Gary A. Braunbeck has published ten novels and over a dozen short story collections, the most recent of which, Rose of Sharon and Other Stories (an assembly of his mainstream work), has been garnering excellent reviews. His novels include In Silent Graves, Keepers, Coffin County, and the forthcoming A Cracked and Broken Path, all of which are part of his on-going “Cedar Hill Cycle” of works set in the fictional town of Cedar Hill, Ohio. His short story collections include Things Left Behind, Home Before Dark, and the Bram Stoker Award–winning Destinations Unknown. His work has garnered seven Bram Stoker Awards, an International Horror Guild Award, and a World Fantasy Award nomination. Publishers Weekly has said, “Braunbeck’s work stirs the mind as it chills the marrow.” You can find him online at the woefully-in-need-of-updating web page www.garybraunbeck.com.
Nadia Bulkin writes scary stories about the scary world we live in. Her fiction has appeared in ChiZine, Creatures: Thirty Years of Monsters, Fantasy Magazine, and Strange Horizons, among others. Her essay “The Postwar Child’s Guide to Survival” recently appeared in The Battle Royale Slam Book, published by Haikasoru. She lives in Washington, D.C., works in research, and tends her garden of student debt sowed by two political science degrees. For more, see nadiabulkin.wordpress.com.
Quentin S. Crisp was born in 1972, in North Devon, in the United Kingdom. Leaving A-level college without grades, he spent five years working with Wolf and Water Arts Company (then The Common Sense Project) before going on to study Japanese at Durham University. He graduated in the year 2000. His first collection of fiction, The Nightmare Exhibition, was published by BJM Press in 2001, while he was teaching English in Taiwan. He returned to Japan later that year to research Japanese literature on a scholarship at Kyoto University, studying in particular the works of Higuchi Ichiyo. Unable to convert his research into an MA due to depression, he returned to Britain in 2003, since when he has had fiction published by Tartarus Press (Morbid Tales, 2004), PS Publishing (Shrike, 2009), Eibonvale Press (Defeated Dogs, 2013) and others. He currently resides in a damp flat in South East London/North Kent, and is editor for Chômu Press.
Keikaku (Project) Itoh was born in Tokyo in 1974. He graduated from Musashino Art University. In 2007, he debuted with Gyakusatsu Kikan (Genocidal Organ) and took first prize in the Best SF of 2007 in SF Magazine. His novel Harmony won both the Seiun and Japan SF awards, and its English-language edition won the Philip K. Dick Award Special Citation. He is also the author of Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots, a Japanese-language novel based on the popular video game series. All three of his novels are available in English from Haikasoru. After a long battle with cancer, Itoh passed away in March 2009. The translation of his novella “The Indifference Engine,” which appeared in The Future Is Japanese, was nominated for the 2012 Shirley Jackson Award.
Yusaku Kitano was born in Hyogo Prefecture and currently lives in Osaka. Kitano worked in an office until his writing career was launched in 1992 with the selection of his novel Mukasi kasei no atta basho (Where Mars Had Once Been) for the Award of Excellence in the Japan Fantasy Novel Awards. The same year, his script Geocentric Theory earned the first Jakusaburo Katsura Yagurahai Award for best new rakugo. In 2001, Kitano’s Kame-kun was awarded the 22nd Japan SF Award. In addition to prose fiction, Kitano writes in a variety of forms, including theater, rakugo and recitals, and radio dramas. His numerous novels include Doughnuts, Doronko Rondo, Kitsune no Tsuki, and Shaintachi.
Jacqueline Koyanagi is the author of Ascension: A Tangled Axon Novel. She was born in Ohio to a Japanese-Southern-American family, eventually moved to Georgia, and earned a degree in anthropology with a minor in religion. Her stories feature queer women of color, folks with disabilities, neuroatypical characters, and diverse relationship styles, because she grew tired of not seeing enough of herself and the people she loves reflected in genre fiction. She now resides in Colorado where she weaves all manner of things, including stories, chainmaille jewelry, and a life with her loved ones and dog.
Alex Dally MacFarlane is a writer, editor and historian. When not researching narrative maps in the legendary traditions of Alexander III of Macedon, she writes stories, found in Clarkesworld Magazine, Interfictions Online, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and the anthologies Solaris Rising 3, Gigantic Worlds, Upgraded, Heiresses of Russ 2013: The Year’s Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction, and The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy: 2014. Poetry can be found in Stone Telling, The Moment of Change, and Here, We Cross. She is the editor of Aliens: Recent Encounters (2013) and The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women (2014).
