Discover Urban Fantasy: 101 Must-Know Authors and Their Best Works

Urban FantasyBooksVampiresMagicWerewolvesZombies
Written By Chris Well

Celebrating some of the best-loved urban fantasy authors. Including Nnedi Okorafor, Jim Butcher, Zoraida Córdova, Patricia Briggs, Nalini Singh, Faith Hunter, Rebecca Roanhorse, Ben Aaronovitch, Zen Cho, Kelley Armstrong, and more.

Combining the Supernatural With The World Out Your Window

Meet some of the most popular authors who mash together the complexities of modern life with vampires, werewolves, and other out-of-the-normal details. Mixing together the real world with fantastic ideas and characters and concepts—including stuff from fantasy and science fiction—urban fantasy can also pull in details from detective stories, paranormal romances, sword and sorcery, and more.

Below, find some of the most popular urban fantasy authors, including Ilona Andrews, Fonda Lee, Kevin J. Anderson, Jessica Cage, Jonathan Maberry, Kiran Manral, Dana Fredsti, Daniel José Older, Seanan McGuire, Delizhia D. Jenkins, D.M. Guay, L.A. Banks, Charlaine Harris, and a whole bunch more!

This page is still a work in progress! Updating NOW March 2025.

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What Is “Urban Fantasy”?

The category of urban fantasy has exploded in the past couple of decades. Sometimes, it can be a bit tricky to parse whether or not something is a work of “urban fantasy” and/or a related category like horror, paranormal romance, or magical realism.

In a nutshell, urban fantasy is a sub-category of fantasy which infuses monsters or the supernatural into a contemporary or everyday setting. So—vampires, werewolves, magical beings, and the like. In these stories, the fantastical elements might operate in secret or they might operate out in the open and are known to the public.

In a way, you can track the origins of the urban fantasy category back for several decades. Depending on whom you ask, milestones include occult detective stories like Seabury Quinn started writing in the 1920s and Manly Wade Wellman wrote in the 1940s; fiction from Terri Windling, Emma Bull, and Charles de Lint in the 1980s; then Laurell K. Hamilton in the 1990s.

Urban fantasy on screen includes the 1970s Chicago-set TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker; 1980s supernatural comedy movies Ghostbusters and Teen Wolf; television shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Forever Knight, and the X-Files in the 1990s; and the comic book adaptation Witchblade in the early 2000s. More recent examples include Blood Ties (based on the books by Tanya Huff), Grimm and Supernatural.

What Authors Write Urban Fantasy?

Urban fantasy has become one of the most popular literary categories today. Blending the extraordinary with the everyday, the sub-genre helps readers break out of the normal while also exploring the possibilities. Below, meet lots of authors who offer wonderful ways to rethink your normal life.

Got a favorite urban fantasy author you think we should cover? (We know there are lots more. We just said so.) Name your favorite urban fantasy authors in the comments below!

More than 100 Urban Fantasy Authors

A / Ben Aaronovitch / Kevin J. Anderson / Ilona Andrews / James Aquilone / Kelley Armstrong / Keri Arthur / B / Mishell Baker / L.A. Banks (1959-2011) / Annie Bellet / Anne Bishop / Holly Black / Stephen Blackmoore / Moni Boyce / Patricia Briggs / Maurice Broaddus / Emma Bull / Lindsay Buroker / Jim Butcher / C / Jessica Cage / Rachel Caine (1962–2020) / Gail Carriger / Zen Cho / Roshani Chokshi / Cassandra Clare / N.E. Conneely / Harry Connolly / John Conroe / Glen Cook / Zoraida Córdova / Paul Cornell / Larry Correia / C.N. Crawford / D / Pippa DaCosta / Dannika Dark / Charles de Lint / Veronica Douglas / Debra Dunbar / Sarah Beth Durst / E / K.D. Edwards / Alicia Ellis / Jennifer Estep / Jennifer Evergreen / F / Minister Faust / Dana Fredsti / G / Seressia Glass / C. Gockel / Simon R. Green / Jen L. Grey / Kate Griffin / D.M. Guay / H / Laurell K. Hamilton / Charlaine Harris / Kim Harrison / Kevin Hearne / Jim C. Hines / Nalo Hopkinson / Faith Hunter / I / J / Benedict Jacka / Stuart Jaffe / Delizhia D. Jenkins / N.D. Jones / K / Richard Kadrey / Anita Krishan / L / Mercedes Lackey / Fonda Lee / J.F. Lewis / Tanya Lisle / Marjorie Liu / M / Sarah J. Maas / Jonathan Maberry / Kuzhali Manickavel / Kiran Manral / Annette Marie / Tim Marquitz / Mia Marshall / M.D. Massey / Brian McClellan / Seanan McGuire / L.L. McKinney / Tashan Mehta / William Meikle / Karen Marie Moning / C.E. Murphy / N / Chloe Neill / Claire North / Errick Nunnally / O / Nnedi Okorafor / Daniel José Older / P / Steven Van Patten / C.T. Phipps / Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) / Kalayna Price / Cherie Priest / Q / R / Kat Richardson / Rick Riordan / Rebecca Roanhorse / Zin E. Rocklyn / Graeme Rodaughan / S / Lilith Saintcrow / Liselle Sambury / V.E. Schwab / Nalini Singh / Connie Suttle / T / Shweta Taneja / Laini Taylor / Tade Thompson / U / Krishna Udayasankar / V / Carrie Vaughn / W / Catherine Webb / Jaye Wells / Deborah Wilde / Kenesha Williams / Dan Willis / Terri Windling / X / Y / Z /

