75+ Urban Fantasy Writers Who Aren’t White UPATED
From the beginning, I knew that Monster Complex needed to welcome readers who are different from me. People who look different, people who think differently, people who have different experiences, and people who are treated differently. As such, I needed to cover authors who were like them. This list isn’t intended to parse out or separate these authors—many of these authors have already or will show up in other lists and other articles on the site. The list below is simply a reference I’m creating for my own use. But it seemed selfish to just keep it to myself.
Sometimes, it can be tricky to define a work as “urban fantasy” as opposed to related genres and sub-genres like speculative fiction, horror, paranormal romance, and magical realism. For my purposes at Monster Complex, I’m broadly defining urban fantasy as a story which infuses monsters or the supernatural into a contemporary or everyday setting.
As for why this list is limited to “urban fantasy”—that’s the genre that mot often intersects with what Monster Complex is about. If this list were expanded to include some of the broader categories, like horror or science fiction, there’d be a lot more authors on the list. But those authors don’t necessarily write about monsters. (If that point seems minor to you, this might be a good time to refer to the name of the website.)
There are a number of resources that have been helpful in creating this list. For further reading, I recommend some of the following links. If you click through, you’l find some of the articles to be challenging, some to be enlightening, and some of them leading to the wider world of diverse authors who write science fiction, fantasy, and/or horror. I’m limiting the scope of this list to urban fantasy because, you know, monsters.
Some points to keep in mind about the list below:
These are not authors who exclusively write “urban fantasy.” They are on the list because they have written something at some point that could be described as such. Several of them are more likely to identify their work with some other classification.
I included a couple of “magical realism” authors because I felt like it. Like I said, the entire purpose of this list is about a learning journey.
I am not (necessarily) endorsing these authors. That’s not the purpose of this list. Some of them I am hearing about for the first time. As I get to know them, I’m discover certain authors write the kind of content I won’t be covering anywhere else on this site. Monster Complex—on the whole—leans on the more PG and soft-R side of the spectrum. Some of these authors have a different take altogether. Those that work within the parameters of the Monster Complex vision will show up on the site more than others.
This article was first posted 2020.
RESOURCES
Black Women in Horror (Sumiko Saulson)
Kenesha Williams on Non-POC Authors Writing POC Characters (Monster Complex)
Urban Fantasy Writers of Color: An Ongoing List (Daniel Jose Older)
Top Ten Books for Readers New to Black Sci-fi (BlackSci-Fi.com)
Intro to Speculative Fiction by People of Color (Fantasy Inn)
7 Wonderfully Diverse Vampire Novels (Book Riot)
5 Science Fiction and Fantasy Women of Color Authors to Read After Octavia Butler (Book Riot)
20 Books To Read If You Want To Get Into Black Sci-Fi And Fantasy (BuzzFeed)
5 Black Female Horror Authors You Should Be Reading (The Mary Sue)
Urban Fantasy 101 – Gentry-fication (Stitch Media Mix)
Representations of Otherness in Paranormal Romance: Nalini Singh and J.R. Ward (Synaesthezia)
Diverse Book List (Diversity in Horror Fiction)
Diverse Fantasy/Sci-Fi/ Horror Books and Authors (Auden Johnson)
Move over HP Lovecraft, fantasy writers of colour are coming through (Guardian)
HORROR NOIRE: A HISTORY OF BLACK HORROR
Black Sci-Fi TV talked to the people behind the documentary HORROR NOIRE, which examines the history of Black horror.
75+ Authors Who Aren't White That Write Urban Fantasy
Chelsea Abdullah | Author Website | Goodreads
Chelsea Abdullah is an American-Kuwaiti writer born and raised in Kuwait, where she grew up listening to stories about mysterious desert creatures and wily (only sometimes likable) heroes. Consumed by wanderlust, she has put down roots in various states. When not immersed in her own fictional worlds, she spends her free time playing video games, doodling characters, and hoarding books she doesn’t have the shelf space for. Her novel The Stardust Thief is the gripping tale of a legendary smuggler, a cowardly prince, and a dangerous quest across the desert to find a legendary, magical lamp.
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Mario Acevedo | Author Website | Goodreads
Born in El Paso, Texas and grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico, but visited family in Chihuahua. Joined the US Army and flew attack helicopters. Was artist-in-residence for Arte Americas in Fresno, California and served as a combat artist in Operation Desert Storm. Also teaches/taught art to prisoners at Avenal State Prison.
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Tomi Adeyemi | Instagram | Goodreads
Tomi Adeyemi is a winner of a Hugo Award (World Science Fiction Convention), a Nebula Award (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America), and picked by Time Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People of 2020. A Nigerian-American author and storyteller, her book Children of Blood and Bone showed up on a bunch of lists—and won the 2018 Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy. In fact, Entertainment Weekly remarked that Harry Potter fans would love these books. Touted the magazine, “Meet Tomi Adeyemi―the new J.K. Rowling. (Yep, she’s that good).”
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Saladin Ahmed | Twitter | Goodreads
Saladin Ahmed was born in Detroit and raised in a working-class, Arab American enclave in Dearborn, Michigan. His short stories have been nominated for the Nebula and Campbell awards, and have appeared in Year's Best Fantasy and numerous other magazines, anthologies, and podcasts, as well as being translated into five foreign languages. Year’s Best Fantasy and numerous magazines, anthologies, and podcasts, as well as being translated into five foreign languages. Throne of the Crescent Moon won a Locus Award for Best First Novel and was a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and David Gemmell Morningstar awards. As a comic book writer, he penned the 1970s urban supernatural mystery comic book series Abbott, and the adventures of Marvel Comics’ Miles Morales: Spider-Man.
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Angela C. Allen | Goodreads
The editor of Dark Thirst, Angela C. Allen is a twin and a native of Texas. A graduate of Howard University, she is a veteran journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Post, the Washington Post, the Indianapolis Star, the Sun (London), and Honey magazine.
