A.L. Blacklyn currently resides not too far from the coastline in the Southeastern United States. They share a small house with their husband, child, pets, and any wildlife that can follow a few house rules. You can find more dark reflections at shadowsinmind.net
Mariel Herbert enjoys reading, writing, and discussing speculative fiction. She is drawn to engaging characters and voices, and to myths and the shapes of stories. Her short fiction and poems have appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Silver Blade, and Star*Line. She lives in California with one high-maintenance dog and hundreds of low-maintenance books. Links to her fiction and poetry can and will be found at marielherbert.wordpress.com.
R. J. Howell is a writer, an artist, and a book nerd. A Chicago native, she earned her BA in Fiction Writing at Columbia College Chicago and her MFA in Creative Writing: Popular Fiction from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program. Her short fiction has appeared in magazines such as Arsenika and Translunar Travelers Lounge and in anthologies such as Vampires, Zombies and Ghostsand Beyond the Stars: Infinite Expanse. You can find her online at rjhowell.com and at her blog, where she writes about books, writing, art, and gaming.
Jess Hyslop is a British writer of fantasy, fabulism, and science fiction. She is a graduate of the University of Cambridge and was the 2010 winner of the university’s Quiller-Couch prize for creative writing. Jess’s short fiction has been published in venues such as Interzone, Daily Science Fiction, and Cast of Wonders, and appeared in Salt Publishing’s anthology The Best British Fantasy 2014. Jess can be found online at www.jesshyslop.com. Offline, she resides in Oxford with a number of slowly decaying houseplants.
Toshiya Kamei holds an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Arkansas. His translations have appeared in venues such as Clarkesworld, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Strange Horizons.
Margaret Kingsbury writes fantasy, fairy tales, and poetry. She’s currently working on an epic fantasy novel about a group of misfits with dragon magic, as well as several children’s books. Her short stories and poems have been published by Abyss & Apex, Devilfish Review, Nonbinary Review, Pulp Literature, and Expanded Horizons, among other publications. When she’s not writing fiction, she’s writing about fiction for BuzzFeed, Book Riot, StarTrek.com, Think Inclusive, The Nashville Scene, and more. She’s also a freelance editor and virtual assistant. In her spare time, she writes about children’s books at Baby Librarians, a children’s book review website she co-founded with Jen Sherman, a fellow Book Riot contributor and mother. Follow Margaret on Instagram @babylibrarians and Twitter @readerlymom.
Iori Kusano is an Asian American writer and Extremely Ordinary Office Gremlin living in Tokyo. They are a graduate of Clarion West 2017. Their fiction has previously appeared in Apex Magazine, and they review books and games for Strange Horizons. Find them on Twitter @IoriKusano, or check out their full bibliography, including fiction, mildly worrisome essays, and poetry.
Mary Soon Lee was born and raised in London, but has lived in Pittsburgh for over twenty years. Her two latest books are from opposite ends of the poetry spectrum: “Elemental Haiku,” containing haiku for each element of the periodic table (Ten Speed Press, 2019) and “The Sign of the Dragon,” epic fantasy with Chinese elements (JABberwocky Literary Agency, 2020). After twenty-five years, her website has finally been updated: marysoonlee.com.
Samantha Murray is a writer, mathematician, and mother. Not particularly in that order. Her fiction has been seen in places such as Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Escape Pod, Interzone, Nature Magazine, Flash Fiction Online, The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy & Horror, and The Best Science Fiction of the Year (Vol 4), among others. Samantha won the 2016 Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction short story, and in 2019 was a guest of honour at Another Planet Science Fiction Convention in Beijing. You can follow her on twitter @SamanthaNMurray. Samantha lives in Western Australia in a household of unruly boys.
More poetry and fiction by Mari Ness can be found in Clarkesworld, Tor.com, Uncanny, Lightspeed, Nightmare, Apex, Fireside, Diabolical Plots, Strange Horizons, and other anthologies and zines.Her poetry novella, Through Immortal Shadows Singing, nominated for the Elgin and Rhysling Awards, is available from Papaveria Press. For more, follow her on Twitter at @Mari Ness or check out her blog at marikness.wordpress.com. She lives in central Florida.
Kurt Newton works as a health physics technician for a radiation protection company. His interest in science began at an early age when his parents bought him a microscope and a chemistry set for his eighth birthday. His older brother collected insects. Summer months were often spent tagging along, assisting however he could, on his brother’s hunts for the elusive swallowtail or silk moth, scarab or wasp. Kurt recently completed a series of poems that take place in a futuristic all-insect world. He attributes his brother for providing the education that inspired the collection. His Amazon author page is https://www.amazon.com/Kurt-Newton/e/B006VYUMUM. He can also be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/kurt.newton.56, and Twitter at https://twitter.com/kurtdnewton. Drop by and say Hello.
Julie Reeser is the unintentional straight man to life’s comedy. Her writing has been published in Daily Science Fiction, Dreams & Nightmares, and more. She runs a Patreon full of small joys, and she’s published two poetry chapbooks available in her shop. You can get season reports and pics of the dog on Twitter, and find more of her published writing on PersephoneKnits.
Rachel Rodman is the author of the food-themed collection Exotic Meats and Inedible Objects (Madness Heart Press). Her work has appeared in Analog, Fireside, and many other markets. Check her work at http://www.rachelrodman.com; Exotic Meats and Inedible Objects: https://madnessheart.press/product/exotic-meats-and-inedible-objects-by-rachel-rodman/?v=7516fd43adaa
Lorraine Schein is a New York writer. Her work has appeared in VICE Terraform, Strange Horizons, Full Bleed, and Little Blue Marble, and in the anthologies Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana del Rey & Sylvia Plath, and Eighteen. The Futurist’s Mistress, her poetry book, is available from mayapplepress.com.
Laura Theis grew up in a part of Germany where all the streets were named after characters from myths and fairy tales, moved to the UK a decade ago, and writes poems, stories and songs in her second language. She has an MSt (Distinction) in Creative Writing from Keble College, Oxford. Her work has been published in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Canada and the U.S. It appears in a variety of anthologies and journals including Mslexia, Strange Horizons, and Abyss&Apex. An AM Heath Prize recipient, she has also won the 2020 Mogford Short Story Prize and was a finalist in over twenty other international poetry and fiction competitions including the Acumen Poetry Prize, the Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize and three consecutive Live Canon International Poetry Awards. Her forthcoming pamphlet, how to extricate yourself, was selected by Paul McGrane for the 2020 Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize. Her website is http://lauratheis.weebly.com/.
Umiyuri Katsuyama is a multiple-award-winning writer of fantasy and horror, often based on Asian folklore motifs. A native of Iwate in the far north of Japan, she later moved to Tokyo and studied at Seisen University. In 2011, she won the Japan Fantasy Novel Award with her novel Sazanami no kuni. Her most recent novel, Chuushi, ayashii nabe to tabi wo suru, was published in 2018. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous horror anthologies in Japan. Umiyuri blogs at https://umiyulilium.hatenablog.com/.