authors

Rasha Abdulhadi

Rasha Abdulhadi is a queer Palestinian Southerner who grew up between Damascus, Syria and rural Georgia and cut their teeth organizing on the southsides of Chicago and Atlanta. Their work is anthologized in Halal if You Hear Me, Super Stoked, and Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler. Rasha is a member of Justice for Muslims Collective, the Radius of Arab American Writers, and Alternate ROOTS. They edit fiction at Strange Horizons.

Check out their chapbook: who is owed springtime.

Saida Agostini

Saida Agostini is a queer Afro-Guyanese poet whose work explores the ways that Black folks harness mythology to enter the fantastic. Saida’s poetry can be found in Barrelhouse Magazine, the Black Ladies Brunch Collective’s anthology, Not Without Our Laughter, pluck!, The Affrilachian Journal of Arts & Culture, and other publications.  A Cave Canem Graduate Fellow, Saida has been awarded honors and support for her work by the Watering Hole and Blue Mountain Center, as well as a 2018 Rubys Grant funding travel to Guyana to support the completion of her first full length collection of poems, just let the dead in.

Check out her chapbook: STUNT.

Rahne Alexander

Rahne Alexander is a multimedia artist based in Baltimore, Maryland. Her video art has been screened in galleries and festivals across the country. Rahne performs frequently with her several bands, including Santa Librada, Guided By Wire, 50’♀, Flaming Creatures, and the Degenerettes. Her publication credits range from the Baltimore City Paper to the Lambda Literary Award-winning anthology Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica, and the Resilience Anthology.

Check out her chapbook: Heretic to Housewife.

Bendi Barrett

Bendi Barrett is a speculative fiction writer, game designer, and pretend-adult living in Chicago. He's published two interactive novels: Avatar of the Wolf and Fate of the Storm Gods. Both are available through Choice of Games. He also writes gay erotic fiction as Benji Bright and runs a patreon for the thirsty masses. He can be found at Benmakesstuff.com and on twitter as both @bemdo and @benji_bright.

His novella Empire of the Feast is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2022 Novella Series.

Sharang Biswas

Sharang Biswas is a writer, artist, and award-winning game designer. He has won IndieCade and IGDN awards for his games and has showcased interactive works at numerous galleries, museums, and festivals, including Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, and the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. His writing has appeared in Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, Fantasy Magazine, Baffling Magazine, Eurogamer, Dicebreaker, Unwinnable, and more. He is the co-editor of Honey & Hot Wax: An Anthology of Erotic Art Games (Pelgrane Press) and Strange Lusts / Strange Loves: An Anthology of Erotic Interactive Fiction (Strange Horizons). Find him on Twitter at @SharangBiswas.

His novella The Iron Below Remembers is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2024 Novella Series.

Jason B. Crawford

Jason B. Crawford (they/he) was born in Washington DC, raised in Lansing, MI. Their debut chapbook collection Summertime Fine is out through Variant Lit. Their second chapbook Twerkable Moments is due from Paper Nautilus Press in 2021. Their debut Full Length Year of the Unicorn Kidz will be out in 2022 from Sundress Publications.

Check out their chapbook: Good Boi.

Dominique Dickey

Dominique Dickey is a speculative fiction writer and game designer. As the creative director of Sly Robot Games, they’ve created Plant Girl Game and Tomorrow on Revelation III. They contributed to the Nebula Award-winning Thirsty Sword Lesbians, and the ENNIE Award-winning Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel. Their short fiction has appeared in venues including Fantasy Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, and Nightmare Magazine. They live in the DC area, where they’re always on the hunt for their next idea. You can find their work at dominiquedickey.com.

Their novella Redundancies & Potentials is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2024 Novella Series.

Eboni Dunbar

Eboni Dunbar is a queer, black woman who writes queer and black speculative fiction. She resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with her partner.  She received her BA from Macalester College and her MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. She is a VONA Alum, an associate editor for PodCastle, an acquiring editor for FIYAH Literary Magazine and a freelance reviewer. Her work can be found in FIYAH, Drabblecast, Anathema: Spec from the margins and Nightlight Podcast. She can be found online at www.ebonidunbar.com and on Twitter as @sugoionna87.

Her novella Stone and Steel is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2020 Novella Series.

Carlito Espudo

Carlito Espudo is a queer, genderfunky Chicanx writer, born and raised in Palm Springs, California (Organic Certified) (not really). He works in hybrid forms with a focus in fragmentation, as well as the interplay of text with image. Their most recent work investigates themes of family, gender, and memory through a multicultural lens. Although school and existential dread keep Espudo busy, they still find time to be the Poetry Editor of Name and None magazine. You can find him earning his MFA at UC San Diego as the San Diego Fellow, and on Twitter / Instagram as @ALittleManly.