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Miracle Austin | Author Website | Goodreads
Horror author Miracle Austin counts as early inspirations the movie Squirm and the Stephen King novel Carrie, both of which ignited her interest in horror and suspense. Ms. Austin works in the social work world by day and the writer’s world at night and weekends. She enjoys writing diverse flashes, short stories, and longer works, while threading various social awareness themes into her stories, at times.
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L.A. Banks | Website | Goodreads
Author Leslie Banks (1959-2011) wrote urban fantasy under the pen name L.A. Banks, writing the Vampire Huntress Legend series and the Crimson Moon novels, including Left for Undead and Never Cry Werewolf . Under a variety of pen names, she wrote more than 40 novels in various genres, including African-American literature, romance, women’s fiction, crime suspense, dark fantasy, horror, and non-fiction. She won several literary awards, including the 2008 Essence Literary Awards Storyteller of the Year. She lived with her daughter in Philadelphia until her death in 2011.
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Kendare Blake | Author Website | Goodreads
Kendare Blake is the author of several novels and short stories, including the Three Dark Crowns series, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer follow-up In Every Generation series, as well as the Anna Dressed in Blood series, and the Goddess War series. Several of Blake’s fiction projects have been optioned for media adaptations.
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Aliette de Bodard | Author Website | Goodreads
Aliette de Bodard lives and works in Paris. She has won three Nebula Awards, a Locus Award, a British Fantasy Award and four British Science Fiction Association Awards. She was a double Hugo finalist for 2019 (Best Series and Best Novella).
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David Bowles | Author Website | Goodreads
David Bowles is a Mexican-American author from south Texas, where he teaches at the University of Texas Río Grande Valley. He has written several titles, most notably THE SMOKING MIRROR (Pura Belpré Honor Book) and THEY CALL ME GÜERO (Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children's Book Award, Claudia Lewis Award for Excellence in Poetry, Pura Belpré Honor Book, Walter Dean Myers Honor Book). His work has also been published in multiple anthologies, plus venues such as Asymptote, Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, Metamorphoses, Rattle, Translation Review, and the Journal of Children’s Literature. In 2017, Bowles was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters.
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Moni Boyce | Author Website | Goodreads
Paranormal author Moni Boyce is a writer, filmmaker, poet and award-winning author of contemporary and paranormal romances. She spent the last 15 years in the film industry, and now creates characters of her own and brings them to life on the page. She also recently won two awards from the RSJ 2020 Virtual Romance Book Con, in the categories of Debut Author, and Best Commercial Romance for Redemption of the Heart.
Ms. Boyce’s paranormal romance series Oracle Chronicles kicked off with Awakened—which is now in the process of becoming an audiobook. Over the course of the series, readers have been introduced to a world populated by oracles, witches, vampires, shifters, and more.
In our exclusive interview, the author takes us behind the scenes, explains how her background in film impacts her fiction, and shares what she looks for in a paranormal romance: Read the Monster Complex interview with Moni Boyce
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Maurice Broaddus | Author Website | Goodreads
The Knights of Breton Court trilogy is written by Maurice Broaddus, whose work has appeared in Lightspeed Magazine, Weird Tales, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Asimov’s, Cemetery Dance, Uncanny Magazine, with some of his stories having been collected in The Voices of Martyrs. His novels also include the steampunk novel Pimp My Airship, and the middle grade detective novel series The Usual Suspects. As an editor, he’s worked on Dark Faith, Dark Faith: Invocations, Streets of Shadows, People of Colo(u)r Destroy Horror, and Apex Magazine. His gaming work includes writing for the Marvel Super-Heroes, Leverage, and Firefly role-playing games as well as working as a consultant on Watch Dogs 2.
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Jessica Cage | Author Website | Goodreads
Award-winning and USA Today bestselling author, Jessica Cage dabbles in artistic creations of all sorts but at the end of the day, it’s the pen that her hand itches to hold. Her books include the series Scorned by the Gods, Djinn Rebellion, High Arc Vampires, the Alphas werewolf series, and Siren. “My dream is to write the stories I grew up loving with characters who look like me,” she says on her website homepage. “I can remember as a little girl wondering why there were no black vampires, werewolves, and fairies in the stories I read. Well, now there are because I’ve written them! This is my passion and I’m overjoyed to be able to share it with the world.”
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Ana Castillo | Author Website | Goodreads
Ana Castillo is a Chicana novelist, poet, short story writer, essayist, editor, playwright, translator and independent scholar. Considered one of the leading voices in Chicana experience, Castillo is known for her experimental style as a Latina novelist.
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Roshani Chokshi | Author Website | Goodreads
Roshani Chokshi is the award-winning author of the New York Times bestselling series The Star-Touched Queen, The Gilded Wolves, and Aru Shah and The End of Time, which Time Magazine named one of the Top 100 Fantasy Books of All Time. Her novels have been translated into more than two dozen languages and often draw upon world mythology and folklore. Chokshi is a member of the National Leadership Board for the Michael C. Carlos Museum.
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Joyce Chng is a Chinese-Singaporean children's book author. Her work is regularly anthologized and she has a passion for steampunk, science fiction, and tales of transfiguration.
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Zen Cho | Author Website | Goodreads
Malaysian fantasy author Zen Cho lives and works in England. She was the joint winner of the IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award in 2015 for her short story collection Spirits Abroad. Her debut novel, Sorcerer to the Crown, was a finalist for the Locus Award for Best First Novel in 2016, and in the same year, Ms. Cho won the British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer. Sorcerer to the Crown is a Regency fantasy novel that outlines what happens when magic and mayhem collide with the British elite. In the sequel, The True Queen, a young woman with no memories of her past finds herself embroiled in dangerous politics in England and the land of the fae.
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P. Djèlí Clark | Author Website | Goodreads
P. Djèlí Clark likes creating fantastic, dangerous, and exciting worlds—usually with heroines and heroes, almost always with magic and monsters. His short fiction has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Lightspeed, Tor.com and in print anthologies including Griots, Steamfunk, Myriad Lands and Hidden Youth.