Faith Hunter

Faith Hunter

“In an urban fantasy, you can have closed worlds - where the paranormals are hidden from humankind - and you can have open worlds. I decided to blend it.” (Source: “The Monster Complex Interview”)

Complete Jane Yellowrock Novels by Faith Hunter

NYT bestselling urban fantasy writer Faith Hunter writes three series: the Jane Yellowrock series, dark urban fantasy novels featuring Jane, a Cherokee Skinwalker; the Rogue Mage novels, a dark, urban fantasy / post apocalyptic series and role playing game featuring Thorn St. Croix; and the Soulwood series featuring Nell Nicholson Ingram, who wields powers as old as the earth. Her Junkyard Cats series is a “near future” sci-fi series of novellas first released as Audible Originals and later as ebooks, and possibly some day as a print onmibus.

Under her pen name Gwen Hunter, she writes action adventure, mysteries, and thrillers. As Faith and Gwen, she has 40+ books in print in 30+ countries.

Born in Louisiana and raised all over the south. Hunter fell in love with reading in fifth grade, and best loved sci-fi, fantasy, and gothic mystery. She decided to become a writer in high school, when a teacher told her she had talent. Now, she writes full-time, tries to keep house, and is a workaholic with a passion for RV travel, Japanese maples, orchids, white-water kayaking, and writing. She and her husband love to RV to whitewater rivers all over the Southeast.

“I transferred to fantasy, not because writing thrillers was boring, but because I wanted the challenge of adding a world of magic, where every magical act had consequences, some deadly. It wasn’t so much that I added one genre to another, but that I braided two genres together into a paranormal police procedural. It was huge fun!” (Source: “Faith Hunter Q&A: Rift in the Soul”)

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L.A. Banks

L.A. Banks

“Stretch your mind past the emotion and search for the lesson.”

Complete Vampire Huntress Legend Series by L.A.Banks

Author Leslie Esdaile Banks (1959-2011) wrote the Vampire Huntress Legend series under the pen name L.A. Banks. In her career, she wrote more than 40 novels in various genres, including African-American literature, romance, women’s fiction, crime suspense, dark fantasy, horror, and non-fiction. She won several literary awards, including the 2008 Essence Literary Awards Storyteller of the Year.

“I like the good guys to win in the end.”

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Jim Butcher

Jim Butcher

“I found myself looking for stories that I wanted to read but couldn’t find. At the end of the day, I became a writer because I wanted to read these stories and nobody else was writing them, so I wrote ’em myself.” (Source: “Interviews with Urban Fantasy Author Jim Butcher”)

Complete Dresden Files Books by Jim Butcher In Order

A bestselling author and martial arts enthusiast, Jim Butcher’s resume includes a long list of skills rendered obsolete at least 200 years ago—so he turned to writing because anything else probably would have driven him insane.

His blockbuster series The Dresden Files is a hard-boiled detective and fantasy series that follows private investigator and wizard Harry Dresden, who investigates supernatural cases in Chicago. The world’s only “consulting wizard,” he faces off against a variety of beings—including spirits, vampires, werewolves, and other monsters—accepting cases from human and nonhuman clients, as well as the Chicago PD’s Special Investigation unit.

“I realized wizards and private eyes do the exact same things,” Butcher says. “When I realized wizards and PIs were the same character, it became real easy.”

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Kiran Manral

Kiran Manral

“I’ve always been a great fan of good horror writing in fiction and film.” (Source: Desi Blitz UK)

Based in Mumbai, Kiran Manral is an award winning Indian author, TEDx Speaker, columnist, mentor and feminist. She has written books across genres in both fiction and nonfiction.

Her first novel was the sleuth story The Reluctant Detective in 2011. She turned to horror fiction for her novels The Face at the Window and More Things in Heaven and Earth, but the shift in creative direction is not as drastic as it seems:

“I think the inexplicable is always something that has interested me,” she told DESIblitz. “We live in a world where we experience just one of the dimensions. There are so many more levels of consciousness lying unexplored.”

Her more recent titles for Monster Complex readers include The Moon in the Lining of Her Skin and All Those Who Wander. Actually, she has written for a number of different categories—with her fiction ranging from romance and chicklit and thriller fiction to horror and speculative fiction, and her nonfiction dealing with a number of topics.

She has served in a number of roles with literary events. She was among the six women authors shortlisted for the Femina Women Awards for Literature in 2017. The Indian Council of UN Relations (ICUNR) supported by the Ministry for Women and Child Development, Government of India, awarded her the International Women’s Day Award 2018 for excellence in the field of writing.

An ex-journalist, she has also written for a number of media outlets on such issues as feminism, sexuality, gender issues, and parenting. She also has been involved with social media initiatives raising awareness of child sexual abuse and violence against women.

