The Nerd Count Podcast discusses all things nice and nerdy: science fiction, fantasy, horror, the weird, the strange & unusual, books, comics, film, and TV. We discuss writing, editing, submitting, and publishing, living as writers, balancing full-time work, writing groups, workshops, and more.

Hosted by Mercurio D. Rivera and Matthew Kressel.

Your hosts at a NYRSF reading in Brooklyn. Photo by Amy Goldschlager

Mercurio D. Rivera

Mercurio D. Rivera getting his nerd on

Mercurio D. Rivera is an attorney and compliance officer who lives in the Bronx in New York City. His short fiction has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award and has appeared in markets such as Year’s Best SF 17, edited by Hartwell & Cramer; Unplugged: The Web’s Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy, edited by Rich Horton; Asimov’s; Interzone; Nature; Black Static and elsewhere. His stories have been podcast at Escape Pod and StarShipSofa and translated and republished in China, Poland and the Czech Republic. His tales “Longing for Langalana” and “Tethered” (about aliens biochemically attracted to human beings) have been taught in college courses in the United States and Venezuela. Tor.com called his collection Across the Event Horizon (NewCon Press 2013), “weird and wonderful” with “dizzying switchbacks.” His website is mercuriorivera.com.

Matthew Kressel

Matthew Kressel rocking out to keep demogorgons at bay

Matthew Kressel is a multiple Nebula Award, World Fantasy Award, and Eugie Foster Award finalist. His first novel, King of Shards, was hailed by NPR Books as, “Majestic, resonant, reality-twisting madness.” His many works of short fiction have or will soon appear in Tor.com, Clarkesworld, Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, Nightmare, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, as well as multiple Year’s Best anthologies, and has been translated into nine languages. He co-hosts the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series with Ellen Datlow in Manhattan. And he is the creator of the Moksha submissions system, used by many of the largest publishers of SFF. He lives in Ridgewood, New York, with his wife and far too many houseplants. His website is matthewkressel.net.