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Zoraida Córdova | Author Website | Goodreads
YA fantasy author Zoraida Córdova wrote the award-winning Brooklyn Brujas series. The first book in that series, Labyrinth Lost (Sourcebooks Fire), was a YA pick for 2020 Summer Scares, presented by the Horror Writers Association, Book Riot, Library Journal/School Library Journal, and United for Libraries. She’s also the author of Star Wars: A Crash of Fate, and co-editor of Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite.
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Indra Das | Twitter | Goodreads
Indrapramit Das is an Indian science fiction, fantasy and cross-genre writer, critic and editor. An Octavia E. Butler Scholar and graduate of the 2012 Clarion West Writers Workshop, he completed his MFA at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, where he wore many hats, including freelance editor, writing tutor, occasional illustrator, environmental newswriter, and dog-hotel night-shift attendant. His short fiction has been published in many fiction magazines and anthologies. The Devourers was his first published novel.
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Tananarive Due | Author Website | Goodreads
TANANARIVE DUE (tah-nah-nah-REEVE doo) is an award-winning author who teaches Black Horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA. She is an executive producer on Shudder's groundbreaking documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror. She and her husband/collaborator Steven Barnes wrote "A Small Town" for Season 2 of "The Twilight Zone" on CBS All Access. A leading voice in black speculative fiction for more than 20 years, Due has won an American Book Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a British Fantasy Award, and her writing has been included in best-of-the-year anthologies. Her books include Ghost Summer: Stories, My Soul to Keep, and The Good House. She and her late mother, civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due, co-authored Freedom in the Family: a Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights. She is married to author Steven Barnes, with whom she collaborates on screenplays.
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Malon Edwards | Author Website | Goodreads
Malon Edwards has been writing short stories since he was eight years old. His first story was about two astronauts who take a rocket ship to the Moon, where one decides to stay, all alone. These days, his stories—sometimes steampunk and urban fantasy, other times horror and cyberpunk—are often set in an alternate or near-future Chicago and feature people of color.
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Greg van Eekhout | Author Website | Goodreads
Greg van Eekhout is a science fiction and fantasy writer. His “In the Late December” was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Short Story, and his middle-grade fantasy novel The Boy at the End of the World was nominated for the 2012 Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy.
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Alicia Ellis | Amazon author page | Author website | Goodreads
Who will survive the war between man and machine? Alicia Ellis’ Flesh and Metal series about a cyborg woman combines action movie energy with classic story ideas and mystery solving.
Alicia Ellis decided to write books about ten minutes before graduating from law school. Now, she’s an Atlanta attorney moonlighting as an author, electronics junkie, and secret superhero. With two degrees in computer science and an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction, she loves creative problem-solving, especially as it relates to high-tech things.
Alicia writes mysteries, sometimes for young adults, sometimes in fantasy or science fiction settings, and sometimes in the real world. Her debut novel, Girl of Flesh and Metal, a young adult sci-fi mystery, was the first self-published book ever to make the American Library Association’s LITA Excellence in Children’s and Young Adult Science Fiction Notable Lists.
Alicia Ellis writes sci-fi, contemporary, and fantasy mysteries. She is the author of the sci-fi action mysteries “Girl of Flesh and Metal,” the urban fantasy Blood Spells and the “Gray Girls” mystery. Ellis told the GIRL MEETS MONSTER site that her love for SF and Fantasy came because her father raised her on Star Trek and Star Wars.
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Ayize Jama-Everett | Author Website | Goodreads
Ayize Jama-Everett writes about sci-fi, fantasy, and Afrofuturism. He is the author of the trilogy The Liminal People (self-published, 2009; Small Beer Press, 2012), The Liminal War (Small Beer Press, 2015) and The Entropy of Bones (Small Beer Press, 2015).
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Minister Faust | Author Website | Goodreads
Minister Faust is an award-winning novelist, award-winning print journalist, radio host-producer, television host and associate producer, sketch comedy writer, video game writer, playwright, and poet. He has spoken and taught workshops widely. Although most of his fiction wouldn’t fit this category, we include Mr. Faust on this list of urban fantasy authors for his superhero deconstruction novel Shrinking the Heroes. Originally published as From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain, the novel is an award-winning political satire disguised as a self-help book for superheroes. The characters in the book parody several well-known comic book characters. Booklist called it “An excellent superhero comedy as well as an unsettling satire.”
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Seressia Glass | Author Website | Goodreads
Author Seressia Glass’ fiction spans urban fantasy, paranormal romance, and contemporary romance. “No matter the genre,” she says on her author website homepage, “my books feature tales of overcoming the odds to achieve love and acceptance–universal desires for everyone no matter who or what they are.” Her Shadowchasers series is set in a supernatural Atlanta where Kira Solomon is an antiquities expert by day—and by night a Shadowchaser, a bounty hunter charged by the Light to hunt the Fallen.
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Owl Goingback | Website | Goodreads
Owl Goingback’s novel Shaman Moon (White Wolf Publishing) draws on his Native American heritage to tell a story of supernatural suspense, as do his other novels Darker than Night and Evil Whispers. His novel Crota won the 1996 Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel, given by the Horror Writers Association. The HWA also awarded his novel Coyote Rage Superior Achievement in a Novel, and gave him the Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to his writing, he has lectured throughout the country on the customs and folklore of the American Indians.
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D.C. Gomez | Author Website | Goodreads
In D.C. Gomez’s urban fantasy series The Intern Diaries, Isis Black is Death’s Intern. DC. was born in the Dominican Republic, and spent several years of her childhood in Salem, Massachusetts—the magical “Witch City.” Following college, she served in the U.S. Army. These experiences have shaped her life, as well as her quirky and sometimes morbid sense of humor.
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Alexia Gordon | Author Website | Goodreads
Paranormal mystery author Alexia Gordon won a Lefty Award and multiple Lone Star Literary Bloggers’ Choice Awards, has been nominated for an Agatha Award, became a finalist for a Silver Falchion Award, and was chosen one of Suspense Magazine’s best debuts of 2016. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, and the Crime Writers of Color.