“If pressed to provide a warning, I would say it is all about letting well enough be and not pick at scabs, to let wounds heal, and that sometimes trying to get closure can open fresh wounds.” (Source: Author Q&A Kiran Manral: “Sometimes trying to get closure can open fresh wounds.”)

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Ilona Andrews

Ilona Andrews

“There are moments when something occurs and one of us will turn around in some random place, like a car service center, and tell the other, ‘We should just kill him. We can disembowel him and hang him off a pole. It would be a good shock moment.’” (Source: Books and Traveling with Lynn)

Ilona Andrews is the pseudonym for a husband-and-wife writing team: Ilona is a native-born Russian and Gordon is a former communications sergeant in the U.S. Army. Their fiction includes the urban fantasy of the Kate Daniels series and spin-off Kate Daniels: Wilmington Years series, the fantasy series Innkeeper Chronicles, the urban fantasy private eye the Hidden Legacy series, and The Edge series, which revolves around people who live in a land that lies between the normal world and the Weird.

In an interview, the authors said the fight scenes in the books are choreographed before they go on the page:

“Gordon studied judo while in Japan,” Ilona said. “We’re both familiar with firearms and some basic sword fighting. Mostly choreographing fight scenes requires a lot of research. But yes we do actually get in the middle of the floor and try to figure out the most likely move or the easiest target. One of the things I hope people will keep in mind is that these fights are there for entertainment purposes only. We do take artistic liberties in the name of coolness.”

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Moni Boyce

Moni Boyce

“I want a good story. I love the romance part of the story obviously, but also give me an epic battle or obstacle they have to face and overcome. I love for the characters to have a journey besides the love story.”—“Paranormal Author Q&A: Moni Boyce (Oracle Chronicles)”

Moni Boyce is a writer, filmmaker, poet and award-winning author of contemporary and paranormal romances. Ms. Boyce spent 15 years in the film industry, and now creates characters of her own and brings them to life on the page. Her books include the paranormal romance series Oracle Chronicles and urban fantasy romance series the Curse of the Wolf.

She also won two awards from the RSJ 2020 Virtual Romance Book Con, in the categories of Debut Author, and Best Commercial Romance for Redemption of the Heart.

“Given everything that’s going on in the world right now, I want people to read my books and be inspired by love.”—“Celebrating POC Authors in Fantasy: Moni Boyce” (Source: Jessica Cage)

Find Moni Boyce online

Related: Paranormal Author Q&A: Moni Boyce (Oracle Chronicles)

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Seanan McGuire

Seanan McGuire

“I don’t think it’s possible to write fiction without writing allegory, at least on some level. We’re all trying to say something, always. Whether that’s “wisdom” is sort of up to the individual.” (Source: Speculative City)

InCryptid Series by Seanan McGuire In Order

When not writing urban fantasy (as herself) and science fiction thrillers (as Mira Grant), Seanan McGuire likes to watch way too many horror movies, wander around in swamps, record albums of original music, and harass her cats.

McGuire’s fiction includes the InCryptid series, featuring an eccentric family of cryptozoologists who act as a buffer between the humans and the magical creatures living in secret around us. She also writes the urban fantasy October Daye series, the Wayward Children magical portal series, the Newsflesh political zombie trilogy (as Mira Grant), and the paranormal Ghost Roads series.

Her comics work includes writing Spider-Gwen stories (from the larger Spider-Verse), the special event Fearless (starring the fiercest ladies of the Marvel Universe), and the fantasy Magic books.

In 2010, McGuire was awarded the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer by the 2010 World Science Fiction Convention. Her novella “Every Heart A Doorway” received a Nebula Award, Hugo Award, and a Locus Award. In 2013, McGuire received a record five Hugo nominations in total, two for works as Grant and the other three under her own name.

“One of my favorite shows was an anthology series Ray Bradbury Presents. Every episode began with this white-haired dude sitting at a typewriter pounding away. One day I asked my grandmother, ‘Why is this old dude taking up like a whole minute of what could be story?’ She said, ‘That’s Ray Bradbury. He wrote all these stories.’ That was my bolt of lightning moment.” (Source: Signals from the Edge)

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Nalini Singh

Nalini Singh

“All of my thrillers have been inspired in large part by the rugged, beautiful, and at times, lonely New Zealand landscape.” (Source: Writer’s Digest)

Complete Guild Hunter series by Nalini Singh

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Nalini Singh writes the Psy-Changeling series, the spin-off Psy-Changeling Trinity series, and the Guild Hunter series. She lives in New Zealand but travels as much as possible (the travel bug bit hard from when she escaped working as a lawyer to run away and teach English in Japan). 

“I always know the beginning and ending of a story arc. Knowing the beginning and the ending is what I need to keep me on track. I don’t usually write it down, but I must know it.” (Source: Dear Author)

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Kevin J. Anderson

Kevin J. Anderson

“I love big epic stories with lots of characters and lots of drama; whether it’s a fantasy setting or a science fiction setting is, to me, secondary to the big saga itself.” (Source: Reactor)

An author of like 200 books—as well as an editor, publisher, and college instructor—Kevin J. Anderson has lots to do. Of course, at Monster Complex, our favorite stuff of his are the hilarious monster detective adventures starring Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. (See our list of those books here.)

