Author Bios

Samantha Harvey is a British novelist whose literary fiction has garnered significant critical attention, and who made history in 2024 by winning the Booker Prize with her novel Orbital, making it the first science fiction novel to win that prize in its modern form. She was born in 1975 and grew up in the UK,…

T. Kingfisher is the pen name used by American author Ursula Vernon for her adult fiction, a body of work that has rapidly established her as one of the most beloved voices in fantasy and horror for grown-up readers. Vernon is a Hugo Award-winning author and illustrator, perhaps best known under her own name for…

Josiah Bancroft is an American author whose journey to literary recognition is one of the more remarkable stories in recent science fiction and fantasy publishing. He spent over a decade writing and self-publishing his Books of Babel series before a chance encounter at a convention led Brandon Sanderson to champion his work, propelling it to…

John Scalzi is one of the most popular and prolific American science fiction authors of his generation, known for his accessible, fast-paced writing style, his sharp wit, and his talent for blending classic genre entertainment with modern sensibilities. Born in 1969 in Fairfield, California, he studied philosophy at the University of Chicago and began his…

Vajra Chandrasekera is a Sri Lankan author of science fiction and fantasy whose debut novel established him as one of the most formally ambitious and culturally distinctive voices in contemporary speculative fiction. He is based in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and his work draws deeply on South Asian history, mythology, and political experience in ways that…

Emily Tesh is a British author of science fiction and fantasy whose work has quickly established her as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary short-form speculative fiction. She studied classics at Oxford University and later earned a Master’s degree in creative writing, a background that gives her fiction both a structural elegance and…

Travis Baldree is an American author and longtime audiobook narrator whose debut novel became one of the most warmly received fantasy releases of recent years, almost single-handedly launching a mini-genre of “cosy fantasy.” Before turning to writing, Baldree spent many years narrating audiobooks, lending his voice to hundreds of titles across science fiction, fantasy, and…

Jeff VanderMeer is an American author widely regarded as one of the leading practitioners of the New Weird, a literary movement that blends science fiction, fantasy, and horror with literary ambition and an ecological sensibility. Born in 1968 in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, he grew up partly in the Fiji Islands, and the lush, strange environments of…

Martha Wells is an American science fiction and fantasy author whose career spans more than two decades, but who found her widest readership with the Murderbot Diaries series, one of the most beloved franchises in contemporary science fiction. Born in 1964, she grew up in Texas and studied anthropology at Texas A&M University, where she…

N.K. Jemisin is one of the most celebrated and influential science fiction and fantasy authors of her generation, best known for achieving an unprecedented feat in the history of the Hugo Awards. Born Nora Keita Jemisin in Iowa City, Iowa, in 1974, she grew up in New York City and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and earned a…