Tell us about the Portolan Project. What’s the mission?

The Portolan Project’s mission is to provide creative writing and literature educational re­sources to speculative fiction writers and read­ers, especially those facing barriers to access.

We interview authors and other experts in the field on aspects of writing craft, post the interviews on our site and YouTube channel, and then use excerpts from the interviews to create free writing lessons (our ...Read More

Author and editor adrienne maree brown grows healing ideas in public through her multigenre writing, her music, and her podcasts. Informed by 25 years of move­ment facilitation, somatics, Octavia E. Butler scholarship and her work as a doula, adrienne has nurtured Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activ­ism, Radical Imagination, and Transformative Justice as ideas and practices for transforma­tion. She is the author/editor of seven published texts and the founder of the Emergent ...Read More

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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