Many readers know the author because of books and comics for the likes of Dune, X-Files, Star Wars, Predator, Superman, Batman, and more. (Plus all his original fiction, which includes horror and dark fantasy, steampunk, space opera, and epic fantasy.)

Anderson has also edited numerous anthologies, written games, composed lyrics for rock albums, and written for several comic book publishers including Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Dark Horse, Boom!, IDW, Wildstorm, and Topps.

Oh, and also:

  • Anderson has won or been nominated for a bunch of awards.

  • He is the director of the graduate program in Publishing at Western Colorado University.

  • He and his wife, Rebecca Moesta, are the publishers of WordFire Press.

  • He worked on the movies Dune: Part One and Part Two (for Legendary Entertainment), as well as the TV show Dune: Prophecy (for MAX).

  • Other movies in progress include Persephone and Karousel.

More than once, Anderson has been a Literary Guest of Honor and Keynote Speaker at the Life, the Universe, & Everything professional science fiction and fantasy arts symposium. In 2021, he was inducted into the Colorado Authors Hall of Fame (along with Stephen King and James Michener).

“I was only 5 years old when I saw George Pal’s film of War of the Worlds, which changed my life. (Of course, at the age of 5, a lot of things can easily change your life.) I became a voracious science fiction and fantasy fan of both movies and books, and I knew I wanted to tell stories like that.” (Source: Infinity Plus)

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Maurice Broaddus

Maurice Broaddus

“You can’t read me the story of Noah and the flood in fourth grade and not expect me to develop a love of apocalyptic literature.” (Source: Mysterion)

Complete Knights of Breton Court Series by Maurice Broaddus

An accidental teacher (at the Oaks Academy Middle School), an accidental librarian (the School Library Manager which part of the IndyPL Shared System), and a purposeful community organizer (resident Afrofuturist at the Kheprw Institute), Maurice Broaddus’ novels include the urban fantasy trilogy Knights of Breton Court, the epic space trilogy Astra Black and the steampunk adventures Buffalo Soldier and Pimp My Airship. He also contributed to the weird wild west anthology Straight Outta Tombstone and the Marvel Comics prose anthology Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda.

Broaddus’ work has also appeared in Magazine of SF&F, Lightspeed Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Asimov’s, and Uncanny Magazine, with some of his stories having been collected in The Voices of Martyrs.

As an editor, he’s worked on Dark Faith, Fireside Magazine, and Apex Magazine. His gaming work includes writing for the Marvel Super-Heroes, Leverage, and Firefly role-playing games as well as working as a consultant on Watch Dogs 2.

“My faith gives me hope. A belief in a better tomorrow that we ought to be working toward today, gives me hope and sustains me. People give me hope. It’s easy to point to the trainwrecks around us (most of which we’ve caused). But I also see the love, the compassion, the sacrifice we make for one another.” (Source: Uncanny Magazine)

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Kelley Armstrong

Kelley Armstrong

“After Bitten, when the publishers wanted me to consider a series, I decided to do one with different narrators, with different supernatural powers. It was presumed they’d all be women, and I realized too late that by letting them use the “Women of the Otherworld” series name, I’d be restricted to women!” (Source: The Book Club Forum)

Complete Women of the Otherworld novels by Kelley Armstrong

Kelley Armstrong’s Otherworld series features vampires, werewolves, sorcerers, necromancers, and witches struggling to fit in as “normal” in the modern world. The series spreads out across novels, novellas, and short stories.

Her fiction also includes the A Stitch in Time series, the Rip Through Time novels, the Casey Duncan crime series, and the Haven’s Rock crime fiction series.

Armstrong believes experience is the best teacher, though she’s been told this shouldn’t apply to writing her murder scenes. To craft her books, she has studied aikido, archery and fencing. She sucks at all of them. She has also crawled through very shallow cave systems and climbed half a mountain before chickening out.

She is however an expert coffee drinker and a true connoisseur of chocolate-chip cookies.

Armstrong explains how Bitten—the first book in her Women of the Otherworld novels—was inspired by The X-Files:

“I was in a writing group, and I’d promised to write and read something new at the next meeting. After a day spent struggling to come up with a story idea, I gave up and sat down to watch X-Files. It was their first-season werewolf episode and, as much as I loved the show, I wasn’t impressed with their take on werewolves... So, I decided that I’d write something about the kind of werewolves I’d like to see. I liked the idea so much that I eventually developed it into a novel.” (Source: SF Site)

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Minister Faust

Minister Faust

“I love using fiction in the way that Jonathan Swift (creator of the original, original Star Trek) and Rod Serling, among many others, did—to allegorize the modern unmentionable and the past remarkable, inside a thrilling context with much greater appeal and clarity than, for instance, history texts and journalism.” (Source: Clarkesworld Magazine)

Shrinking the Heroes by Minister Faust

Minister Faust is an award-winning novelist, award-winning print journalist, radio host-producer, television host and associate producer, sketch comedy writer, video game writer, playwright, and poet. He has spoken and taught workshops widely.