Check out their chapbook: boy if.

Leigh Harlen

Leigh Harlen is a queer, non-binary writer of dark leaning speculative fiction who lives and works in Seattle alongside a mischief of rats, a ridiculous dog, and their partner. They are the author of the upcoming A Feast For Flies, and their short story collection Blood Like Garnets and Other Stories is available November 2020. Their non-writing hobbies include petting strangers’ dogs and enthusing about how awesome bats are. Find them online at www.leighharlen.com or follow them on Twitter @LeighHarlen.

Their novella Queens of Noise is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2020 Novella Series.

Alex Jeffers

Alex Jeffers (he, him, his) and a cranky, very old cat unimaginatively called Jane live in a progressive pocket of Oregon. Since his first story appeared in 1976 he’s published upwards of fifty works of short fiction and eight and a half books. He is perhaps most notorious for the Lambda Literary Award-winning erotic fairy tale The Padishah’s Son and the Fox, which might not be the work he’d choose to be remembered for. Which would he prefer? The not-yet-written next one, of course.

His novella A Mourning Coat is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2023 Novella Series.

Charles Jensen

Charles Jensen is the author of the poetry collection Nanopedia and six chapbooks of poems, including the recent Story Problems and Breakup/ Breakdown. His first collection, The First Risk, was a finalist for the 2010 Lambda Literary Award. His poetry has appeared in American Poetry Review, Crab Orchard Review, Field, The Journal, New England Review, and Prairie Schooner. He is the founding editor of the online poetry magazine LOCUSPOINT, which explores creative work on a city-by-city basis. He lives in Los Angeles and directs the Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension.

Check out his chapbook: Cross Cutting.

Shingai Njeri Kagunda

Shingai Njeri Kagunda is an Afrofuturist freedom dreamer, Swahili sea lover, and Femme Storyteller among other things, hailing from Nairobi, Kenya. She is currently pursuing a Literary Arts MFA at Brown University. Shingai’s short story “Holding Onto Water” was longlisted for the Nommo Awards 2020 & her flash fiction “Remember Tomorrow in Seasons” was shortlisted for the Fractured Lit Prize 2020. She has been selected as a candidate for the Clarion UCSD Class of 2020/2021. #clarionghostclass. She is also the co-founder of Voodoonauts: an afrofuturist workshop for black writers.

Her novella & This is How to Stay Alive is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2021 Novella Series.

Iori Kusano

Iori Kusano is an Asian American writer and Extremely Ordinary Office Gremlin living in Tokyo. They are a graduate of Clarion West 2017 and their fiction has previously appeared in Apex Magazine. Find them on Twitter @IoriKusano and Instagram as iori_stagram, or at kusanoiori.com.

Their novella Hybrid Heart is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2023 Novella Series.

Brent Lambert

Brent Lambert is a Black, queer man who heavily believes in the transformative power of speculative fiction. He resides in San Diego but spent a lot of time moving around as a military brat. Currently, he manages the social media for FIYAH Literary Magazine and just had an anthology produced with Tor.com titled Breathe FIYAH. He can be found on Twitter @brentclambert talking about the weird and the fantastic.

His novella A Necessary Chaos is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2022 Novella Series.

A.Z. Louise

A.Z. Louise is a lover of birds, a writer of words, and a believer in the healing powers of peppermint tea. After leaving their job as a civil engineer, they took up poetry and fiction instead, but they still harbor a secret love of math. Links to their work can be found at azlouise.com.

Their novella Off-Time Jive is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2023 Novella Series.

T.T. Madden

T.T. Madden (they/them) is a genderfluid, mixed-race writer and the author of the transfem mech/kaiju novella The Cosmic Color. They have work forthcoming in Neon Hemlock's own Embodied Exegesis collection, as well as the social horror novella The Familialists. They can be found on Twitter, Bluesky, TikTok, and Instagram @ttmaddenwrites. 

Their novella The Cosmic Color is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2024 Novella Series.

Foz Meadows

Foz Meadows is a queer Australian author, essayist, reviewer and poet. In 2019, he won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer; he has also received the Norma K. Hemming Award in 2018 and the Ditmar Award for Best Fan Writer in 2017. Their essays, reviews, poetry and short fiction have appeared in various venues, including Uncanny Magazine, Apex Magazine, Goblin Fruit, The Huffington Post and Strange Horizons. Foz currently lives in California with his family. Their most recent novel, A Strange and Stubborn Endurance, was published by Tor in 2022.

