Chinelo Onwualu

Chinelo Onwualu is a Nigerian writer and editor living in Toronto. She’s the nonfiction editor of Anathema Magazine, and co-founder of Omenana, a magazine of African Speculative Fiction. Her writing has been featured in several anthologies and magazines, including Slate, Uncanny, and Strange Horizons. She’s been nominated for the British Science Fiction Awards, the Nommo Awards for African Speculative Fiction, and the Short Story Day Africa Award. Find her on her website at: www.chineloonwualu.com or follow her on Twitter @chineloonwualu.

Ewa Gerald Onyebuchi

Ewa Gerald Onyebuchi is an Igbo writer from Nigeria. He writes both short stories and poems. An alumnus of Osiri University 2021 Creative Writing Masterclass taught by professor Chigozie Obioma, he was, in 2020, shortlisted for the Ibua publishing continental call, a finalist for the Spring 2021 Starlight Award for poetry, longlisted for the 2022 AUB international poetry prize, recently shortlisted for the 2022 spectrum poetry competition, received an honourable mention in the L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Contest for the 4th quarter, 2022, longlisted for the 2022 Kendeka prize for African literature, and shortlisted for the Ibua publishing themed contest in the same year. His works have appeared in or are forthcoming from the Uncanny Magazine, Lumiere Review, Quarter After Eight, Rigorous, Temz Review, Afritondo, Brittle Paper African Writer, Nantygreens, Ibua Journal, The Pine Cone Review, and elsewhere.

Tochi Onyebuchi

Tochi Onyebuchi is the author of Goliath. His previous fiction includes Riot Baby, a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and NAACP Image Awards and winner of the New England Book Award for Fiction, the Ignyte Award for Best Novella, and the World Fantasy Award; the Beasts Made of Night series; and the War Girls series. His short fiction has appeared in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy and elsewhere. His nonfiction includes the book (S)kinfolk and has appeared in The New York Times, NPR, and the Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, among other places.

Photo by Christina Orlando

Praise Osawaru

Praise Osawaru (he/him) is a writer whose work appears in Agbowó, FIYAH, Frontier Poetry, The Maine Review, 20.35 Africa, and Uncanny Magazine, among others. He won the 2021 Valiant Scribe Poetry Prize, and has been nominated for the Best of Net, Pushcart, and Nina Riggs Poetry Award. He is a Prose Editor at Chestnut Review, a Watering Hole Fellow, and an HUES 2024 Scholar. He’s on Instagram & X: @wordsmithpraise.

Emma Osborne

Emma Osborne is a queer fiction writer and poet from Melbourne, Australia. Emma’s writing has appeared in Nightmare Magazine, Shock Totem: Tales of the Macabre and Twisted, Apex Magazine, Queers Destroy Science Fiction, Pseudopod, the Review of Australian Fiction, the Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror, and GlitterShip. Emma is a graduate of the 2016 Clarion West Writers Workshop (Team Arsenic forever!) and is a former first reader at Clarkesworld Magazine. Emma currently lives in Melbourne, drinking all of the coffee and eating all of the food, but has a giant crush on Seattle and turns up under the shadow of the mountain at every opportunity. You can find Emma on Twitter at @redscribe.

Karen Osborne

Karen Osborne lives in Baltimore, MD, with two violins, an autoharp, a theremin, three cameras, a husband, and a bonkers orange cat. Her short fiction appears in Escape Pod, Robot Dinosaurs, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Fireside, and Uncanny. Her debut novel, Architects of Memory, will be published in 2020 by Tor. She emcees the Charm City Spec reading series, plays the fiddle in a ceilidh band, and once won a major event filmmaking award for shooting and editing a Klingon wedding trailer. You can find her on Twitter at @karenthology.

Mark Oshiro

What if you could re–live the experience of reading a book (or watching a show) for the first time? Mark Oshiro provides just such a thing on a daily basis on Mark Reads and Mark Watches, where he chronicles his unspoiled journey through various television and book series. Since 2009, Mark has been subjecting himself to the emotional journey that one takes when they enter a fictional world for the first time. He mixes textual analysis, confessional blogging, and humor to analyze fiction that usually makes him cry and yell on camera. All of this earned Mark a Hugo Award nomination in the Fan Writer category in 2013 and 2014, and he has no plans on stopping. He was the nonfiction editor of Queers Destroy Science Fiction! and the co–editor of Speculative Fiction 2015. He is the President of Con or Bust, a non–profit that helps fans of color attend SFF conventions. His first novel, a YA contemporary about police brutality, is in need of an agent and will make you feel lots of things. His life goal: to pet every dog in the world.

Anya Ow

Anya Ow is the author of Ion Curtain, The Firebird’s Tale, and Cradle and Grave, and is an Aurealis Awards finalist. Her short stories have appeared in publications such as Asimov’s, Lightspeed, Fantasy Magazine, the 2019 Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror anthology, and more. Born in Singapore, Anya has a Bachelor of Laws from Melbourne University and a Bachelor of Applied Design from Billy Blue College of Design. She lives in Melbourne with her two cats, working as a graphic designer, illustrator, and chief studio dog briber for a creative agency. She can be found at anyasy.com or on twitter @anyasy.

Sodïq Oyèkànmí

Sodïq Oyèkànmí (he/ him) is a 2022/23 Poetry Translation Centre (UK) UNDERTOW Fellow. He holds a B.A in Theatre Arts from the University of Ibadan. A Pushcart Prize nominee, his works have been published and are forthcoming in Passages North, Poetry Wales, Lucent Dreaming, Strange Horizons, Longleaf Review, LOLWE, The Orchards Poetry Journal, North Dakota Quarterly, and Gutter Magazine. He won the 2022 Lagos / London Poetry Competition. He tweets @sodiqoyekan

Greg Pak

Greg Pak is a writer and filmmaker best known for his feature film Robot Stories and for writing over 550 comic books, including classic series like Planet Hulk, Darth Vader, Mech Cadet Yu, and Ronin Island. He wrote The Princess Who Saved Herself, the beloved children’s book based on the song by Jonathan Coulton, and recently released I Belong to You / Motherland, an illustrated book of poetry set to music by Inversion Ensemble. Pak co-created the Marvel characters Amadeus Cho with artist Takeshi Miyazawa and Wave with artist Leinil Yu. For more, please visit gregpak.com.