Faust’s superhero deconstruction novel Shrinking the Heroes, originally published as From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain, is an award-winning political satire disguised as a self-help book for superheroes. The characters in the book parody several well-known comic book characters. Booklist called it “An excellent superhero comedy as well as an unsettling satire.” 

His fiction also includes A Bad Bad Beat Was Brewing: An Africentric Scroll of Bizarre, Brutal, Inspiring and Supernatural Tales, The Alchemists of Kush, and the War & Mir books Ascension and The Darkhold.

“If readers don’t perceive my politics, they aren’t paying much attention. That said, some people think they know my convictions and proceed to make a variety of claims about them. They’re frequently speaking more about their own fears and prejudices than anything having to do with me.” (Source: SFWA)

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Carrie Vaughn

Carrie Vaughn

“The influences of my growing up in the military are usually more visible to other people than they are to myself.” (Source: Lightspeed)

Carrie Vaughn is the author more than 20 novels and more than 100 short stories that have been published in science fiction and fantasy magazines as well as short story anthologies and internet magazines. She’s best known for her New York Times bestselling Kitty Norville series starring a werewolf who hosts a talk radio advice show for the supernaturally disadvantaged.

In 2018, she won the Philip K. Dick Award for Bannerless, a post-apocalyptic murder mystery.

She’s also a contributor to the Wild Cards series of shared world superhero books edited by George R.R. Martin.

“I have so many stories and ideas I want to write, I’ve never run out of inspiration. I journal when I travel, I’m constantly spinning out ‘what if’ scenarios. I have so many characters running around in my head, my problem is usually figuring out which thing to work on next.” (Source: Nerd Daily)

An Air Force brat, she survived her nomadic childhood and managed to put down roots in Boulder, Colorado, where she collects hobbies.

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Nnedi Okorafor

Nnedi Okorafor

“When something is really complicated, people want to simplify it so that it’s easier to digest and so that they can kind of control the narrative” (Source: The Bookseller)

Nnedi Okorafor is an international award-winning New York Times bestselling novelist who has won LOTS of awards for her science fiction and fantasy for children, young adults and adults. Born in the United States to Nigerian immigrant parents, she is known for drawing from African cultures to create captivating stories with unforgettable characters and evocative settings.

In fact, the more specific terms for her works are africanfuturism and africanjujuism.

Champions of her work include George R.R. Martin, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and Rick Riordan. Literary ancestors Diana Wynne Jones, Ursula K. Le Guin and Nawal El Saadawi also loved her work. She has received the World Fantasy, Nebula, Eisner and Lodestar Awards and multiple Hugo Awards, amongst others, for her books.

Okorafor’s fiction includes…

  • The Binti series (the highly-acclaimed science fiction trilogy that began with the Hugo- and Nebula Award-winning first book)

  • The Nsibidi Scripts series (affectionately dubbed “the Nigerian Harry Potter”)

  • Who Fears Death (now optioned as a TV series for HBO with executive producer George R. R. Martin, this World Fantasy Award-winning magical realism novel follows a remarkable woman in post-apocalyptic Africa)

  • The Shadow Speaker (a CBS Parallax Award winner)

  • Noor (a science fiction novel of intense action and thoughtful rumination on biotechnology, destiny, and humanity in a near-future Nigeria)

  • The Black Pages (part of the epic event Black Stars, featuring several Black speculative fiction authors)

  • Lagoon (a British Science Fiction Association Award finalist for Best Novel)

  • Remote Control (a thrilling sci-fi tale of community and female empowerment for which the audiobook version won the AudioFile Earphones Award)

  • The Book of Phoenix (prequel to Who Fears Death that New York Times called a “triumph”)

  • and lots more.

Okorafor also writes for comic books and movies. Her writings for Marvel Comics include Black Panther, the Shuri series starring Black Panther’s techno-genius sister, and the Wakanda Forever event.

In an interview, Okorafor told Clarkesworld Magazine where a new reader might want to start reading her fiction:

“If they only knew the kind of chaos that goes on in my brain! Do you want happy and light, or do you like dark? Do you like futuristic? It’s hard because, if you say happy and light, I would say, Zahrah the Windseeker, my first book, but that’s my first book. So Binti maybe? Binti is a good place to start. Noor is a good place to start because it’s Nigerian science fiction.

“If you’re looking for those layers and politics and all of that, Noor or [She Who Knows]. Which is really weird to say considering it’s my next book. Start with firsts: [She Who Knows], Noor, Binti, Lagoon, Akata Witch. Each is a different type of narrative, so it depends on the kind of thing that you like.”

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Patricia Briggs

Patricia Briggs

“I actively avoid power creep. I think that underpowered characters make much better protagonists. It’s much easier to get them into trouble and it’s much easier to make people understand that their lives are at risk.” (Source: “Urban Fantasy author Patricia Briggs”)

Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson Series in Order

Patricia Briggs was writing fantasy when her editor suggested she try her hand at urban fantasy—and is now the #1 New York Times best selling author of dozens of novels, short stories in several anthologies.

