Spotlight on Author: Khan Wong

Khan Wong is the author of the poetry chapbooks Wounded Apollo (Hozomeen Press, 1991), the dream of ameri­ca (strangefever, 2001), The Imperfection of Holy Days (Web del Sol, 2002) and ecology (No­emi Press, 2003). His debut novel, The Circus Infinite, was published by Angry Robot Books in 2022. He has worked in the non-profit arts, played cello in an earnest folk-rock duo, been an internationally known hula ...Read More

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Spotlight on Artist: Geneva Bowers

Geneva Bowers is a self-taught illustrator based in Western North Carolina. She loves manipulating color and adding whimsy with a touch of realism and calm to her art. Her website is <www.genevab.com>.

 

Tell us a bit about your Cloud Goddesses and Planettes series, and any other personal projects like HoverGirls that you’d like to discuss!

The Cloud Goddesses were a random series started several years ago! It was just a ...Read More

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Spotlight on N.E. Davenport

Nia “N.E.” Davenport is the science fiction/fantasy author of The Blood Gift duology. She’s also a member of the Hugo Award-nominated FIYAHCON team, in which she helped organize the SFF convention’s programming. She attended the University of Southern California and studied Biological Sciences and Theatre. She has an MA in Secondary Education. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys vacationing with her family, skiing, and being a huge foodie. You can ...Read More

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Spotlight on The Korshak Collection

The Korshak Collection: Illustrations of Imaginative Literature spans 135 years of illustration history and includes artwork by pioneering European and American artists in the field of imaginative illustration. Thoughtfully compiled to include iconic artwork by renowned fantasy illustrators alongside lesser-known but equally influential contem­porary illustrators, the collection serves as an educational resource highlighting the evolu­tion of fantasy illustration from the Golden Age through the late-20th century. Selections of paintings, drawings, ...Read More

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Spotlight on Author: Craig Laurance Gidney

Craig Laurance Gidney is the author of Sea, Swallow Me & Other Sto­ries; Skin Deep Magic: Stories; Be­reft (a YA novella), and A Spectral Hue (a novel). He has been a Lambda Literary Finalist three times, was a Carl Brandon Parallax Award Finalist, and won the inaugural Joseph S Pul­ver Sr Award for Weird Fiction. The Nectar of Nightmares is his most recent collection. He lives in Washington ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Hiron Ennes

HIRON ENNES is a writer, musician, and student of medicine based in the Pacific Northwest. Their areas of interest include infectious disease, pathology, and anticapitalist healthcare reform. When they’re not hunched over a microscope or word document they can be found playing in the snow or playing the harp (though usually not at the same time). They’re queer in every sense of the word, and they really want to pet ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Kerstin Hall

KERSTIN HALL‘s short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons and Fireside Magazine, and she is the author of the novellas The Border Keeper and Second Spear. She lives in Cape Town, South Africa.

Q: Tell us about your new book, Second Spear—the world where it takes place, and the characters who live there.

Second Spear is a direct sequel to my fantasy novella, The Border Keeper, and picks ...Read More

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Spotlight on: R.R. Virdi

R.R. VIRDI is a two-time Dragon Award finalist and a Nebula Award finalist. He is the author of two urban fantasy series, The Grave Report, and The Books of Winter. He was born and raised in Northern Virginia and is a first generation Indian-American with all the baggage that comes with. He’s offended a long list of incalculable ancestors by choosing to drop out of college and not pursue one ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Sunyi Dean

Tell us about your debut novel, The Book Eaters — the world where it takes place, and the characters who live in that world.

The Book Eaters is set in an alternate 2000s Britain, where book-consuming creatures live in gothic manors at the fringes of modern human society. The main character is a single mother on the run from her book eater family, with her mind-eating child in tow, and ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Victoria Aveyard

VICTORIA AVEYARD is an author and screenwriter, born and raised in a small town in Western Massachusetts. She has a BFA in Writing for Film & Television from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. She is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling and USA Today bestselling series, Red Queen, and #1 New York Times bestsellers Realm Breaker and Blade Breaker.