His novella Finding Echoes is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2023 Novella Series.

Premee Mohamed

Premee Mohamed is an Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton, Alberta. She is the author of novels Beneath the Rising (2020) and A Broken Darkness (2021), and novellas These Lifeless Things (2021), and The Annual Migration of Clouds (2021). Her short fiction has appeared in a variety of venues and she can be found on Twitter at @premeesaurus and on her website at http://premeemohamed.com.

Her novella And What Can We Offer You Tonight is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2021 Novella Series.

Paula Molina Acosta

Paula Molina Acosta graduated with a Women's Studies degree from the University of Maryland, where she was a member of the Jiménez-Porter Writers House program. She has been published in Stylus, the University of Maryland's literary journal, and was a finalist for the Jiménez-Porter Prize in poetry. She lives on the Maryland side of the DMV.

Check out her chapbook: When We’re Done Here.

Mari Ness

Mari Ness is not quite as obsessed with fairy tales as her work would suggest. She lives in central Florida.

Check out her chapbook: Dancing in Silver Lands.

Anya Ow

Born in Singapore, Anya moved to Melbourne to practice law, and now works in advertising. Her short stories have appeared in venues such as Strange Horizons, Uncanny, and Daily SF. She can be found on twitter @anyasy and otherwise at www.anyasy.com.

Her novella Cradle and Grave is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2020 Novella Series.

Suzan Palumbo

Suzan Palumbo is a Trinidadian-Canadian, dark speculative fiction writer and editor. Her short stories have been nominated for the Nebula, Aurora and World Fantasy awards. She also co-founded the Ignyte Awards with L.D. Lewis. Her debut dark fantasy/horror short story collection Skin Thief is out now from Neon Hemlock and her novella Countess will be published by ECW Press 2024. Her writing has been published in Lightspeed Magazine, Fantasy, The Deadlands, The Dark Magazine, PseudoPod, Fireside Fiction Quarterly, PodCastle, Anathema: Spec Fic from the Margins and other venues. She is represented by Michael Curry of the Donald Maass Literary Agency and can be found on instagram @gothicsyntax.

Her collection Skin Thief came out in Fall 2023.

jo reyes-boitel

jo reyes-boitel is a poet, essayist, and playwright. jo is also a queer, mixed-Latinx parent working in community. Recent and forthcoming publications include The Ice Colony, OyeDrum, Scalawag Journal, and Chachalaca Review. jo’s work also includes the hybrid operetta  she wears bells, and Michael + Josephine, a novel in verse. jo is a VONA alum and a member of The Watering Hole. jo currently serves as advisory editor for FlowerSong Press, and guest editor with Red Salmon Press. For more information visit joreyesboitel.com, @jrboitel or @BoitelJo.

Check out their chapbook: mouth.

Hannah Soyer

Hannah Soyer (she/her) is a queer disabled writer born and living in the Midwest. She is the founder of This Body is Worthy, a project aimed at celebrating bodies outside of mainstream societal ideals, and Words of Reclamation, a space for disabled writers. She is the editor of The Ending Hasn’t Happened Yet, an anthology of poetry from disabled, chronically ill, and/or neurodivergent writers forthcoming from Sable Books, and her work has appeared in places such as The Rumpus, Disability Visibility Project, and Entropy. Hannah also happens to be a cat and chocolate enthusiast.

Check out her chapbook: For When the Shapes Keep Changing.

Lannie Stabile

Lannie Stabile, a queer Detroiter, often says that while some write like a turtleneck sweater, she writes like a Hawaiian shirt. Lannie’s first published collection, Little Masticated Darlings, is now out with Wild Pressed Books. Individual works are published/forthcoming in Frontier, Entropy, Pidgeonholes, Glass Poetry, and more. Lannie currently holds the position of Managing Editor at Barren Magazine and is a member of the MMPR Collective. She is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee.

Check out her chapbook: Strange Furniture.

Caitlin Starling

Caitlin Starling is a writer of horror-tinged speculative fiction and interactive media. Her first novel, The Luminous Dead, is out now from HarperVoyager. She tweets at @see_starling and has been paid to design body parts. You can find links to her work and ongoing projects at www.caitlinstarling.com.

Her novella Yellow Jessamine is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2020 Novella Series. Another novella, The Oblivion Bride, will be part of the 2024 Novella Series.