She writes the Mercy Thompson series (starring a shapeshifter raised by werewolves) and the Alpha and Omega series (set in Mercy Thompson’s world, but with rules of its own)—plus a series of comic books and graphic novels based on her Mercy Thompson and Alpha and Omega series.

“One of the problems with a long-running series is that you have to live with decisions you made on impulse ten years ago.” (Source: “Urban Fantasy author Patricia Briggs”)

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Anita Krishan

Anita Krishan

“Though all my characters are creations of purely my imagination, many incidents echo the reality of the contemporary world.” (Source: Author Interviews)

One of the best-selling authors of fiction in India, Anita Krishan’s books deal with some of the most important issues which affect the contemporary society. Her Ghosts of the Silent Hills: Stories Based on True Hauntings brings to life experiences by the people who witnessed the paranormal.

Her books also include Despite Stolen Dreams and Tears of Jhelum. Anita Krishan is also a poet and a respected columnist with The Indian Economist.

“Some themes are impromptu, come to the mind at the spur of the moment, while some had been lingering on always.” (Source: Indian Book Critics)

Find Anita Krishan online

Related link: 9 Spine-Chilling Indian Horror Novels

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M.D. Massey

M.D. Massey

“Like most authors, I love to read, and if I had a vice it would be buying way too many books.” (Source: Urban Fantasy Author)

If there’s one thing readers say about his novels, it’s that M.D. Massey makes the fantastic seem real. His eclectic background— he’s been a combat medic, an emergency room technician, a fitness trainer, a truck driver, a martial arts instructor, a cook, a business consultant, a web designer, and a security professional—provides him with a rich tapestry of experiences to draw on when crafting fiction, as evidenced by the believable worlds and relatable characters he creates.

His books include the Trickster Cycle series, the Cerberus Paranormal Detective series, the THEM Post-Apocalyptic series (with a zombie apocalypse, a vampire apocalypse, and a werewolf apocalypse!), the Colin McCool Paranormal Suspense series, and the Shadow Changeling series.

M.D. Massey lives in Austin, Texas with his family and a huge American Bulldog that keeps him company while he writes. When he's not in his office or at the local coffee shop writing, you can find him in his garage pummeling inanimate objects, or knife fighting with his friends. If you’d like to find out more about his work and get a FREE book, visit his website at MDMassey.com.

“For years I had the urge to write, but I failed to act on that urge because I felt inadequate for the task. And, it’s a shame because I would be much higher on the learning curve by now, had I started writing fiction when I was a teen.” (Source: New in Books)

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Kenesha Williams

Kenesha Williams

“There’s a cost with each transaction, and I like stories that explore those costs.” (Source: Monster Complex)

Kenesha Williams is an independent author, speaker, and was founder/editor-in-chief of the speculative fiction literary magazine Black Girl Magic Lit Mag. Her own work spans many genres from mystery to romance, but always with a dark twist. Her book Blood Debt: The Daywalker Chronicles is an inventive novel about a natural daywalker on a mission to find the murderer of a Master Vampire. She was also a contributor to Boneyard of Lost Dreams and Black Magic Women: Terrifying Tales by Scary Sisters.

“I was first drawn to horror as a little kid. My mother really enjoyed horror, and I believe the first horror novel that I read was Firestarter by Stephen King. Then the first scary movie I saw was the original Pet Sematary with my mother as well.  So, King was definitely an early inspiration.” (Source: Morbidly Beautiful)

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Kim Harrison

Kim Harrison

“In middle school … I was a library aide for two years, and the library was stocked full of fantasy and science fiction. I made that library mine. I read everything in it.” (Source: Lightspeed)

Complete The Hollows /Rachel Morgan Series by Kim Harrison

Kim Harrison’s urban fantasy The Hollows series is set in an alternate universe where supernatural beings (vampires, werewolves, witches, what have you) live among the human population, and the historical Space Race was replaced by a competition among the nations in genetic engineering. The series stars bounty hunter witch Rachel Morgan, who works with local law enforcement and faces threats both natural and and supernatural.

Harrison is kicking off the new series The Shadow Age with Three Kinds of Lucky. Luck is its own kind of magic, in this first book in an electrifying new contemporary fantasy series from the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Hollows novels.

“I’m very much a seat of the pants when it comes to both magic and fight/action sequences.” (Source: Grimdark Magazine)

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Shweta Taneja

Shweta Taneja

“I have always been curious about supernatural and paranormal creatures, not from the Western myths but those that are part of the Indian folklore and myths.” (Source: Kiran Manral)

Anantya Tantrist Mystery Series by Shweta Taneja

Shweta Taneja is a bestselling speculative fiction author from India. Writing in several formats—including novels, comic books, a science book, short stories, and articles—she is a leading voice in feminist science fiction and fantasy.

Her urban fantasy series the Anantya Tantrist Mysteries are based in an Indian mytho-world. The author says the series has been called a “feminist thriller” as well as a “hilarious rollercoaster ride” into the supernatural underworld of Delhi. Those books include

  • Cult of Chaos

  • The Matsya Curse

  • The Rakta Queen

Taneja also wrote The Ghost Hunters of Kurseong and contributed to Multispecies Cities: Solarpunk Urban Futures and The Best Asian Speculative Fiction and Whose Future Is It?: Cellarius Stories.