For readers who haven’t ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Foz Meadows

Tell us about your newest novel, A Strange and Stubborn Endurance: the world where it takes place, and the characters who inhabit that world.

The protagonists of A Strange and Stubborn Endurance, Velasin and Caethari, are noblemen from neighbouring but very different countries. In Ralia, Vel has had to conceal his queerness, whereas in Tithena, Cae has grown up in a culture of acceptance. When Vel is offered a diplomatic ...Read More

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Spotlight on Artist Alyssa Winans

ALYSSA WINANS is an illustrator, animator, and game artist working in the SF Bay area. She grew up outside Chicago, and spent much of her childhood reading and writing stories with friends. Her illustrations tend towards the surreal and fantastical, and have been used for T-shirts, posters, hats, and book covers. When not drawing, Winans spends her free time making desserts, gardening, playing games, and perusing cookbooks from the library. ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Steven Kotler

Steven Kotler is a New York Times bestselling author, an award-winning journalist, and the Executive Director of the Flow Research Collective. He is one of the world’s leading experts on human performance. He is the author of ten bestsellers (out of thirteen books total), including The Art of ImpossibleThe Future Is Faster Than You ThinkStealing Fire, The Rise of Superman, Bold and Abundance ...Read More

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Spotlight On: Odera Igbokwe, Artist

ODERA IGBOKWE (they/them and he/him) is an illustrator and painter located on the unceded and traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. Odera loves to explore storytell­ing through Afro-diasporic mythologies, Black resilience, and magical girl transformation sequences. Odera was born of Nigerian parents who immigrated to the United States, and as a result their work explores the magic of the Black imagination, and responds to the fractures ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Analog Awards for Emerging Black Voices

Tell us about the Analog Award for Emerging Black Voices. What is it, and why was it created?

It’s an award meant to make the ‘‘on-boarding process’’ for Black prospective authors – tradi­tionally under-represented in the sciences and in science fiction – a bit easier. Sometimes the biggest hurdle to breaking in is just a matter of access; there simply isn’t someone available to lay out clear steps for folks ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Terry Lee, Artist

TERRY LEE is a science fiction artist and former font designer for the Hallmark Co. in the region of Kansas City, Kansas. He is known for numerous covers and interior art pieces for science fiction novels and magazines, beginning in the late ’70s through the mid ’90s. He won the Chesley Award in 1988. Interview conducted by author Eric J. Hildeman.

Eric J. Hildeman: When did you first decide to ...Read More

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Spotlight on Sara A. Mueller

The Bone Orchard is a lush, Gothic-tinged fantasy. Tell us a bit about the book: the world where it takes place, and the characters who inhabit that world.

Charm’s world is ruled by an empire stretched to the brink of collapse, held together by brute force and a single person; and he dies. Boren is trying to hold itself together against the countries it had previously beaten into submission. Its ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Olivie Blake

OLIVIE BLAKE is the pseudonym of Alexene Farol Follmuth, a lover and writer of stories. She has penned several indie SFF projects, including the webtoon Clara and the Devil with illustrator Little Chmura and the BookTok-viral Atlas series. As Alexene, her young adult rom-com My Mechanical Romance releases May 2022. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, new baby, and rescue pit bull. Find her at olivieblake.com.

 

Tell ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Marcela Bolívar, Artist

 

MARCELA BOLÍVAR is a Colombian digital artist based in Germany. Currently, she works as an illustrator for various international publishing houses while develop­ing further her personal work. Her work aims to disengage photomontage of its technologic and automated nature, pushing the limits of photog­raphy as she merges it with a variety of pictorial expressions. The mixture of various media such as photography, painting and sculpture brings forth a world ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Aspen Words

ASPEN WORDS was founded in 1976 as a literary center based in Aspen CO. A program of the Aspen Institute, their mission is to encourage writers, inspire read­ers, and connect people through the power of stories. AW’s year-round programs include Summer Words, a writing conference and liter­ary festival; Winter Words, a speaker series presenting the best of contemporary literature; the Aspen Words Literary Prize, a $35,000 an­nual award for fiction ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Nilah Magruder

 

Nilah Magruder is based in Maryland. She is the author of M.F.K., a middle-grade graphic novel, and winner of the Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity, How to Find a Fox, and Wutaryoo. She has published short stories in Fireside Magazine and the All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens throughout the Ages anthology. Nilah has also written for Marvel Comics, illustrated children’s books for Disney-Hyperion, Scholastic, and Penguin, ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Rich Horton

You started reviewing short fiction for Locus in the February 2002 issue, 20 years ago. What a career! What’s the origin story for you as a reviewer; what brought you into this?

