Shapers of Worlds Volume II: The Authors

KELLEY ARMSTRONG is the author of the Rockton thriller series, standalone thrillers beginning with Wherever She Goes, and the Royal Guide to Monster Slaying middle-grade fantasy series. Past works include the Otherworld urban fantasy series, the Cainsville gothic mystery series, the Nadia Stafford thriller trilogy, the Darkest Powers and Darkness Rising teen paranormal series, and the Age of Legends teen fantasy series.

MARIE BRENNAN is a former anthropologist and folklorist who shamelessly pillages her academic fields for inspiration. She recently misapplied her professors’ hard work to The Night Parade of 100 Demons and the short novel Driftwood. She is the author of the Hugo Award-nominated Victorian adventure series The Memoirs of Lady Trent along with several other series, more than sixty short stories, and the New Worlds series of worldbuilding guides; as half of M.A. Carrick, she has written The Mask of Mirrors, first in the epic Rook and Rose trilogy. For more information, visit swantower.com, Twitter @swan_tower, or her Patreon at patreon.com/swan_tower.

GARTH NIX has been a full-time writer since 2001 but has also worked as a literary agent, marketing consultant, book editor, book publicist, book sales representative, bookseller, and a part-time soldier in the Australian Army Reserve. His most recent book is The Left-Handed Booksellers of London, with Terciel and Elinor forthcoming in late 2021. More than six million copies of Garth’s books have been sold around the world; they have appeared on the bestseller lists of The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, The Bookseller,and others, and his work has been translated into forty-two languages. 

CANDAS JANE DORSEY is the award-winning author of, among others, Black Wine, A Paradigm of Earth, Machine Sex and other stories, Vanilla and other stories, Ice and other stories, The Adventures of Isabel and What’s the Matter with Mary Jane? (the Epitome Apartments Mystery Series), and YA novel The Story of My Life, Ongoing, by CS Cobb. Since the 1980s, she has been a strong presence in the speculative fiction world in Canada as a publisher, editor, and community-builder. In “Going to Ground,” she pays respectful homage to, among others, Peter Watts, Eleanor Arneson, James Gleick, and sushi, the world’s most nearly perfect food.

JEREMY SZAL was born in 1995 and was raised by wild dingoes, which should explain a lot. He spent his childhood exploring beaches, bookstores, and the limits of people’s patience. His debut novel, Stormblood, a dark space opera about a drug harvested from alien DNA that makes users permanently addicted to adrenalin and aggression, is out now from Gollancz as the first of a trilogy, with Blindspace releasing in November 2021. He’s the author of more than fifty science fiction short stories, translated into six languages. He was the editor for the Hugo-winning StarShipSofa until 2020 and has a BA in Film Studies and Creative Writing from UNSW. He carves out a living in Sydney, Australia, with his family. He loves watching weird movies, collecting boutique gins, exploring cities, cold weather, and dark humour. Find him at jeremyszal.com or on Twitter @JeremySzal.

JEFFREY A. CARVER is the author of numerous science fiction novels, including the recently published duo The Reefs of Time and Crucible of Time, in which Carver returned to his signature series, The Chaos Chronicles. Equally popular are his Star Rigger stories—including the Nebula-finalist Eternity’s End—and Battlestar Galactica, a novelization of the critically acclaimed miniseries. His work takes him to the borderland of hard SF and space opera; his greatest love remains character, story, and a healthy sense of wonder. A native of Huron, Ohio, Carver lives with his family in the Boston area. Visit his blog at starrigger.net.

BRYAN THOMAS SCHMIDT is a Hugo-nominated editor and the national-bestselling author of numerous novels and short stories, including The Saga of Davi Rhii space opera trilogy and The John Simon Thrillers. His latest novel release is The Complete Saga of Davi Rhii hardcover omnibus, and his next novel, the near-future hard science fiction thriller Shortcut, will be out in early 2022. Shortcut has been optioned for film by Roserock Films. His debut novel, The Worker Prince, received Honourable Mention on Barnes and Noble’s Year’s Best Science Fiction of 2011. He is also a screenwriter, songwriter, and musician and lives in Ottawa, KS, with his beloved dogs and cats. He can be found online at bryanthomasschmidt.net.

