Theodora Ward

Theodora Ward lives in western North Carolina. She writes Corridors of Time (corridorsoftime.substack.com), a newsletter about JRPGs and books. Find her online at theodoraward.com.

Drawing by Matthew Olivas

Izzy Wasserstein

Izzy Wasserstein, queer and trans woman, is the author of two poetry collections, the short story collection All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From (Neon Hemlock, 2022), the novella These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart (Tachyon, 2024), and the fiction chapbook This Next Song is Called Punk Rock Valhalla (Neon Hemlock, 2025). She teaches writing and literature at a public university. A born-and-raised Kansan, she currently lives in Southern California, where she shares a home with the writer Nora E. Derrington and their animal companions. She wants to hear about your D&D character.

Martha Wells

Martha Wells has been an SF/F writer since her first fantasy novel was published in 1993, and her work includes The Books of the Raksura series, The Death of the Necromancer, the Ile-Rien trilogy, The Murderbot Diaries series, media tie-ins for Star Wars, Stargate: Atlantis, and Magic: the Gathering, as well as short fiction, YA novels, and nonfiction. She has won a Nebula Award, two Hugo Awards, two Locus Awards, and her work has appeared on the Philip K. Dick Award ballot, the BSFA Award ballot, the USA Today Bestseller List, and the New York Times Bestseller List.

Photo by Igor Kraguljac

Stu West

Born in Scotland, Stu West studied, variously, Film, Biology, and Creative Writing at Glasgow University and spent a decade working in biotechnology. He has written horror scripts for Imperium Comics and his fiction has appeared in Fireside Magazine. He lives in Ottawa with his Canadian wife and their two cats.

Kayla Whaley

Kayla Whaley is a graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop and an editor at Disability in Kidlit. Her work has appeared in Uncanny Magazine, The Toast, and is forthcoming in the anthology Feminism for the Real World (Algonquin Young Readers). She lives outside Atlanta with too many books and not nearly enough cats.

Shaoni C. White

Shaoni C. White writes and researches speculative fiction and poetry. Their work has appeared in PodCastle, Fantasy Magazine, Augur Magazine, and elsewhere. Raised in Southern California, they hold a BA in English Literature and Linguistics from Swarthmore College. They spend their free time swing dancing and embroidering. Find them on Twitter at @shaonicwhite.

Nicholas Whyte

Nicholas Whyte was the Hugo administrator for the 2017, 2019, and 2024 Worldcons, and was a member of the Hugo Subcommittee in 2020, 2021, and 2022. He will be the Hugo administrator again for Seattle Worldcon 2025. In “real life,” he works in public affairs in Brussels, and reads science fiction unashamedly.

Jessica P. Wick

Jessica P. Wick is a writer, poet, and an editor of poetry at Goblin Fruit. Her work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Mythic Delirium, Cabinet des Fees, and Jabberwocky. She has recently moved from the West Coast to the East, and when she isn’t dipping her toes in the sea she is regarding the first snow flurries with smug recognition and wide–eyed wariness.

Troy L. Wiggins

Troy L. Wiggins is an award-winning writer and editor from Memphis, Tennessee. His short fiction has appeared in the Griots: Sisters of the Spear, Long Hidden: Speculative From the Margins of History, and Memphis Noir anthologies, and in Expanded Horizons, Fireside, Uncanny, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies Magazines. His essays and criticism have appeared in the Memphis Flyer, Literary Orphans Magazine, People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, PEN America, and on Tor.com.
Troy is a founding Co-Editor of the Hugo Award Nominated FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, which received a World Fantasy Award in 2018. He was inducted into the Dal Coger Memorial Hall of Fame for his contributions to Speculative Fiction in Memphis in 2018. Troy infrequently blogs about writing, nerd culture, and race at afrofantasy.wordpress.com. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee, with his wife, Kimberly.

Fran Wilde

Two-time Nebula Award-winner Fran Wilde has (so far) published nine novels, a poetry collection, and over 70 short stories for adults, teens, and kids. Her stories have been finalists for six Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, four Hugo Awards, four Locus Awards, and a Lodestar. They include her Nebula- and Compton Crook-winning debut novel Updraft, and her Nebula-winning, Best of NPR 2019, debut Middle Grade novel Riverland. Her short stories appear in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Nature, Uncanny Magazine, and multiple years’ best anthologies. “Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand,” (Uncanny, 2017), was a finalist for the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Award, and won the 2018 Eugie Foster Memorial Award. “A Catalog of Storms” (Uncanny, 2019) was a 2020 Hugo and Locus finalist and a 2019 Nebula finalist, and “Unseelie Brothers Ltd.” (Uncanny, 2021) was a 2022 Hugo finalist.

The co-editor for The Sunday Morning Transport, Fran teaches or has taught for schools including Vermont College of Fine Arts’ MFA and St. Mary’s College of Maryland. She writes nonfiction for publications including The New York Times, NPR, and Tor.com. You can find her on Instagram, Bluesky, and at franwilde.net.

Photo credit: with reservation