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Kevin Grevioux | Goodreads
Kevin Grevioux is an American actor, screenwriter, and comic book writer. He is best known for his role as Raze in the Underworld film series, which he co-created. He wrote the screenplay for I, Frankenstein as well as the graphic novel. His comics writing also includes ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction, and Marvel Comics’ New Warriors, and Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel, introducing a character he created in his teens. He has written several scripts in various genres and has written and directed two short sci-fi films, Indigo and Thanatos. As an actor, Kevin has worked in Planet of the Apes (2001), Charlie’s Angels (2000), Marvel Comics' The Hulk and in Underworld (2003), playing the formidable Lycan character Raze. He also serves as an Associate Producer on the film and is currently working on several other screenplays as well as his first novel, a science fiction thriller.
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Nigel Henry | Author Website | Goodreads
Nigel Henry writes gripping fantasy novels about monsters that want to beat up the world, heroes who have to beat the monsters, and distress-free damsels who can beat up everyone. As a child, Nigel was the boy who constantly walked into street signs because his nose was buried in a mystery, adventure, or fantasy book. As an adult, he’s managed to get his sign-bumping down to “only occasionally.” Nigel is the author of The Demons of Sedona epic fantasy series and the Ria Miller and the Monsters urban fantasy adventure series. By day, Nigel is an award-winning digital journalist.
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Micheline Hess | Author Website | Goodreads
Born and raised in New York City, Micheline Hess started her professional comic book career in the early 1990s with Milestone Comics as a colorist. She has several creator owned works such as the righteously angry illustrated book Diary of a Mad, Black, Werewolf , the fantasy-adventure comic book series Malice in Ovenland, The Anansi Kids and the All Saints’ Day Adventure, and the children’s book The Island Cats of Cunga Ree. In addition to being an independent comic book creator, she’s also an accomplished digital painter, with her work shown nationally at various art shows annually.
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Jean M. Hodges | Author Website
Jean M. Hodges writes urban fantasy as well as poetry, flash fiction, essays, and more. She also does illustration and voice work.
Ernest Hogan | Author Website | Goodreads
Ernest Hogan describes himself as “a recombocultural Chicano mutant, known for committing outrageous acts of science fiction, cartooning, and other questionable pursuits.”
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Nalo Hopkinson | Author Website | Goodreads
Jamaican-born Canadian speculative fiction writer and editor Nalo Hopkinson often infuses her fiction with Caribbean history and language, and its traditions of oral and written storytelling. Her books include the novels Brown Girl in the Ring, Midnight Robber, The Salt Roads, and The New Moon’s Arms, and her collection Skin Folk. She was the curator of Six Impossible Things, an audio series of Canadian fantastical fiction on CBC Radio One. She entered Neil Gaiman’s Sandman universe with the comic book limited-series House of Whispers (DC Comic), a story that took readers from the bayou to the Dreaming.
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S.L. Huang | Author Website | Goodreads
SL Huang is a Hugo-nominated and Amazon-bestselling writer. She is the author of the Cas Russell series from Tor, starting with Zero Sum Game, and her short fiction has appeared in numerous best-of anthologies. She is also an MIT graduate, stuntwoman, and firearms expert.
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José Iriarte | Author Website | Goodreads
José Pablo Iriarte is a Nebula-award-nominated author of fantasy and science fiction. His stories have been published in Lightspeed Magazine, Strange Horizons, Fireside Fiction, and many other venues.
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Jemiah Jefferson | Author Website | Goodreads
An African American horror author and Dark Horse comics editor, Jemiah Jefferson’s Voice of Blood series introduces the smart, beautiful, sexy and vicious vampires of Portland.
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N. K. Jemisin | Author Website | Goodreads
N. K. Jemisin is a New York Times-bestselling author of speculative fiction short stories and novels, who lives and writes in Brooklyn, New York. In 2018, she became the first author to win three Best Novel Hugos in a row for her Broken Earth trilogy. She has also won a Nebula Award, two Locus Awards, and a number of other honors.
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Delizhia Jenkins | Author Website | Goodreads
“I create worlds with broken dreams. I live my life with the help of dragon wings…” Delizhia Jenkins is an urban fantasy and paranormal romance author whose love whose works include The Vampire Hunters Academy series and The Lost Queen: Mercury’s Heir. Her love for writing began in elementary school, when the passion for storytelling developed into a journey of writing. Over the years, she honed her craft for storytelling and the written word by excelling in subjects such English and English Literature; and by indulging in her favorite past time which involved reading the works of Anne Rice, K’Wan, Christopher Pike, Carl Weber, Omar Tyree, and the late L.A. Banks. J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood also claimed her heart and author Karen Marie Moning joined the ranks of Miss Jenkins’ all time favorite authors.
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Alaya Dawn Johnson | Author Website | Goodreads
Alaya Dawn Johnson’s fiction includes the Zephyr Hollis books, and urban fantasy series set during the Roaring Twenties. She won the 2015 Nebula Award for Best Novelette for “A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i,” which appears in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy(2015). Her debut YA novel, The Summer Prince, was longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Her follow up YA novel, Love Is the Drug, won the Andre Norton Award in 2015.
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Mikki Kendall | Author Website | Goodreads
Mikki Kendall is an author, activist, and cultural critic. Her work often focuses on current events, media representation, the politics of food, and the history of the feminist movement.
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Sami Ahmad Khan | Goodreads
Sami Ahmad Khan is a writer, academic and documentary producer. He holds a PhD degree in Science Fiction and has taught at IIT Delhi, JNU, the University of Iowa and OP Jindal Global University. His short fiction, research papers and articles have appeared in leading magazines and journals across the globe.
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Paul Krueger | Website | Goodreads
Paul Krueger is a Filipino-American author. His first novel was the urban fantasy Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge. A lapsed Chicagoan, he may now be found literally herding cats in Los Angeles.
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Nicole Givens Kurtz | Author Website | Goodreads
Nicole Givens Kurtz is the published author of the futuristic thriller series, Cybil Lewis. Her novels have been named as finalists in the Fresh Voices in Science Fiction, EPPIE in Science Fiction, and Dream Realm Awards in science fiction.