DAVID D. LEVINE is the author of Andre Norton Award-winning novel Arabella of Mars (Tor 2016), sequels Arabella and the Battle of Venus (Tor 2017), and Arabella the Traitor of Mars (Tor 2018), and more than fifty SF and fantasy stories. His story “Tk’Tk’Tk” won the Hugo, and he has been shortlisted for many other awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, Campbell, and Sturgeon. Stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Analog, F&SF, Tor.com, numerous Year’s Best anthologies, and his award-winning collection, Space Magic.

LISA FOILES is the author of the middle-grade fantasy novel Ash Ridley and the Phoenix, a story about a young girl and her feisty firebird in a school for magical beasts. The enthusiastically praised audiobook is performed by Lisa herself. Lisa is also an actor, best known as a four-year series regular on Nickelodeon’s All That. Other TV appearances include an Emmy-winning episode of FOX’s Malcolm in the Middle, Disney’s Even Stevens, TNT’s Leverage, and many more. Lisa is a screenwriter, accomplished singer/songwriter, guitar player, host, voice-over artist, and mom of two cute kids, Chloe and Calvin.

SUSAN FOREST is the author of Aurora Award-winning Bursts of Fire (2019), as well as more than twenty-five internationally published short stories. She edits an award-winning anthology series for Laksa Media Groups, was Editor Guest of Honour at Keycon in 2021, and has been invited to co-edit Life Beyond Us, coming out from the European Astrobiology Institute. The second novel of her Addicted to Heaven series, Flights of Marigold (Publisher’s Lunch Selection), confronts issues of addictions in an epic fantasy world of intrigue and betrayal.

MATTHEW HUGHES writes fantasy and space opera. His latest novels are A God in Chains (Edge 2020) and What the Wind Brings (Pulp Literature Press 2019). His short fiction has run in Asimov’s, F&SF, Postscripts, Lightspeed, Amazing Stories, Pulp Literature, Mythaxis, and Interzone, and in award-winning anthologies edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. He has won the Endeavour and Arthur Ellis Awards, and been shortlisted for the Aurora, Nebula, Philip K. Dick, Endeavour (twice), A.E. Van Vogt, Neffy, and Derringer. He was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. Web page: matthewhughes.org.

HELI KENNEDY is an author, screenwriter, and filmmaker. She has written multiple comic book series and audiobooks based on the BBC America show Orphan Black. She also writes AAA open-world video games and has worked on Far Cry 6 and Watch Dogs: Legion for Ubisoft. She has written, produced, and acted in award-winning short films that have screened around the world. When Heli isn’t making up stories, she hikes with her very argumentative husky, Nyla. Or she plays insanely complex board games with a sci-fi/fantasy theme. Instagram and Twitter: @helikennedy.

HELEN DALE is a Senior Writer at Law & Liberty. She won the Miles Franklin Award for her first novel, The Hand that Signed the Paper, and read law at Oxford. Her most recent novel, Kingdom of the Wicked, was shortlisted for the Prometheus Award for science fiction. She writes for a number of outlets, including The Spectator, The Australian, Standpoint, and CapX. She lives in London and is on Twitter @_HelenDale.

ADRIA LAYCRAFT, a freelance editor, fiction author, and wood artisan, earned honours in Journalism in ’92 and has always worked with words and visual art. She co-edited the Urban Green Man anthology in 2013, which was nominated for an Aurora Award, and launched her debut novel Jumpship Hope in 2019. You can find her short stories in various magazines and anthologies. Adria is a grateful member of Calgary’s Imaginative Fiction Writers Association (IFWA) and a proud survivor of the Odyssey Writers Workshop. Learn more at adrialaycraft.com or follow her YouTube channels, Carving the Cottonwood and Girl Gone to Ground.

EDWARD SAVIO is a screenwriter and novelist, author of Alexander X, Book 1 in the Battle for Forever series, the audiobook of which, narrated by Wil Wheaton, was a number-one overall bestseller on Audible. Born in Connecticut, Edward moved to Los Angeles after university to pursue screenwriting and became a ten-year “overnight success,” selling the first of a half-dozen scripts a decade after arriving. His first novel, Idiots in the Machine, was optioned by Sony Pictures for seven figures. After three more six-figure deals with Sony and Disney, Savio moved to San Francisco to start a family. And after years of commuting between homes in SF and LA, he chose to shift the focus of his writing toward novels to spend more time with his children. He lives and writes in the home where Danielle Steel wrote her first two breakout novels.

