Interviews

DARYL JON GREGORY was born June 26, 1965 in Illinois, grew up in Darien IL, and attended college at Illinois State University, graduating with a double major in English and Theater. He taught high school for a few years, became a technical writer, and worked as a computer programmer before becoming a full-time writer. He had two children, now adults, with wife Kathy Bieschke.

In 1988 Gregory attended the Clarion ...Read More

HACHE PUEYO who also writes as H. Pueyo, was born in the south of Brazil to Brazilian and Argentinian parents. As a child she lived in Barcelona, Spain and spent time in Argentina before returning to Brazil, where she lives now. She is the winner of an Otherwise Fellowship for her work with gender in speculative fiction.

Pueyo began publishing short SF in 2016 and has published in Clarkes­world, F&SF, ...Read More

AMAL EL-MOHTAR was born December 13, 1984 in Ottawa, Canada, and grew up there, apart from two years spent in Lebanon, where her family is from. She began publishing short fiction with “The Crow’s Caw” (2006) and has published scores of stories and poems, notably Hugo, Locus, and Nebula Award winner “Seasons of Glass and Iron” (2016, also a World Fantasy, Sturgeon Memorial, and Aurora Award finalist); Nebula Award ...Read More

IBI AANU ZOBOI was born was born Pascale Philantrope in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on June 22, 1977. She grew up in New York City, and now lives in New Jersey with her husband and three children; she legally changed her name after marriage.

Zoboi attended Clarion West in 2001. She also attended a Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation workshop in 2011, and earned her MFA in Writing for Children and ...Read More

GARETH LYN POWELL was born September 3, 1970 in Clifton, Bristol, England; he grew up in Bristol, and lives there still. He studied humanities and creative writing at the University of Glamorgan (later merged with University of Wales, Newport and renamed the University of South Wales) and was fortunate to count Diana Wynne Jones and Helen Dunmore as early mentors. He has taught creative writing at various universities in the ...Read More

VAJRA CHANDRASEKERA was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he still lives. He began publishing short fiction with ‘‘Pockets Full of Stones’’ in Clarkesworld (2013), and has since published scores of stories in genre magazines and anthologies. ‘‘The Translator, at Low Tide’’ (2020) was a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Prize.

Debut novel The Saint of Bright Doors (2023) won Crawford, Ignyte, Locus, and Nebula Awards, and was a ...Read More

PAOLO TADINI BACIGALUPI was born August 6, 1972 in Colorado Springs CO, moving with his parents to rural western Colorado soon after. When his parents divorced, he split his time between them, finishing high school at the private Colorado Rocky Mountain School. He attended Oberlin College in OH, where he met his wife-to-be Anjula (they married in 1998) and majored in East Asian Studies, spending time in China for foreign-language ...Read More

SUZAN PALUMBO was born in the 1980s in Trinidad & Tobago, and moved to Canada with her family as a young child. She grew up in Rexdale, Toronto, a Caribbean and South Asian immigrant neighborhood.

Palumbo began publishing work of genre interest with ‘Bloody Therapy’ in 2017, and has published more than a dozen pieces since in various magazines and anthologies, including WSFA Small Press Award and Nebula Award finalist ...Read More

RHONDA S.A. GARCIA was born in Trinidad and Tobago, where she has lived her entire life. Though she earned her A levels and qualified to enter university, her mother’s illness and other difficulties made it impossible for her to attend. She worked various jobs, most recently as an administrator in the engineering industry, until becoming a full-time writer following a breast cancer diagnosis in 2021.

Garcia began publishing SF with ...Read More

ANANDA FERNANDES LIMA was born in Brasília, Brazil, and grew up there. She attended high school in Australia for a year through an exchange program and returned there for her undergraduate degree. While in college, she did a year abroad in Los Angeles and later moved back to attend grad school at UCLA, where she earned her MA in linguistics. She met her husband there, and they later lived in ...Read More

LEV GROSSMAN was born June 26, 1969 and grew up in Lexington MA. He graduated from Harvard in 1991 and worked toward a PhD in comparative literature at Yale for three years, leaving before finishing his dissertation. He moved to New York, where he became a journalist and novelist. From 2002 to 2016, Grossman was a book critic and senior writer for TIME magazine, where he covered the internet, video ...Read More

JUSTIN CARLYLE KEY was born June 18, 1987, in Washington DC, where he grew up. He studied biology at Stanford University, attended medical school, and is now a practicing psychiatrist.

He began publishing genre fiction with “The Roller Coaster” in 2012, and his stories have appeared in F&SF, Lightspeed, Tor.com, Out There Screaming, and other magazines and anthologies. Notable stories include novelette “One Hand in the Coffin” (2020) an ...Read More

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE was born May 5, 1979 in Seattle WA, and grew up moving between her parents in Seattle and Sacramento CA. She attended high school in Davis CA, graduating at age 15 and attending UC San Diego, where she took a degree in Classical Studies. She attended grad school at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, but quit to move overseas. She lived near Yokohama, Japan for just over ...Read More

MONIQUILL BLACKGOOSE is an enrolled member of the Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe and a lineal descendant of Ousamequin Massasoit. She writes extensively about depictions of Indigenous and Indigenous-coded characters in SF, and is an active member of steampunk and cosplay communities. She studied cognitive psychology, and worked for several years in a children’s home before becoming a phlebotomist.

Debut novel Cygenic was published in 2020 under the name Monique Poirier. To ...Read More

SARAH LANGAN was born in 1974 and grew up in Long Island NY. She attended Colby College in Waterville ME, earned an MFA from Columbia University in 2000, and an MS Environmental Health Science from NYU in 2012. She lived in Brooklyn NY before relocating to Los Angeles CA, where she resides with her husband J.T. Petty and their children.

