught English as a second language, living and working in Madrid, Istanbul, Ankara, and Glasgow, and has traveled extensively. He lives in Norfolk with his wife Virginia and son Daniel.
Morgan’s debut novel was Altered Carbon (2002), a cyberpunk noir that won a Philip K. Dick Award and spurred follow-ups Broken …Read More
MAKANA YAMAMOTO was born on Maui and grew up in Hawai’i and the mainland US. Their debut novel Hammajang Luck was a 2025 Locus Award finalist. Standalone sequel The Obake Code came out in February 2026. A writer from childhood, fiction became the perfect medium for them to explore their interests as well as reconnect with their culture, coalescing into a passion for diverse sci-fi. They love writing multicultural …Read More
NNEDI OKORAFOR was born April 8, 1974 in Cincinnati OH to Nigerian/Igbo immigrant parents. She received a master’s degree in journalism at Michigan State University and a PhD in English at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and later worked as an associate professor at Chicago State University and the State University of New York. She attended the Clarion Writers Workshop in 2001 and, in 2024, she was inducted into …Read More
KAMILAH COLE was born in Jamaica and raised in America. She graduated New York University and now lives in the Pacific Northwest. Her first novel, So Let Them Burn (2024), was shortlisted for a Dragon Award, a Lambda Award, and a Lodestar Award, and a sequel, This Ends in Embers, was published in 2025. Her speculative short fiction was included in the anthology The Secret Romantic’s Book of Magic …Read More
TOM HOLT was born in London, England in 1961. He was first published at age 12 with a book of poems (and was briefly a media sensation). He studied at Oxford University as well as The College of Law in London, and he worked for several years as a solicitor before shifting to writing full-time, often under the pseudonym K.J. Parker.
Holt’s first novel, Expecting Someone Taller, was published …Read More
BETHANY JACOBSwas born August 31, 1982 in Redlands CA and grew up in San Jose. She went on to earn a PhD in American Literature from the University of Oregon in 2014, where she taught writing and science fiction. She left academia in 2019 to work in educational technology to have more time to write. Her debut novel, These Burning Stars (2023), became a 2024 Philip K. Dick Award …Read More
DAVE HUTCHINSON was born in 1960 in Sheffield, South Yorkshire in England. He attended the University of Nottingham and went on to write for The Dundee Courier and The Weekly News as a journalist for many years.
Hutchinson’s earliest published fiction was his collection Thumbprints (1979), and he has written more than fifty short fiction pieces since, some published in collections such as Torn Air (1980), As the Crow …Read More
EDEN ROYCE was born August 5, 1973 in Pennsylvania and grew up in Charleston SC. She currently lives in Southeast England with her husband and cat.
Royce has published over 50 short stories, starting with 9 Mystery Rose (2010). She received a Diverse Worlds Grant in 2016. Root Magic (2021), her middle-grade debut, won an Ignyte Award, a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and a Walter Award Honor, and was a …Read More
JOSEPH HILLSTRÖM KINGwas born June 4, 1972 in Bangor, Maine, son of writers Stephen & Tabitha King. He attended Vassar College, earning a degree in English in 1995. He married Leanora Legrand in 1998 (divorced 2010), and they have three children. In 2015, he married editor Gillian Redfearn, and they have twins.
He chose to write under the pen name Joe Hill to obscure the connection to his famous …Read More
DANIEL H. WILSONwas born in Tulsa OK in 1978, a Cherokee citizen. He grew up in North Tulsa and went to the University of Tulsa for a B.S. in Computer Science, and then Carnegie Mellon University, where he received a PhD in Robotics and Master’s degrees in Machine Learning and Robotics. He now lives in Portland OR with his family.
Wilson’s earliest works were humorous science nerd non-fiction: How …Read More
KEN LIUwas born in China and grew up in the US. He was an English major at Harvard and, after graduation, worked in technology for several years, including time at Microsoft as an engineer and at a startup in Cambridge. He attended Harvard Law School. After practicing law for a number of years and a stint as a litigation consultant, he now writes full-time.