Her graphic novel Krishna Defender of Dharma (Campfire, 2012) is in a Must-Read for government schools. 

One of Taneja’s more recent books is Kungfu Aunty Versus Garbage Monsters. This eco-punk children’s novel is written to entertain readers—young and old—while also “sneakily” inspiring them to to become climate warriors.

“I was always a storyteller, right from when I was little and would tell dark tall tales to my cousins when electricity would go off on stormy nights.” (Source: Bookish Indulgences)

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Ben Aaronovitch

Ben Aaronovitch

“You know, I keep expecting [writing the Rivers of London series] to get easier but the process is just as laborious now as it was with the first book. Fortunately it’s still as much fun as it was when I started, so I don’t mind so much.” (Source: Grimdark Magazine)

Complete Rivers of London / Peter Grant Books By Ben Aaronovitch

British author and screenwriter Ben Aaronovitch writes the Rivers of London series, starring a constable-turned-magician’s apprentice who solves crimes in London. There is also a graphic novel Rivers of London series.

Ben has also written Doctor Who serials and spin-off novels from Doctor Who and Blake’s 7. He currently resides in London and says that he’ll leave when they pry his city from his cold dead fingers…

“I wanted to do a police procedural. Ed McBain, a big influence, said the big problem with private detectives is you have to spend the first third of the book explaining how he happens to be involved in a case that no private detective would be anywhere near. With a policeman you just need them to turn up to work in the morning. Policing is blue collar or a working class organization especially in London. I like the idea of working class wizards. Magic cops basically. Gandalf joins the Sweeney. Got out of hand from there.” (Source: En World)

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Zoraida Córdova

Zoraida Córdova

“It’s important to have diverse books. Because there is someone out there who feels like they’re not being represented. Everyone should be able to say that they’re a hero in their story.” (Source: Quote of the Day)

Complete Brooklyn Brujas series by Zoraida Córdova

The acclaimed author of more than a dozen novels and short stories, Zoraida Córdova’s fiction includes the Brooklyn Brujas series (which follows three sisters—witches—who develop their powers and battle magic in their hometown and worlds beyond), a few Star Wars novels, the fantasy epic Hollow Crown series (set in a lushly drawn world inspired by Inquisition Spain), and the magical realism novel The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina. She was also the co-editor of the anthology Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite.

“My inspiration comes from everywhere. I’ve read fantasy my whole life and I think that the reason I write is because I’m filling in the gaps that I see.” (Source: Latinx in Publishing)

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Charlaine Harris

Charlaine Harris

“I’ve often wished when I started a book I knew what was going to happen.” (Source: PopMatters)

Charlaine Harris’ urban fantasy novel series The Southern Vampire Mysteries—AKA the True Blood Novels and The Sookie Stackhouse series—revolves around a world inhabited by supernatural characters, including vampires, werewolves, and magical beings. The first book, Dead Until Dark (2001), won the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Mystery in 2001. The books were adapted into the the HBO drama True Blood (2008–2014).

The author explained what made her approach to vampires unique: “I think of them as adventure novels. Maybe the difference in my approach is the humor, and the fact that my protagonist has no increasing supernatural powers and has trouble paying her bills. (The telepathy? It's up in the air in the books as to where that came from.)”

Harris also writes the Gunnie Rose series, following a young gunslinging mercenary on deadly mission through the American Southwest; the Midnight, Texas paranormal mystery series; the paranormal Harper Connelly mystery series; the Lily Bard mysteries; and the Aurora Teagarden mysteries.

“For any writers at all, read everything you can and then put your butt in the chair and write. That's all there is to it.” (Source: Brainy Quote)

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Krishna Udayasankar

Krishna Udayasankar

An Indian fantasy writer, Krishna Udayasankar’s fiction includes the urban fantasy Beast, where a female detective investigating a triple homicide gets dragged into the terrifying world of werelions. Her urban fantasy Immortal revolves around a mystery being solved by a drunken professor—who just happens to be the latest identity of an an immortal. She also co-wrote the crime novel Farside.

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Dana Fredsti

Dana Fredsti

“There are ways to include details that show you’ve done your research without being tedious.”

The Spawn of Lilith series by Dana Fredsti stars stuntwoman and struggling actress Lee Striga, who works with and deals with the monsters that secretly run Hollywood. Vampires, succubae, trolls, elementals, goblins—studios hire anyone and anything that can take direction, be discreet, and not eat the extras.

To bring a level of credibility to the world of the series, the author calls upon her real-world experiences working in Hollywood: She has been a producer, director, and screenwriter. She is also trained in theatrical combat—as she demonstrated in the classic undead monster comedy Army of Darkness.