LISA KESSLER is a bestselling author of passionate, page-turning paranormal fiction. She’s a two-time San Diego Book Award winner for Best Published Fantasy-SciFi-Horror and Best Published Romance. Her books have also won the PRISM award, the Award of Excellence, the National Excellence in Romantic Fiction Award, the Award of Merit from Holt Medallion, and an International Digital Award for Best Paranormal. Her short stories have been published in print anthologies and magazines, and her vampire story, “Immortal Beloved,” was a finalist for a Bram Stoker award. Lisa is also a professional vocalist and host of the Book Lights podcast.

IRA NAYMAN is a humourist who often combines comedy with speculative fiction. The Ugly Truth, the final novel in the Alien Refugees Trilogy (and his eighth overall), will be published by Elsewhen Press in 2022. Also in 2022, Ira will be celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Les Pages aux Folles, his weekly website of social and political satire. Ira was also the editor of Amazing Stories magazine for two and a half years. Yes, that Amazing Stories magazine.

CARRIE VAUGHN’s work includes the Philip K. Dick Award-winning novel Bannerless, the New York Times-bestselling Kitty Norville urban fantasy series, more than twenty novels, and upwards of one hundred short stories, two of which have been finalists for the Hugo Award. Her most recent novel, Questland, is about a high-tech LARP that goes horribly wrong and the literature professor who has to save the day. An Air Force brat, she survived her nomadic childhood and managed to put down roots in Boulder, Colorado. Visit her at carrievaughn.com.

NANCY KRESS is the author of thirty-three books, including twenty-six novels, four collections of short stories, and three books on writing. Her work has won six Nebulas, two Hugos, a Sturgeon, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and has been translated into two dozen languages, including Klingon. In addition to writing, Kress often teaches at various venues around the country and abroad, including a visiting lectureship at the University of Leipzig, a 2017 writing class in Beijing, and the annual intensive workshop Taos Toolbox, which she teaches every summer with Walter Jon Williams.

JAMES ALAN GARDNER got his Master’s degree in Applied Math with a thesis on black holes, then quit university to write SF instead. He is the author of All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault, They Promised Me the Gun Wasn’t Loaded, and nine other novels. His short fiction has won a number of awards, including the Aurora, the Asimov’s Readers’ Choice, and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. In addition to writing, he is a freelance editor, helping writers improve their work before submitting it for publication. In his spare time, he teaches Kung Fu to six-year-olds.

TIM PRATT is the author of more than thirty books, most recently multiverse novel The Doors of Sleep and novella collection The Alien Stars. He’s a Hugo Award winner for short fiction and has been a finalist for Nebula, World Fantasy, Sturgeon, Mythopoeic, Stoker, and other awards. He tweets incessantly (@timpratt) and publishes a new story every month for patrons at patreon.com/timpratt.

BARBARA HAMBLY has written fantasy, science fiction, historical whodunnits, respectable historical novels, horror, graphic novels, media tie-ins, and Saturday morning cartoons. Recently, she has concentrated on the historical-mystery Benjamin January series. (All of her backlist is available digitally through Open Road Media.) The first mystery of a new series about 1920s Hollywood—Scandal in Babylon—has just appeared. She also writes short fiction about characters from her fantasy novels of the ’80s and ’90s for sale via download on Amazon Kindle Direct or Smashwords. She teaches at a community college. Her other occupations are painting, cosplay, and iaido.

S.M. STIRLING was born in France in 1953 to Canadian parents. He lived in Europe, Canada, Africa, and the US, and visited several other continents. He graduated from law school in Canada, and published his first novel (Snowbrother) in 1984, going full-time as a writer in 1988, the year of his marriage to Janet Moore of Milford, Massachusetts, whom he met, wooed, and proposed to at successive World Fantasy Conventions. In 1995, they decamped from Toronto to Santa Fe, New Mexico. He became an American citizen in 2004. Janet passed away in 2021. Stirling’s latest books are Black Chamber (Roc/Penguin Random House), Theater of Spies, Shadows of Annihilation, and Daggers in Darkness (Ring of Fire Press), a series of related alternate-history novels set in the 1910s and 1920s, involving Teddy Roosevelt, dirigibles, and spies. His hobbies mostly involve reading—history, anthropology, archaeology, and travel, besides fiction—but he also cooks and bakes for fun and food. For twenty years, he also pursued the martial arts until hyperextension injuries convinced him he was in danger of becoming the most deadly cripple in human history.