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Cassandra Khaw | Author Website | Goodreads
Cassandra Khaw writes horror, video games, articles about video games, and tabletop RPGs.
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R.F. Kuang | Author Website | Goodreads
Rebecca F. Kuang’s spiritual/political The Poppy War fantasy series is set to be adapted for television. Kuang is the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Award-nominated author of the Poppy War trilogy and the forthcoming Babel.
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Kai Leakes | Author Website | Goodreads
It was Kai Leakes’ love for all-things vampires that led to her series Sin Eaters and Sin Eater Chronicles. She was featured in the horror anthology Sycorax’s Daughters and sci-fi anthology The City.
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Fonda Lee | Author Website | Goodreads
Fonda Lee is the award-winning science fiction and fantasy author of the Green Bone Saga (Orbit), the Exo series (Scholastic), and Zeroboxer (Flux).
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Tonya Liburd | Author Website | Goodreads
Tonya Liburd shares a birthday with Simeon Daniel and Ray Bradbury, and was born the year Stephen King’s Carrie was published, which may tell you a little something about her. She has been nominated for the 2017 and 2018 Rhysling Awards, and has been longlisted in the 2015 Carter V. Cooper(Vanderbilt)/Exile Short Fiction Competition. Nisi Shawl and Tananarive Due both use her work in their workshops and courses. She is also the Senior Editor of Abyss & Apex Magazine.
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Marjorie Liu | Author website | Goodreads
A lawyer who switched to writing full-time, Marjorie Liu is a New York Times bestselling novelist and award-winning comic book writer. Her novels include the urban fantasy series Hunter Kiss, and the paranormal romance series Dirk & Steele.
In an interview about Hunters Kiss, Liu told this to Fantasy Literature:
“I was sitting there, thinking about the book I wanted to write, which did have zombies in it — and what would be the worst, weirdest thing that could happen to a mother and her child. Losing a kid to zombies, in a game of cards, just came to me.”
Her comics writing includes the creator-owned title Monstress (with Japanese artist Sana Takeda), a series with girls and monsters set in an alternate, matriarchal Asia that follows a girl’s struggle to survive the trauma of war. The Monstress series has won more than one Hugo Awards, British Fantasy Awards, the Harvey Award, plus multiple Eisner Awards. In fact, Liu was the first woman (and woman of color) to receive the Eisner for Best Writer in its 30 year history. At Marvel Comics, Liu’s writing has included X-23, Black Widow, Han Solo, Dark Wolverine and Astonishing X-Men.
A.J. Locke | Author Website | Goodreads
A.J. Locke is the author of urban fantasy novels, the ongoing Reanimation Files series, and the standalone novel Black Widow Witch. Her poetry has also been featured in the anthology Sycorax’s Daughters, and one of her poems was nominated for a Rhysling award and featured in their 2018 Rhysling Anthology. As an artist, she loves expressing her creativity through various mediums, from oil paint and watercolors, to ink, and graphic design.
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Kyoko M. | Author Website | Goodreads
Kyoko M has the best opening line of any author bio ever: “If Liz Lemon and Chandler Bing had a baby and she was black, that’d be me.” Kyoko is a USA Today bestselling author, a fangirl, and an avid book reader. She wrote the Amazon bestselling Black Parade urban fantasy series as well as the Of Cinder and Bone science-fiction dragon hunting series. When not working feverishly on a manuscript (or two), she can be found buried under her Dashboard on Tumblr, chatting with fellow nerds on Twitter, or curled up with a good Harry Dresden novel on a warm Georgia night.
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Gabriel García Márquez | Website | Goodreads
Gabriel García Márquez was born in 1927 in the town of Aracataca, Columbia.Latin America's preeminent man of letters, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. García Márquez began his writing career as a journalist and is the author of numerous other works of fiction and nonfiction, including the novels The Autumn of the Patriarch and Love in the Time of Cholera, and the autobiography Living to Tell the Tale. There has been resounding acclaim for his life's work since he passed away in April 2014.
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Alicia McCalla | Author Website | Goodreads
Alicia McCalla writes for both new adults and adults with her brand of multicultural superheroes, dark fantasy, paranormal, and horror. Her stories always include strong women heroines who fight back, sometimes to the death. Alicia’s influences include Octavia Butler, LA Banks, Faith Hunter, Patricia Briggs,and Laurell K. Hamilton. It took thirty years for Alicia to accept her calling as a writer of “unusual stories.” Always writing edgy tales that pushed the envelope. She learned to hide her violent, controversial, heart-pumping, and tragically romantic stories from family and friends.
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Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez | Website | Goodreads
Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez is a graphic novelist most notably recognized as the writer and creator of the critically acclaimed and bestselling superhero series La Borinqueña. He received the San Diego Comic-Con 2019 Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award for his philanthropic efforts via the benefit anthology Ricanstruction: Reminiscing & Rebuilding Puerto Rico featuring La Borinqueña teaming up with Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman and other DC Comics heroes. He self-published the anthology under his own studio Somos Arte—to date, Edgardo has raised close to a quarter of a million dollars for grassroots organizations in Puerto Rico via the La Borinqueña Grants Program. Edgardo is also the Creative Director and owner of Somos Arte, a Brooklyn-based creative services studio, and a curator of art exhibitions including three original Marvel comic book art exhibitions and his very own La Borinqueña for the Smithsonian Museum.
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Miyuki Miyabe | Website | Goodreads
Miyuki Miyabe is a Japanese author active in a number of genres, including science fiction, mysteries, historical fiction, social commentary, and juvenile fiction. Miyabe has won such literary prizes as the Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize in 1993 for Kasha and the Naoki Prize in 1998 for Riyū [The Reason]). A Japanese film adaptation of Riyû was released in 2004.