I started reviewing for the short fiction reviewzine Tangent – back when it was a print fanzine. Dave Truesdale posted a notice somewhere saying he was looking for reviewers, and I thought, ‘‘I like short fiction’’ – even ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Gary Villarreal, Artist

Talk a bit about the process of Kickstarting and printing Villarrte Sketchbook Vol. 1, a Locus Recommended Reading List title. What was the experience like? Highlights and hindsights?

My wife and I were extremely nervous about launching the Kickstarter during the pandemic. Too many uncertainties. So there were a lot of doubts about whether this was going to be a success. One of the highlights, though, was going through with ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Tehani Farr

What was your introduction to science fiction and fantasy art? What influences drew you in?

It’s a genre that has always simply slotted into my life and perspective. When I was 13, I fell in love with the art of Luis Royo and H.R. Giger, discovered after a long seclusion. I was born and lived off the grid for most of my childhood, was homeschooled all my life, and we ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Freya Marske

 

Tell us about your debut novel A Marvellous Light—the world where it takes place and the characters who inhabit that world.

A Marvellous Light is a historical fantasy novel that follows two men as they become reluctantly embroiled in a conspiracy of murder, curses, and contracts. Robin Blyth is a sunshine-hearted jock who’s trying to ignore all his responsibilities when he’s accidentally named as the government liaison to ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Sana Takeda

What was your introduction to the comics field? Who were your influences? Was there a particular artist or artists who drew you in?

You know a lot of talented artists in the field of comics. At first, I felt, ‘‘There is no room for me in this business.’’ I have not got any formal education in art and didn’t have special drawing skill. It was clear that, even if I ...Read More

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Spotlight on Ryka Aoki

Tell us about your new book Light From Uncommon Stars (Tor Books). What’s the story about, and what inspired you to create that future?

Light From Uncommon Stars is about violins and deals with the Devil. It’s about recovering from transphobia and racism and trauma. It’s about space aliens fleeing a galactic war. It talks about the ultimate end of the universe and what is after that end. It talks ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Robert Repino

Your debut novel Mort(e) came out in 2015 and launched the War with No Name Series. Tell us about that book and the world it introduced.

The sales team likes to call it either “Animal Farm on steroids” or “Animal Farm with machine guns.” In short, the series is about a war between humans and sentient animals. In this world, a hyperintelligent queen of a globe-spanning ant colony has vowed ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Shelley Parker-Chan

Tell us about your debut novel She Who Became the Sun — the world where it takes place, and the characters who inhabit that world.

She Who Became the Sun is set in China in the mid-1350s, which was the last gasps of a period of short-lived Mongol rule over China — the Yuan dynasty. The Mongols were steppe warriors from a nomadic culture, and China was a sedentary civilisation ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Lucinda Roy

Tell us a bit about The Freedom Race—the world where it takes place, and the characters who inhabit that world.

In The Freedom Race, which is set in the future, a second civil war, referred to as the Sequel, has transformed the country into the Disunited States. Other kinds of instability—climate change, refugee crises, ideological divisions, and pandemics—have also taken a toll. After the Sequel, rural areas of the ...Read More

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Spotlight on: Veronica G. Henry

Bacchanal is a richly imagined historical fantasy. Tell us a bit about the book: the world where it takes place, and the characters who inhabit that world.

Bacchanal is set against the backdrop of The Great Depression and culminates with the Oklahoma Dust Bowl. At the center of this maelstrom is an unusual young woman, Eliza Meeks. She’s alone, ostracized and struggling to navigate her reality – a family that ...Read More

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