Jennifer Marie Brissett

Jennifer Marie Brissett is an author that has been an artist, a software engineer, and (sometimes) a poet. For three and a half years she was the owner/operator of the Brooklyn indie bookstore Indigo Café & Books. Her work includes the novels Elysium (Aqueduct Press, 2014) and Destroyer of Light (Tor Books, 2021). She has been shortlisted for the Locus, Tiptree, and the storySouth Million Writers Award, and has won the Philip K. Dick Special Citation. Her short stories can be found in a number of anthologies such as Terraform: Watch/Worlds/Burn (MCD x FSG Originals, 2022) and Sunspot Jungle: The Ever-Expanding Universe of Science Fiction and Fantasy (Rosarium, 2019) and magazines such as FIYAH Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, Apex Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, as well as other publications. She lives in NYC. Find her author site at www.jennbrissett.com.

Maurice Broaddus

A community organizer and teacher, his work has appeared in magazines like Lightspeed Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Asimov’s, and Uncanny Magazine, with some of his stories having been collected in The Voices of Martyrs. His books include the urban fantasy trilogy, The Knights of Breton Court, the steampunk works, Buffalo Soldier and Pimp My Airship, and the middle grade detective novel, The Usual Suspects. His project, Sorcerers, is being adapted as a television show for AMC. As an editor, he’s worked on Dark Faith, Streets of Shadows, and Apex Magazine. Learn more at MauriceBroaddus.com.

Maurice Broaddus and Rianna Butcher

A senior in high school, Rianna Butcher is a budding Afrofuturist and reader of historical fiction. She loves to express herself authentically and creatively, having won the Fortnitely Essay Contest (2020). This is her first published sale. You should check out her Instagram at @theriannab

A community organizer and teacher, Maurice Broaddus’s work has appeared in places like Lightspeed Magazine, Black Panther: Tales from Wakanda, Weird Tales, Magazine of F&SF, and Uncanny Magazine, with some of his stories having been collected in The Voices of Martyrs. His books include the sci-fi novel Sweep of Stars; the steampunk works, Buffalo Soldier, and Pimp My Airship; and the middle grade detective novels, The Usual Suspects and Unfadeable. His project, Sorcerers, is being adapted as a television show for AMC. He’s an editor at Apex Magazine. Learn more at MauriceBroaddus.com.

Liana Brooks

Liana Brooks writes science fiction and sci-fi romance for people who like fast ships, big guns, witty one-liners, and happy endings. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, four kids, and giant mastiff puppy. When she isn’t writing she enjoys hiking in the redwoods, playing at the beach, and watching whales.

You can find Liana on the web at lianabrooks.com or on Twitter as @LianaBrooks.

Jennifer Brozek

Jennifer Brozek is an award winning author, editor, and tie-in author. Never Let Me Sleep and The Last Days of Salton Academy were both nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. She was awarded the Scribe Award for best tie-in Young Adult novel, The Nellus Academy Incident, and won an Australian Shadows Award for best edited publication. Visit Jennifer’s worlds at jenniferbrozek.com.

Andi C. Buchanan

Andi C. Buchanan is a writer, editor, and part-time space lobster based near Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. Their work is published or forthcoming in Apex, Kaleidotrope, Glittership, and more. Andi is also the editor of Capricious magazine, a freelance web developer, and likes cheese and dinosaurs. Their website is at andicbuchanan.org or you can find them on Twitter @andicbuchanan.

Tobias S. Buckell

Tobias S. Buckell is a The New York Times bestselling author born in the Caribbean. He grew up in Grenada and spent time in the British and US Virgin Islands, which influence much of his work.

His novels and over 60 stories have been translated into 18 different languages. His work has been nominated for awards like the Hugo, Nebula, Prometheus, and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction Author.

He currently lives in Bluffton, Ohio with his wife, twin daughters, and a pair of dogs. He can be found online at TobiasBuckell.com.

Photo Credit: Marlon James

Richard Butner

Richard Butner’s short fiction has appeared in Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror, been shortlisted for the Speculative Literature Foundation’s Fountain Award, and nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award. His collection The Adventurists was published by Small Beer Press in March 2022. He lives in North Carolina, where he runs the annual Sycamore Hill Writers’ Conference. He and Harry Houdini have used the same trapdoor.

Jacqueline Bryk

Jacqueline “Jax” Bryk is a freelance writer and game designer from Delaware. She is no stranger to sci-fi and fantasy fiction, though she mostly designs analog games. She was a featured guest at BreakoutCon 2017 and 2018 and won the Golden Cobra Award for game design in 2016. Jacqueline has written for White Wolf, Onyx Path Publishing, Helmgast AB, Galileo Games, Growling Door Games. and Damocles Thread Development. In her spare time, she likes to yell at games like Civilization V and Crusader Kings II, model for photographers and visual artists, avoid arguments about politics, and attempt recipes she saw on Iron Chef America once. You can find her work, both self-published and freelance, at http://drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?keywords=&author=Jacqueline+Bryk

Taylor Byas

Dr. Taylor Byas, Ph.D. is a Black Chicago native currently living in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she is a Features Editor for The Rumpus, an Editorial Advisor for Jackleg Press, a member of the Beloit Poetry Journal Editorial Board, and a Poetry Editor-at-Large for Texas Review Press. Her debut full-length, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times from Soft Skull Press, won the 2023 Maya Angelou Book Award, the 2023 Chicago Review of Books Award in Poetry, and the 2024 Ohioana Book Award in Poetry. Her second full-length, Resting Bitch Face, is forthcoming in August 2025 and is a September pick for Roxane Gay’s Audacious Book Club. She is also a coeditor of The Southern Poetry Anthology, Vol X: Alabama, from Texas Review Press, and Poemhood: Our Black Revival, a YA anthology from HarperCollins.