Zachary Mason is the author of The Lost Books of the Odyssey (FSG, 2010). His next books, Void Star and Metamorphica, will be published in 2015 and 2016.
Miyuki Miyabe’s first novel was published in 1987, and since that time she has become one of Japan’s most popular and best-selling authors. Miyabe’s 2007 novel Brave Story won The Batchelder Award for best children’s book in translation from the American Library Association. Seven of her novels have been translated into English, as has her collection of short ghost stories, Apparitions.
James A. Moore is the award-winning author of over twenty novels in the thriller, dark fantasy, and horror genres, including the critically acclaimed Fireworks, Under The Overtree, Blood Red, the Serenity Falls trilogy (featuring his recurring anti-hero, Jonathan Crowley) and his most recent novels, Cherry Hill and Smile No More. He has also recently ventured into the realm of young adult novels, with his new series Subject Seven. In addition to writing multiple short stories, he has also edited, with Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon, the British Invasion anthology for Cemetery Dance Publications.
The author cut his teeth in the industry writing for Marvel Comics and authoring over twenty role-playing supplements for White Wolf Games, including Berlin by Night, Land of 1,000,000 Dreams and The Get of Fenris tribe book for Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse, among others. He also penned the White Wolf novels Vampire: House of Secrets and Werewolf: Hellstorm.
Moore’s first short story collection, Slices, sold out before ever seeing print. His most recent novels include The Blasted Lands (A Seven Forges novel) and Alien: Sea of Sorrows. More information about the author can be found at his website: jamesamoorebooks .com.
Lauren Naturale is a Ph.D. candidate in the English dept. at UC Berkeley. She lives in Brooklyn, where she is trying to write a dissertation and a novel at the same time. “Her Last Appearance” is her first published story. Twitter.com/lnaturale, compulsively.
Tim Pratt’s stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Year’s Best Fantasy, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, and other nice places. His most recent collection is Antiquities and Tangibles and Other Stories. He’s won a Hugo Award for his short fiction and has been a finalist for World Fantasy, Sturgeon, Stoker, Mythopoeic, and Nebula Awards. He lives in Berkeley, CA with his wife, writer Heather Shaw, and their son. For more:www.timpratt. org, or follow @timpratt on Twitter.
Benjanun Sriduangkaew is a finalist for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Her short fiction has appeared in Tor.com, Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, various Mammoth Books and best of the year collections. Her contemporary fantasy novella Scale-Bright is available from Immersion Press. She can be found online at beekian.wordpress.com and @bees_ja.
Seia Tanabe was born in Osaka in 1982. Her “Kuntou” received an honorable mention in the Fourth BK1 Ghost Story Award in 2006, and Tanabe was subsequently awarded the Japan Horror Novel Award’s short story prize for “Ikibyobu.” Her novels and short stories focus mainly on ghosts, with her latest work being Amedama: Seia Mononokegatari. Together with anthologist Masao Higashi, she has been active in Furusato Kaidan charity events to raise money for the victims of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami disaster, collecting true ghost stories, and periodically speaking at ghost story events.
Joseph Tomaras lives in a small town in Maine. His fiction has appeared, or is forthcoming soon, in The Big Click, M, Clarkesworld, FLAPPERHOUSE, and Things You Can Create. He mows the lawn and clears snow, tweets (@epateur) and blogs at skinseller.blogspot.com.
Dempow Torishima was born in Osaka. He graduated from Osaka College of Art and works as a freelance designer and illustrator. He won the Sogen SF Short Story Award with his debut fiction, “Sisyphean” (Kaikin no to) in 2011. Since then, he has been writing a series of stories in the same far-future world of “Sisyphean,” which was published as Sisyphean and Other Stories in 2013. The collection was chosen as the best SF of 2013 in SF Magazine, won the Japan SF Award, and was nominated for the Seiun Award in 2014.
Born in Hyogo Prefecture, Sayuri Ueda is one of the more innovative science fiction authors in Japan. She won the 2003 Komatsu Sakyo Award with her debut novel, Mars Dark Ballade. The Cage of Zeus, her second novel, was originally published in 2004. Her recent short fiction collection, Uobune, Kemonobune (Fish Boat, Animal Boat), was highly acclaimed in the SF community and was nominated for the 2009 Japan SF Award. Also nominated for the Seiun Award in the short story category was “Kotori no haka” (The Grave of the Bird) from the collection. Her novel Karyu no miya (The Ocean Chronicles) won the first prize of Best SF 2010 in SF Magazine and was one of the most noteworthy books of the year in any genre. She published the sequel to The Ocean Chronicles (Shinku no Hibun) in 2013, and the novel was also a finalist for the Mystery Writers of Japan Award.
