Johnny Compton’s (he/him) short stories have appeared in Pseudopod, Strange Horizons, The No Sleep Podcast and many other markets. He is an HWA member and creator and host of the podcast Healthy Fears…
KJ Charles spent twenty years as an editor in British publishing before fleeing the scene to become a full-time historical romance novelist. She has written over twenty-five novels since then, and her…
Emilia Hart grew up in Australia and studied English Literature at university before training as a lawyer. She lives in London. Weyward, her debut, was highly commended by the Caledonia First Novel…
C.L. Polk (they/them) wrote the Hugo-nominated series The Kingston Cycle, including the WFA winning Witchmark. The Midnight Bargain was a Canada Reads, Nebula, Locus, Ignyte, and WFA finalist. They…
Leigh Bardugo is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and the creator of the Grishaverse (now a Netflix original series) which spans the Shadow and Bone trilogy, the Six of Crows duology, The…
Ryan North is a New York Times—bestselling author whose books include How to Invent Everything, Romeo and/or Juliet, and To Be or Not To Be. He’s the creator of Dinosaur Comics and the Eisner Award…
Natalie Haynes is the author of seven books, including A Thousand Ships, which was a national bestseller and was shortlisted for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction, and the nonfiction Pandora's Jar…
Jacqueline Holland holds an MFA from the University of Kansas. Her work has appeared in Hotel Amerika and Big Fiction magazine, among others. She lives in the Twin Cities with her husband and two sons…
Jane Yolen is the author of more than four hundred books, including children's fiction, poetry, short stories, graphic novels, nonfiction, fantasy, and science fiction. Her publications include Owl…
Matt Ruff is the author of the novels 88 Names, Lovecraft Country, Bad Monkeys, The Mirage, Set This House in Order, Fool on the Hill, and Sewer, Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy. He lives in…
Imagine the following: A chilling murder, a secret detective agency with offices located in a myriad of tunnels located beneath London, and a young apprentice determined to find the killer in order to clear one of her closest friends of the murder. In her debut novel, which is the beginning...
Eve has spent the last 30 years working for an engineering/manufacturing company managing various projects and climbing the corporate ladder. Suddenly, she has been “released” from her position. She is a corporate scapegoat for systemic problems within her company and, as the only woman at her management level, the seemingly...
The first season of The Twilight Zone in 1960 included an episode written by show creator Rod Serling entitled “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” Serling presented a block of homes, filled with “typical” American families, on a summer evening. There is a bright flash of light, whose origin...
Jody Armour is the Roy P. Crocker Professor of Law at the University of Southern California. He studies issues of race and legal decision-making as well as torts and tort reform movements. He also studies and teaches on the intersections of language, the law and ethics. His latest book directly...
The year is 1704 and Lady Cecily Kay has returned to London from her husband’s posting as a consul in Smyrna. Upon learning of her imminent return to the British Isles, Cecily sent a letter to Sir Barnaby Mayne, a renowned collector in London with one of the most expansive...
David Gerrold is speculative fiction royalty. His career spans six decades, over which he has won the Hugo and the Nebula awards. He has written more than 50 novels, worked on numerous television series and created cultural touchstones like tribbles (from Star Trek) and the Sleestak (from The Land of...
A pirate, a refugee, two pre-teen boys in love with speculative fiction stories, and two adult men who are friends and are each searching for what seems to be missing in their lives. Over the course of nearly a century, these disparate individuals will orbit the missing manuscript of a...
Halley's Comet is quite possibly the most famous, and infamous, comet currently known. It is a “periodic” comet, coming close enough to the earth for viewing approximately every 75 years. Over the centuries, the appearance of Halley’s Comet has been erroneously blamed for earthquakes, illnesses (including the Black Plague in...
In a "locked-room" or "impossible crime" mystery, a crime, or series of crimes, is committed under circumstances that appear, at least initially, impossible for said crime to have been enacted. Those same conditions will also seem to preclude the criminal entering or exiting the crime scene.The first “locked-room” mystery was...
In the early 1940s, a Scottish professor of mathematics devises a mathematical definition of the murder mystery story and writes seven provocative stories as proof of his theory. He publishes a journal article regarding his ideas and then self-publishes his seven stories in a small volume, entitled The White Murders.Decades...