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Silvia Moreno-Garcia | Author Website | Goodreads
Mexican by birth, Canadian by inclination. Silvia Moreno-Garcia's debut novel, Signal to Noise, about music and magic, won a Copper Cylinder Award. Her second novel, Certain Dark Things, focused on narco vampires in Mexico City. It was selected as one of NPR's best books of 2016. Gods of Jade and Shadow was the 2020 American Library Association Reading List winner in the Fantasy category and appeared on many year's best lists. Silvia's short story collection, This Strange Way of Dying, was a finalist for the Sunburst Award. She has edited several anthologies, including She Walks in Shadows (World Fantasy Award winner, published in the USA as Cthulhu's Daughters), Fungi, Dead North and Fractured. Silvia is the publisher of Innsmouth Free Press. She co-edited the horror magazine The Dark with Sean Wallace from 2017 to 2020. She's a columnist for The Washington Post and reviews books for NPR.
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Toni Morrison | Goodreads
Toni Morrison (1931-2019) was an American novelist, essayist, book editor, and college professor. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed Song of Solomon brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
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Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali | Author Website | Goodreads
Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali’s publications include Strange Horizons, Fiyah Magazine, Diabolical Plots, and others. Her fiction has been featured in “The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 12” edited by Jonathan Strahan and “The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Three” edited by Neil Clarke. You can hear her narrations at any of the four Escape Artists podcasts, Far Fetched Fables, and Strange Horizons. is committed to encouraging more women and POC to submit fantasy stories. During her time as co-editor of PodCastle audio magazine, Khaalidah and partner Jen Albert won the 2017 Wondery Best Fiction Podcast Award and were nominated for the World Fantasy Award, Special Award: Non-Professional.
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Haruki Murakami | Author Website | Goodreads
Haruki Murakami is a Japanese writer. His books and stories have been bestsellers in Japan as well as internationally, with his work being translated into 50 languages and selling millions of copies outside his native country.
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Errick Nunnally | Amazon author page | Author website | Goodreads
Errick Nunnally writes dark pulp, sci-fi, crime, fantasy, and horror stuff. Nunnally’s work includes the werewolf detective Alexander Smith novels Blood for the Sun and All The Dead Men, and the superhero novel Lightning Wears a Red Cape. He has also contributed to several anthologies, including Halloween Nights: Tales of Autumn Fright, After the Fall: Tales of the Apocalypse, The Bad Book, Wicked Witches: An Anthology of the New England Horror Writers, and Fright Train.
“I don’t believe horror needs to be scary, shocking, or gory, per se as much much as it needs to be disturbingly horrific,” Nunnally told My Life My Books My Escape. “It should also plumb as much human depth and emotion as possible. It is horrific by demonstration, not necessarily that the characters are experiencing the emotion of horror as much as they are in a horrific situation. If their solution to the problem is as disturbingly horrific as the problem, we’re good. That said, everyone has their threshold and there are plenty of different writers out there willing to go mining for it.”
Nnedi Okorafor | Author Website | Goodreads
Nnedimma Nkemdili “Nnedi" Okorafor is a Nigerian-American writer of fantasy and science fiction for both children and adults. She is best known for Binti, Who Fears Death, Zahrah the Windseeker, Akata Witch, and Lagoon. In 2015, Brittle Paper named her the African Literary Person of the Year.
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Daniel José Older | Author Website | Goodreads
Daniel José Older is the New York Times bestselling author of the YA series the Shadowshaper Cypher (Scholastic), the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series (Penguin), and more. He won the International Latino Book Award and has been nominated for the Kirkus Prize, the Mythopoeic Award, the Locus Award, the Andre Norton Award, and the World Fantasy Award.
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Vaishnavi Patel | Author Website | Goodreads
Vaishnavi Patel is a law student focusing on constitutional law and civil rights. She likes to write at the intersection of Indian myth, feminism, and anti-colonialism. Vaishnavi grew up in and around Chicago and, in her spare time, enjoys activities that are almost stereotypically Midwestern: knitting, ice-skating, drinking hot chocolate, and making hotdish. Kaikeyi is her debut novel.
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Steven Van Patten | Amazon author page | Author website | Goodreads
Brooklyn native Steven Van Patten has written about everything from sleep demons to the Harlem Hellfighters of WWI. His critically acclaimed Brookwater’s Curse trilogy features an 1860s Georgia plantation slave who becomes law enforcement within the vampire community. In contrast, the main character in his Killer Genius series is a modern day hyper-intelligent Black woman who uses high-end technology as a socially conscious serial killer.
SVP’s well-reviewed short fiction includes contributions to horror anthologies—including SLAY: Stories of the Vampire Noire, plus the Bram Stoker Award-nominated books Under Twin Suns and A New York State of Fright: Horror Stories from the Empire State. Van Patten also contributed to Hell’s Kitties and Other Beastly Beasts, Shopping List 4: A Terrifying Anthology of 18 Tales of Horror!, Even in The Grave. He has also made multiple appearances in Tales from The Canyons of The Damned.
Van Patten and co-author Marc Abbott wrote the collection of short horror and dark fiction stories Hell At The Way Station. The authors were joined by sword & sorcery writer Kirk Johnson for the sequel collection, Hell at Brooklyn Tea.
SVP’s honors include three African American Literary Awards in 2019, two for Hell at The Way Station (“Best Anthology” and “Best in Science Fiction”) and one for “Best Independent Publisher” for his company Laughing Black Vampire Productions.
When he’s not writing fiction, Van Patten can be found stage managing television shows in New York City, as well as writing for productions seen on YouTube. He’s a member of the New York Chapter of The Horror Writer’s Association, the Director’s Guild of America, and the professional arts fraternity Gamma Xi Phi.
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Madhuri Pavamani | Author Website | Goodreads
Madhuri Pavamani writes. Things. As they pop into her brain. Sometimes prose, sometimes poetry, all the time love. She’s mad about whiskey, tattoos, Marquez, and yoga. She laughs constantly, says fuck a lot, and will dance anywhere. She is the author of the middle grade series, THE SURVIVAL FILES, the paranormal romance trilogy, THE SANCTUM, and the fantasy trilogy, THE KEEPER SERIES. When she’s not writing, you can find her hanging with her trio of boy magic: the kid, the pup, and the lizard.