Langan began publishing work of genre interest in 2000, with ...Read More

CHỊKỌDỊLỊ  EMELỤMADỤ was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, UK, and raised in Awka, Nigeria. She attended boarding schools there, and went to college at Nnamdi Azikiwe University in Nigeria, graduating with a BA in English language and literature. She returned to the UK in 2004 and attended the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, where she earned a Master’s in Cross Cultural Communications and International Relations. She went on to earn a ...Read More

TRAVIS WAYNE BALDREE was born March 28, 1977 in Nacogdoches TX and grew up on a dairy farm. In fourth grade, his family moved to Washington State, and he attended Washington State University briefly before dropping out to work in tech, primarily as a software engineer and video game developer. He cofounded game companies including Runic Games and Double Damage, and is best known for creating the Torchlight and Rebel ...Read More

MICHAEL R. CAREY was born in Liverpool, England in 1959. He attended St. Peter’s College, Oxford, where he studied English, and worked as a teacher for 15 years before becoming a professional writer.

His career began as a comics writer in the 1990s, first for smaller companies and later for Marvel and DC. He is best known for the Lucifer series (1999-2006) and his run on Hellblazer (2002-2006). The Unwritten, ...Read More

VICTOR MANIBO was born in Manila, Philippines where he lived until moving to Jersey City NJ at age 23 to attend law school. He graduated from Cardozo School of Law with a concentration in constitutional law and civil rights, and he works in private practice as an immigration lawyer.

Manibo’s debut SF noir novel, The Sleepless, was published in 2022, and his second book, Escape Velocity, will be published ...Read More

MALKA ANN OLDER was born October 30, 1977. She attended Harvard for undergrad, where she studied literature, and has a master’s degree in international relations and economics from the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. She got her doctorate in political science at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris, where she did work on governmental disaster responses. Older is an expert in humanitarian aid and international development ...Read More

KENNETH MACRAE MACLEOD was born August 2, 1954 in the Western Isles of Scotland. He attended Glasgow University, earning a degree in zoology in 1976, then studied biomechanics at Brunel University outside London. He took a decade-long break from reading SF, and became a computer programmer for ten years. In 1988 he completed a Master’s degree in Biomechanics.

After finishing his thesis, he tried his hand at fiction, producing first ...Read More

NALO HOPKINSON was born December 20, 1960 in Kingston, Jamaica, and grew up there and in Trinidad and Guyana, though she also spent some time in the US as a child. Her father was noted Guyanese poet Muhammad Abdur-Rahman Slade Hopkinson. She moved with her family to Toronto, Canada in 1977, where she lived until relocating to Riverside CA in 2011. She earned a Master’s degree in Writing Popular Fiction ...Read More

MOSES OSE UTOMI was born July 26, 1988 in San Bernardino CA and grew up in Las Vegas NV. He studied psychology as an undergrad, then attended Sarah Lawrence College, where he earned a MFA in creative writing. Utomi is also a lifelong martial artist.

He began publishing work of SF interest with “The Story of a Young Woman” (2018, as Ose Utomi). His short work also includes the Forever ...Read More

SHELLEY PARKER-CHAN was born in New Zealand and is of Malaysian-Chinese heritage. They studied engineering and anthropology, and did graduate work on war crimes and restorative justice. Parker-Chan was an international development advisor on issues of human rights, gender equality, and LGBTQ+ rights in Southeast Asia, and worked extensively in several countries in Asia. They now live in Melbourne, Australia.

Debut She Who Became the Sun appeared in 2021, launching ...Read More

MARTHA SUSAN WELLS was born September 1, 1964 in Fort Worth TX. She attended Texas A&M University, graduating with a BA in anthropology. She lives in College Station TX with her husband.

Her debut fantasy novel The Element of Fire (1993) began the Ile-Rien series, which includes The Death of the Necromancer (1998) and the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy The Wizard Hunters (2003), The Ships of Air (2004), and The ...Read More

AI JIANG was born June 18, 1997 in Fujian, China, and emigrated to Canada with her family at age four. She attended the University of Toronto, the Humber School for Writers, and the Gotham Writers’ Workshop, and earned her MFA in creative writing from the University of Edinburgh in 2022.

She began publishing work of genre interest with “Hello’’ (2021) in The Dark, and more than 35 stories have since ...Read More

Andrea G. Stewart was born August 3, 1982 in Vancouver, Canada, and grew up in various places in the US.

Stewart began publishing work of genre interest with “Dreameater” (2013), a quarterly winner in the Writers of the Future competi­tion. She has published more than a dozen other stories in anthologies and magazines.

Her first novel, urban fantasy Loose Changeling, ap­peared in 2014 under the name A.G. Stewart, and was ...Read More

Robert James Sawyer was born April 29, 1960 in Ottawa, Canada. His fam­ily moved to Toronto when he was a baby, and he has lived there ever since. He earned a bachelor’s in radio and televi­sion arts (broadcasting) from Ryerson Poly­technic University, Toronto in 1982. After graduating, he briefly worked at SF spe­cialty store Bakka-Phoenix Books before spending most of the ‘80s as a freelance non-fiction writer, doing journalism for ...Read More

Locus recently hosted a virtual roundable discussion with leading SF/F writers Ted Chiang, Kelly Link, and Usman T. Malik, who sat down for a wide-ranging and lively conversation about the art, craft, and business of short fiction, and the impact of the form on their creative work and lives. Excerpt from the roundtable follows.

TED CHIANG is the author of collections Sto­ries of Your Life and Others and Exhala­tion ...Read More