His first story, The Carthaginian …Read More
YUME KITASEI was born October 14, 1987 in New York City and grew up in New York and Tokyo. She graduated from Stuyvesant High School and Princeton University. Her first work of genre interest was Super (2019). Her novels include debut The Deep Sky (2023), a post-climate-apocalypse murder mystery set in space, and The Stardust Grail (2024), an anticolonial space heist. She has also published short fiction in New …Read More
CADWELL WILBUR TURNBULL, JR.was born August 12, 1987, in Chevy Chase MD and moved to his parents’ home island of Saint Thomas in the US Virgin Islands when he was a month old. He grew up there, then moved to Pittsburgh PA to attend La Roche University, where he earned a degree in Professional Writing. After graduating he returned to St. Thomas for a year, where he worked as …Read More
ALEXANDER BOLDIZARwas born in Košice, Czechoslovakia, in 1971, and escaped with his family through Yugoslavia in 1979. After six months in an Austrian refugee camp, they gained asylum in Canada. He became a Canadian citizen in 1983. After high school in Ottawa, he attended McGill University, graduating in 1994. He went on to Harvard Law School, where he was the first postindependence Slovak citizen to graduate with a Juris …Read More
SILVIA MORENO-GARCIAwas born April 25, 1981 in Baja California, Mexico, and grew up in various places throughout the country. She attended Endicott College in Massachusetts, where she studied communications, then returned to Mexico, where she married her husband; they immigrated to Canada and have two children. She studied journalism in Canada and earned a Master’s in Science and Technology Studies from the University of British Columbia.
Moreno-Garcia and Paula …Read More
H.E. EDGMON was born October 18, 1993 in Florida. They grew up all over the eastern US and currently live in Washington.
Debut YA The Witch King (2021) was followed by sequel The Fae Keeper (2022), and the YA Ouroboros duology consists of Godly Heathens (2023) and Merciless Saviors (2024).
Edgmon made their middle-grade debut with Stonewall Book Award-winning novel The Flicker (2024), and Defanged, a middle-grade novel featuring …Read More
FRANCES ELLEN WILDE was born in 1972 in Philadelphia PA and spent childhood summers traveling back and forth from Philadelphia to Hopkinsville KY. She studied art in high school and learned to design jewelry. At the University of Virginia, she studied writing and literature, with an emphasis on poetry, graduating with an English degree focused on Milton and 18th-century literature. She received an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson …Read More
JOAN LYN SLONCZEWSKIwas born in born August 14, 1956 in Hyde Park NY. They attended Bryn Mawr college, graduating with a biology degree in 1977, and earned a PhD in molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale in 1982, later doing postdoc work at the University of Pennsylvania. Slonczewski began a long career at Kenyon College in 1984, where they teach biology and SF writing. They do research with Kenyon …Read More
AKWAEKE EMEZIwas born in Umuahia, Nigeria, and grew up in nearby Aba, moving to the US for college at age 16. They later attended veterinary school at Tufts, earned a master’s in public policy at NYU, and studied writing at Syracuse University. Emezi has also taken part in numerous writing workshops, including Cave Canem and the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop.
Their debut novel Freshwater was published in 2018 …Read More
RITA DENISE WOODS was born July 23, 1956 in Detroit MI. She earned a BS in Microbiology from Purdue University before attending Howard University College of Medicine and completed her medical training at Creighton University in Omaha NE. She served as a medical director for a wellness center before practicing as a physician at a prison, to allow more time for writing.
Debut novel Remembrance (2019) combined historical and …Read More
GUY GAVRIEL KAYwas born November 7, 1954 in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada, and grew up in Winnipeg. He was influenced by Greek myths, fairy tales, and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, E.R. Eddison, and Fritz Leiber, among others. He attended the University of Manitoba, earning a BA in philosophy in 1975. During Kay’s time at the university, J.R.R. Tolkien’s son Christopher Tolkien asked him to help complete his father’s unfinished …Read More
STACEY ANN BARNES was born in 1975 in Champaign-Urbana IL. She has worked as a copywriter and a high school librarian.
