Karlo Yeager Rodríguez

Karlo Yeager Rodríguez is from the enchanted island of Puerto Rico, but moved to Baltimore some years back. He lives happily with his partner and one very odd dog.

Rebecca Romney

Rebecca Romney is a rare book dealer and writer. She is the co-founder of the rare book company Type Punch Matrix and co-founder of the Honey & Wax Prize, an annual book collecting award for a woman in the US aged 30 or younger. Romney has appeared on the History Channel’s show Pawn Stars as the rare books specialist since 2011. Her first book, Printer’s Error: Irreverent Stories from Book History, was published by HarperCollins in 2017; her second book, Jane Austen’s Bookshelf, about building a rare book collection of Austen’s favorite women authors, is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster. In 2019 she wrote the introduction for the Feminist Press’s reissue of Judas Rose, part of Suzette Haden Elgin’s feminist science fiction trilogy that anticipates Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. In 2020 she edited Projections, an anthology of science fiction stories as early as 1836 that predicted some aspect of modern life, based in large part on texts she ran across in her work as a rare book dealer. Romney is a collector of feminist science ficiton, with a special emphasis on association copies. Learn more about her work as a rare books specialist at typepunchmatrix.com.

Caitlín Rosberg

Caitlín Rosberg is a writing, knitting, tea drinking, baking machine with all the requisite robotic enhancements. She is obsessed with her dog and b-list comic book characters named Jim. An editor and counter-of-beans for the Ladies’ Night Anthology, she’s also a contributor to the A.V. Club’s Comics Panel. She likes talking and writing about the importance of safe spaces in nerd culture, independent publishing, and diversity in comic books. You can find her on Twitter as @crosberg. Ask her about Rhodey.

Christopher Mark Rose

Christopher Mark Rose’s stories have appeared in Escape Pod and Interzone, and forthcoming in Asimov’s. He founded the Charm City Spec reading series for speculative fiction in Baltimore. He attended Viable Paradise XXIII. He hopes that his work is humane, affecting, and concerned with large questions.

He lives in Baltimore with his wife, two kids and a crazy dog, and works at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. His flight hardware flies on: the Van Allen Probes, Parker Solar Probe, IMAP, DART, soon on Dragonfly and (hopefully one day) on Interstellar Probe.

Anjali Sachdeva

Anjali Sachdeva’s short story collection, All the Names They Used for God, won the 2019 Chautauqua Prize and the 2022 Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire (France). Her fiction has been published in Lightspeed, Tor.com, and Strange Horizons, and featured on the LeVar Burton Reads podcast. She teaches in the full- and low-residency MFA programs at Chatham University and the low-residency MFA program at Randolph College, and she loves working with students who write weird and wonderful things. More information is at anjalisachdeva.com

Abu Bakr Sadiq

Abu Bakr Sadiq is the author of Leaked Footages (University of Nebraska Press, 2024), which won the 2023 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry. He is the winner of the 2022 IGNYTE award for Best Speculative Poetry, The Paulann Petersen Award for Poetry 2024, Margaret Gibson Poet Laureate Poetry Award 2023, and a finalist for the Evaristo Prize for African Poetry, 2023. His work is nominated for the SFPA Rhysling Award, Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets, and is published in Boston Review, Poetry Ireland Review, The Fiddlehead, MIZNA, FIYAH, Uncanny Magazine, Augur Magazine, Fantasy Magazine, among others.

Mehnaz Sahibzada

Mehnaz Sahibzada was born in Pakistan and raised in Los Angeles. Her writing has appeared in various publications, including Ellery Queen, Pedestal Magazine, Jaggery, and Strange Horizons. Her poetry collection, My Gothic Romance, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2019. To learn more, visit her at www.poetmehnaz.com

Abdulrazaq Salihu

Abdulrazaq Salihu, TPC I, is a Nigerian writer and performance poet. A member of the hilltop creative arts foundation, he has received residency from IWE Nigeria, Frances Thompson Writers studio, and is a 2025 Fellow at the LOATAD Black Atlantis. He won the Masks Poetry Award, LAP performance poetry prize, SOD, BKPW, and poetry archive contest. He’s the author of “Constellations” and “Hiccups” and has his chapbook Quantum entanglements with notes on loss forthcoming with Sundress Publication 2025. He has works published/forthcoming with Uncanny, Bacopa Mag, Strange Horizons, Stachion, Consequence, SofloPojo, Bracken, Poetry Quarterly, and elsewhere. He tweets @Arazaqsalihu and Instagram @abdulrazaq._salihu.

Sofia Samatar

Sofia Samatar is the author of the novels A Stranger in Olondria and The Winged Histories, the short story collection, Tender, and Monster Portraits, a collaboration with her brother, the artist Del Samatar. Her work has won several awards, including the World Fantasy Award.

Photo Credit: Jim C. Hines

Sofia Samatar & Del Samatar

Sofia Samatar is the author of the novels A Stranger in Olondria and The Winged Histories, and the short story collection, Tender. Her work has received the William L. Crawford Award, the John W. Campbell Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the World Fantasy Award.

Del Samatar holds a BA in Fine Arts from Rutgers University. He lives in New Jersey, where he is pursuing a career as a tattoo artist.