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Jewell Parker Rhodes | Author Website | Goodreads
Jewell Parker Rhodes has written numerous children’s and adult books hoping to inspire social justice, equality, and environmental stewardship. Her novel GHOST BOYS quickly became a New York Times Best Seller and has garnered over 25 awards and honors, including The Walter Award, the Indies Choice/EB White Read-Aloud Award, and the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award for Older Readers. Jewell is also the author of TOWERS FALLING, winner of the 2017 Notable Books for a Global Society, and the celebrated Louisiana Girls’ Trilogy: NINTH WARD, a winner of a Coretta Scott King Honor Award; SUGAR, a Junior Library Guild selection, and BAYOU MAGIC, a We Need Diverse Books Educational Selection. Jewell currently serves as the Piper Endowed Chair and founding artistic director of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University.
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Rebecca Roanhorse | Author Website | Goodreads
Rebecca Roanhorse is a NYTimes bestselling and Nebula, Hugo and Locus Award-winning speculative fiction writer and the recipient of the 2018 Astounding (Campbell) Award for Best New Writer. Her novel Trail of Lightning ( Sixth World Series #1) won the Locus Award for Best First Novel. Her novel Resistance Reborn is part of Star Wars: Journey to The Rise of Skywalker and a USA Today Bestseller. Her next novel, Black Sun, is an epic fantasy inspired by the pre-Columbian Americas and is set to release on Oct 13, 2020. Her short fiction can be found in Apex Magazine, New Suns, The Mythic Dream, and various other anthologies.
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Zin E. Rocklyn | Amazon author page | Goodreads
“I write anything within horror,” Zin E. Rocklyn told Nightmare Magazine, “from weird to supernatural to even fanfic of slashers! I love the dark and love exploring the creatures within it.”
Rocklyn is a contributor to Bram Stoker-nominated and This is Horror Award-winning anthology Nox Pareidolia, as well as the giant monster anthology Kaiju Rising II: Reign of Monsters, the dark fantasy underworld anthology Brigands: A Blackguards Anthology, and the Colors in Darkness anthology Forever Vacancy. They also contributed the story “Summer Skin” in the Bram Stoker-nominated anthology Sycorax’s Daughters.
Rocklyn told The Lineup that they absolutely love horror. “I’m obsessed with everything about it. There is so much that is inherently fearful about being human and the catharsis that horror offers is unrivaled in any other genre, in my opinion. It touches on such human emotions and helps you process, understand, and in a way, get a deeper understanding of yourself, your limitations, and your boundaries. Horror is incredible. It’s a lot more ubiquitous than a lot of people give it credit for.”
Rocklyn’s dark fantasy novella Flowers for the Sea—said to read like Rosemary’s Baby by way of Octavia E. Butler—won the Shirley Jackson Award and the Pulver Award. It was also an Ignyte Award Finalist, a Library Journal Editor’s Pick, and one of Den of Geeks Best Books of 2021.
Gina Ruiz | Author Website | Goodreads
Gina Ruiz is a Chicana author living in Los Angeles. Gina has maintained several blogs over the years, including Doña Lupe’s Kitchen, and AmoXcalli. Gina writes short stories set in the Choloverse, a universe where cholos, aliens, ghosts, ancient Raza Cosmica, and La Migra co-exist and fight grand battles, usually set in Lincoln Park. She is currently writing a historical fiction novel with magical realism elements. The novel is about the Mexican Revolution and includes La Llorona as a character. She was a PEN Emerging Voices Fellowship finalist in 2014. At the moment, she is knee-deep in researching the Mexican Revolution as well as the Knights Templars. Gina also writes essays, articles about food, recipes, book reviews, and urban fiction. One of her speculative short stories, “Chanclas & Aliens” is included in the anthology Ban This!, while “Lorca Green,” is in the anthology, Lowriting. Gina has a few more short stories about characters related to those in “Chanclas” and “Lorca” on this site in the Stories section, while others are upcoming. She is also working on a set of fractured fairy tales that take place in the barrio and may or may not include characters from the Choloverse.
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Michelle Sagara | Author Website | Goodreads
Michelle Michiko Sagara is a Japanese-Canadian author of fantasy literature, active since the early 1990s. She has published under the names Michelle Sagara, Michelle West and Michelle Sagara West.
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Kiini Ibura Salaam | Author Website | Goodreads
Kiini Ibura Salaam is an essayist, science fiction and fantasy short story writer, and painter. Her short story collection Ancient, Ancient won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award for 2012.
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Rion Amilcar Scott | Author Website | Goodreads
Rion Amilcar Scott is the author of the story collection The World Doesn’t Require You (Norton/Liveright, August 2019). His debut story collection, Insurrections (University Press of Kentucky, 2016), was awarded the 2017 PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the 2017 Hillsdale Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. His work has been published in journals such as The Kenyon Review, Crab Orchard Review, and The Rumpus, among others.
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Nisi Shawl | Author Website | Goodreads
Nisi Shawl is a writer, editor, and journalist. Best known as an author of science fiction and fantasy short stories, she writes about and teaches how fantastic fiction might reflect real-world diversity of gender, sexual orientation, race, colonialism, physical ability, age, and other sociocultural factors.
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Nalini Singh | Author Website | Goodreads
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Nalini Singh writes the Psy-Changeling, Guild Hunter, and Rock Kiss series. She lives in New Zealand but travels as much as possible (the travel bug bit hard from when she escaped working as a lawyer to run away and teach English in Japan).
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Sherri L. Smith | Author Website | Goodreads
Sherri L. Smith is the award-winning author of YA novels Lucy the Giant, Sparrow, Hot Sour Salty Sweet, Flygirl and Orleans. Her bestselling novel, The Toymaker’s Apprentice is the Southern California Booksellers Association Award winner for Middle Grade. Her books have been listed as Amelia Bloomer, American Library Association Best Books for Young People, and Junior Library Guild Selections. Flygirl was the 2009 California Book Awards Gold Medalist. Sherri was a 2014 National Book Awards judge in the Young People’s Literature category. She is a three-time writer-in-resident at Hedgebrook retreat in Washington State, as well as a resident at Wassard Elea retreat, in Ascea, Italy. A former animator, she worked in stop-motion animation on Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!, and spent three years at Disney TV Animation, helping to create stories for animated home video projects.