A.D. Sui

A.D. Sui is a Ukrainian-born, queer, and disabled speculative fiction writer. A failed academic and retired fencer, she spends her days wrangling her two dogs and hundreds of tropical plants. Her writing has appeared in Dark Matter Magazine, Augur, HavenSpec, and others. You can find her online at www.thesuiway.com or on any remaining social media platform as @thesuiway.

Her novella The Dragonfly Gambit will be part of the Neon Hemlock Novella Series. 

Francesca Tacchi

Francesca Tacchi is a neurodiverse, queer writer of dark and humorous fantasy from Bologna, Italy, where xe shares an apartment with a mouse and three dozen plants. Xe’s a huge history nerd, and strives to share xir country’s history and folklore through xir works. Xe can be found on Twitter at @jackdaw_writes, where xe posts historical threads amidst the shitposting.

Xir novella Let The Mountains be My Grave is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2022 Novella Series.

Joan Tierney

Joan Tierney is a writer and flight attendant based out of Philadelphia. Her works can be found in a variety of magazines and airports, and her science fiction collection Letters From the End of the World can be found on Lulu.

Her novella The Killing Grounds is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2023 Novella Series.

E. Catherine Tobler

Since 2000, E. Catherine Tobler has sold more than 120 science fiction and fantasy short stories to markets such as Apex, Lightspeed, Fantasy, and Interzone. Her Clarkesworld story, “To See the Other (Whole Against the Sky)” was a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. She has published seven novels with small press markets, and co-edited the fantasy anthology Sword & Sonnet, which was on the Ditmar, Aurealis, and World Fantasy award ballots. In 2019, her thirteen year run as editor at Shimmer Magazine made her a Hugo and World Fantasy finalist. In June 2020, her first short fiction collection, The Grand Tour, was published with Apex Book Company.

Her novella The Necessity of Stars is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2021 Novella Series.

Wendy N. Wagner

Wendy N. Wagner is the author of the horror novel The Deer Kings (forthcoming summer 2021). Her previous work includes the SF thriller An Oath of Dogs, plus two novels for the Pathfinder role-playing game, and over fifty short stories, essays, and poems. A Hugo award-winning editor of short fiction, she is also the incoming editor of Nightmare Magazine. She lives in Oregon with her very understanding family, two large cats, and a small dog that might be a Muppet. You can keep up with her at winniewoohoo.com.

Her novella The Secret Skin is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2021 Novella Series.

Izzy Wasserstein

Izzy Wasserstein is a queer and trans radical and a writer of fiction and poetry. Her most recent poetry collection is When Creation Falls (Meadowlark Books, 2018). She teaches writing, literature, and film at a public university in the American Midwest and shares a home with the writer Nora E. Derrington and their animal companions.

Her short story collection All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From was released in Summer 2022.

Kat Weaver and Emily Bergslien

Kat Weaver and Emily Bergslien are writers (and artists) who live in Minneapolis with their two birds.

Kat's fiction has appeared in Apex Magazine, Lackington's, Timeworn Literary Journal, and elsewhere. Her art can be found at http://kathrynmweaver.com, and on Twitter @anoteinpink. Emily is a Twin Cities bookseller whose reviews have been published in The Riveter magazine. Find her on Twitter @eudaemanical.

Their novella Uncommon Charm is a part of Neon Hemlock’s 2022 Novella Series.

Liza Wemakor

Liza Wemakor is a queer Black fem. She writes speculative romance. Her fiction has been published in Strange Horizons, Anathema Magazine, Rabid Oak Journal, and elsewhere. As of Fall 2021, she’s an English Ph.D. student at UC Riverside.

Her novella Loving Safoa is part of Neon Hemlock’s 2023 Novella Series.

Ursula Whitcher

Ursula Whitcher is a queer writer, poet, and mathematician who has lived in at least seven states and currently calls Ann Arbor, Michigan home. Ursula likes brioche knitting, black coffee, four-dimensional spaces named after three mathematicians plus a mountain in the Himalayas, and other lists that don't match. Ursula's poetry and fiction can be found in places including Asimov's, Analog, and The Deadlands, or by following the links at yarntheory.net.

Ursula’s collection of linked short stories, North Continent Ribbon, is forthcoming in 2024.

Brendan Williams-Childs

Brendan Williams-Childs is a speculative fiction writer from Wyoming. His work has appeared in a variety of publications, from NPR to the Lambda-nominated Meanwhile Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy from Transgender Writers. Find him online at www.williamschilds.com or on Twitter as @bwilliamschilds

Check out his chapbook: The West & Everything Above.