She writes YA, romance, and mystery as Stacey Kade, with works of genre interest under that name including The Rules (2013), The Hunt (2014), and The Trials (2015) in the Project Paper Doll series, and The Ghost and the Goth (2010) and sequels Queen of the Dead (2011) …Read More
DARYL JON GREGORYwas born June 26, 1965 in Illinois, grew up in Darien IL, and attended college at Illinois State University, graduating with a double major in English and Theater. He taught high school for a few years, became a technical writer, and worked as a computer programmer before becoming a full-time writer. He had two children, now adults, with wife Kathy Bieschke.
In 1988 Gregory attended the …Read More
HACHE PUEYO who also writes as H. Pueyo, was born in the south of Brazil to Brazilian and Argentinian parents. As a child she lived in Barcelona, Spain and spent time in Argentina before returning to Brazil, where she lives now. She is the winner of an Otherwise Fellowship for her work with gender in speculative fiction.
Pueyo began publishing short SF in 2016 and has published in Clarkesworld, …Read More
AMAL EL-MOHTAR was born December 13, 1984 in Ottawa, Canada, and grew up there, apart from two years spent in Lebanon, where her family is from. She began publishing short fiction with The Crow’s Caw (2006) and has published scores of stories and poems, notably Hugo, Locus, and Nebula Award winner Seasons of Glass and Iron (2016, also a World Fantasy, Sturgeon Memorial, and Aurora Award finalist); Nebula …Read More
IBI AANU ZOBOIwas born was born Pascale Philantrope in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on June 22, 1977. She grew up in New York City, and now lives in New Jersey with her husband and three children; she legally changed her name after marriage.
Zoboi attended Clarion West in 2001. She also attended a Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation workshop in 2011, and earned her MFA in Writing for Children and …Read More
GARETH LYN POWELL was born September 3, 1970 in Clifton, Bristol, England; he grew up in Bristol, and lives there still. He studied humanities and creative writing at the University of Glamorgan (later merged with University of Wales, Newport and renamed the University of South Wales) and was fortunate to count Diana Wynne Jones and Helen Dunmore as early mentors. He has taught creative writing at various universities in …Read More
OLUWATOBI AJIBOLA OGUNDIRAN was born August 1, 1995 in Lagos, Nigeria, where he grew up until attending boarding school in Kwara State in Nigeria. At 19, he moved to Russia for medical school, spending seven years there. In addition to his work as a physician, he is currently studying for his MFA at the University of Mississippi.
Ogundiran began publishing with ”Maria’s Children” in The Dark in 2018, and …Read More
SHANNON EMERY LEEwas born April 19, 1969 in Santa Monica CA and grew up in Southern California, apart from a couple of years in Hong Kong as a young child. She is the only daughter of actor and martial arts legend Bruce Lee, and is an actress, businessperson, speaker, and producer. Lee is chairperson of the non-profit Bruce Lee Foundation, which ”provides access to Bruce Lee’s teachings to help …Read More
VAJRA CHANDRASEKERAwas born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he still lives. He began publishing short fiction with ”Pockets Full of Stones” in Clarkesworld (2013), and has since published scores of stories in genre magazines and anthologies. ”The Translator, at Low Tide” (2020) was a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Prize.
Debut novel The Saint of Bright Doors (2023) won Crawford, Ignyte, Locus, and Nebula Awards, and was a …Read More
PAOLO TADINI BACIGALUPI was born August 6, 1972 in Colorado Springs CO, moving with his parents to rural western Colorado soon after. When his parents divorced, he split his time between them, finishing high school at the private Colorado Rocky Mountain School. He attended Oberlin College in OH, where he met his wife-to-be Anjula (they married in 1998) and majored in East Asian Studies, spending time in China for …Read More
SUZAN PALUMBO was born in the 1980s in Trinidad & Tobago, and moved to Canada with her family as a young child. She grew up in Rexdale, Toronto, a Caribbean and South Asian immigrant neighborhood.
Palumbo began publishing work of genre interest with ‘Bloody Therapy’ in 2017, and has published more than a dozen pieces since in various magazines and anthologies, including WSFA Small Press Award and Nebula Award …Read More