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Shweta Taneja | Author Website | Goodreads
Shweta Taneja is a bestselling speculative fiction author from India. With seven published novels and graphic novels, she is a leading voice in feminist science fiction and fantasy, most known for her series, Anantya Tantrist Mysteries. She’s a Charles Wallace Writing Fellow. Her short story, The Daughter That Bleeds (translated in French as ‘La Fille qui saigne’ by Mikael Cabon) has been shortlisted for the prestigious Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire 2020 in France. The story was also awarded Editor’s Choice Award in 2018. Other than novels and short stories, she also writes comics. Her graphic novel Krishna Defender of Dharma (Campfire, 2012) in a Must-Read for government schools. The Skull Rosary (2013), an indie black-and-white graphic novel scripted by her was shortlisted for the Best Writer Award in ComicCon India. Her work has been translated to Romanian, French and Dutch
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Valerie Tejeda | Author Website | Goodreads
Valerie Tejeda (pronounced teh-heh-dah) is an author and internationally published journalist who specializes in stories about pop culture and wellness. Hollywood Witch Hunter (published by Bloomsbury in 2015 and Audible in 2016) was Valerie Tejeda's debut young adult urban fantasy novel and was featured on ABC, USA Today, Justine Magazine, Bustle, Teen Vogue, Latin Times, Cosmo, San Diego’s Comic-Con, KidLit TV, and more. With over 300 articles published, her bylines have appeared in publications such as Self Magazine, Vanity Fair, MTV, Teen Vogue, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Huffington Post, Latina, and more. Her debut novel, a satirical young adult urban fantasy called Hollywood Witch Hunter, was published by Bloomsbury and Audible. Her author work is represented by The Bent Agency. Valerie's interviewed celebrities, authors, fashion designers, and professional athletes for exclusive stories and she's had multiple articles cited in scholarly journals, including Oxford University Press. Her story highlighting the Latino bullying epidemic in schools (published in 2013) earned her national acclaim. She has a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a concentration in health psychology and has also studied psychological astrology. In addition, Valerie created the pop astrology brand, Big Cosmic Energy. She also produces custom content for brands and has worked with companies such as Peet’s Coffee, Sony Pictures, and more.
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Tade Thompson | Website | Goodreads
British author Tade Thompson is the author of the Rosewater trilogy (winner of the Nommo Award and John W. Campbell finalist), The Murders of Molly Southbourne (nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award, the British Science Fiction Award, and the Nommo Award), and Making Wolf (winner of the Golden Tentacle Award). His interests include jazz, visual arts and MMA. He is addicted to reading.
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Guillermo del Toro | Fansite | Goodreads
Guillermo del Toro was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1964. He is the director of the films Cronos, Mimic, The Devil’s Backbone, Blade II, Hellboy, Hellboy II, Pacific Rim, and Pan’s Labyrinth, which garnered enormous critical praise worldwide and won three Academy Awards, and The Shape of the Water, which won the 2018 Oscar Award for Best Picture.
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Cesar Torres | Author Website | Goodreads
Cesar Torres is the author of the thriller 13 Secret Cities, the 2010 short-story collection The 12 Burning Wheels, and the best-selling book series How to Kill a Superhero (writing as Pablo Greene). Cesar Torres is a novelist and journalist with more than 20 years of experience across various areas of publishing and business including digital news, book publishing (fiction), startups, human-computer interaction and emerging technologies.
Alex Villavasso | Author Website | Goodreads
Alex Villavasso is a bestselling Amazon author primarily known for his works of fiction in urban fantasy and superhero fantasy.
Sabrina Vourvoulias | Author Website | Goodreads
Sabrina Vourvoulias is the author of Ink (Crossed Genres, 2012), a speculative novel that draws on her memories of Guatemala's armed internal conflict, and of the Latin experience in the United States. It was named to Latinidad's Best Books of 2012. Her stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Crossed Genres and in a number of anthologies, including Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History. She is the managing editor of Al Día News in Philadelphia, and was the editor of Al Día's book 200 Years of Latino History in Philadelphia (Temple University Press, 2012). She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and daughter.
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Troy L. Wiggins | Author Website | Goodreads
From Memphis, Tennessee, Troy L. Wiggins was raised on a steady diet of comic books, fantasy fiction, and role-playing games. His short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Griots: Sisters of the Spear, Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction From the Margins of History, The Mash-Up Americans, Literary Orphans, and Memphis Noir. He is a contributor at Book Riot and Panels.
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Kenesha Williams | Facebook | Goodreads
Author, screenwriter, and speaker Kenesha Williams is Founder/Editor-in-Chief of Black Girl Magic Lit Mag a speculative fiction literary magazine. As an, essayist she has written for, Time Magazine’s Motto, and Fireside Fiction. Kenesha has been a panelist and speaker at StokerCon, the Horror Writers of America convention; Boskone, ECBACC, the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention; the 2017 African Americans Expo, and MECCACon.
“Black Girl Magic Lit Mag is a literary magazine created to address the lack of diverse, non-majority voices and characters in speculative fiction, especially Black women’s voices,” Ms. Williams tells Monster Complex. “Black Girl Magic Lit Mag believes that by showcasing stories featuring Black female voices and characters we can create a reflection of ourselves in the literature that we love, in a world where our images are controlled, shaped, and distorted by those outside of our experiences.”
You can support Black Girl Magic Lit Mag by purchasing on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MUCPLYA/
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Ibi Zoboi | Author Website | Goodreads
Haitian-American author Ibi Zoboi is the author of American Street, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young Adult’s Literature in 2017. Her novel Pride is a remix of Pride and Prejudice starring all characters of color.
We talk with veteran comic book creator Paul Castiglia about the Robot Monster graphic novel anthology. “It’s a combination of my love of classic sci-fi, horror, and comedy films being able to be manifested in this one project.”