Fredsti is also the author of the Ashley Parker zombie adventure series:

  1. Plague Town

  2. Plague Nation

  3. Plague World

“I love zombies because they’re freaky scary monsters. They’re our friends and neighbors with no humanity left and they want to eat our flesh and rip us apart while we’re still alive. That’s enough horror for me right there without adding in any subtext.” (Source: Ravenous Monster)

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Nalo Hopkinson

Nalo Hopkinson

“Fantastical literature is something I was always drawn to, even as a child. I guess I just never outgrew the habit of looking for magical stories.” (Source: SF Site)

Jamaican-born Canadian speculative fiction writer and editor Nalo Hopkinson often infuses her fiction with Caribbean history and language, and its traditions of oral and written storytelling. Her books include the novels Brown Girl in the Ring (a young woman must solve the tragic mystery surrounding her family and bargain with the gods to save her city and herself), Midnight Robber (a man commits an unbelievable crime—and his daughter must fight to save her own life), The Salt Roads (which blends fantasy, women’s history, and slavery), and The Chaos (a blend of fantasy and Caribbean folklore that navigates between myth and chaos).

She also wrote the collections Falling in Love with Hominids and Skin Folk. She was the curator of Six Impossible Things, an audio series of Canadian fantastical fiction on CBC Radio One. She is also one of the Black authors involved with the SF Black Stars books.

Hopkinson entered the DC Comics Sandman universe with the comic book limited-series House of Whispers, taking readers from the bayou to the Dreaming.

Hopkinson told Gizmodo:

“I want to bring in a diverse diversity of African-ness. Our skin colors are different, we speak different languages, we have different socioeconomic backgrounds. I have so far used at least three languages. I’m hybridizing our existing mode. Yoruba is a religion that has numbers of different versions of it, and I’m hybridizing those. There’s a feel of kind of breaking orthodoxy that sort of gives me pause, but I need to do it to make the story go where I want.”

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Simon R. Green

Simon R. Green

“The monsters are ourselves, written large. Frankenstein is about children and parents. Vampires are about appetite. Werewolves are about the changes our bodies go through as teenagers.” (Source: Los Angeles Public Library)

British author Simon R. Green has written more than 60 science fiction and fantasy novels. His fiction includes the Jekyll & Hyde Inc. books, the Secret Histories series, the paranormal private detective Ishmael Jones mysteries, the DEATHSTALKER cycle, the thief-and-con-man Gideon Sable novels, the Nightside series, and the Ghost Finders series. Born in Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, Green holds a degree in modern English and American literature from the University of Leicester.

“I was eight years old when I discovered Dr Who on television, and I was never the same again. Also, my father was a big fan of Edgar Rice Boroughs, and once I was introduced to his Tarzan and Mars books I couldn’t get enough of them.” (Source: Civilian Reader)

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Marjorie Liu

Marjorie Liu

“We’re trying to integrate and come to terms with these wounds that are inside of us. And these wounds can feel like little monsters.” (Source: Entertainment Weekly)

A lawyer who switched to writing full-time, Marjorie Liu is a New York Times bestselling novelist and award-winning comic book writer. Her novels include the urban fantasy series Hunter Kiss, and the paranormal romance series Dirk & Steele.

In an interview about the Hunters Kiss stories, Liu told this to Fantasy Literature:

“I was sitting there, thinking about the book I wanted to write, which did have zombies in it — and what would be the worst, weirdest thing that could happen to a mother and her child. Losing a kid to zombies, in a game of cards, just came to me.”

Her comics writing includes the creator-owned title Monstress (with Japanese artist Sana Takeda), a series with girls and monsters set in an alternate, matriarchal Asia that follows a girl’s struggle to survive the trauma of war. The Monstress series has won more than one Hugo Awards, British Fantasy Awards, the Harvey Award, plus multiple Eisner Awards. In fact, Liu was the first woman (and woman of color) to receive the Eisner for Best Writer in its 30 year history. At Marvel Comics, Liu’s writing has included X-23, Black Widow, Han Solo, Dark Wolverine and Astonishing X-Men.

“You know how kids get obsessed with different things? Some kids get obsessed with vampires, some get obsessed with zombies. I was really obsessed with the apocalypse. I always thought it was just around the corner.” (Source: Nerds of Color)

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Cassandra Clare

Cassandra Clare

“I’ve always been a big reader—what a surprise, right?—and a big reader of fantasy and science fiction specifically. When I was twelve or so, I started writing a novel for my friends at school—I’d write a chapter at a time, print it out and give them copies. It was a very bad novel, but my friends were hooked. And I discovered for the first time the pleasures of having readers wanting to know what happens next in your story. And then I was hooked.” (Source: Geeks Out)

Cassandra Clare—the pen name of Judith Lewis—is an author best known for her bestselling series The Mortal Instruments, which is part of the larger series The Shadowhunter Chronicles. Her books have more than 50 million copies in print worldwide and have been translated into more than 35 languages.

More than just a series, The Shadowhunter Chronicles is actually a media franchise—including multiple sub-set series of novels. The branches for the series-within-series titles include the Infernal Devices books, the Last Hours books, the Mortal Instruments books, the Eldest Curses books, and the Dark Artifices books.

There are also Shadowhunter Chronicles short-story collections and companion books as well. The brand also includes adaptations into graphic novels, the movie The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, the TV show Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments, and other media.

Clare is also the author of coming of age fantasy Sword Catcher and the coauthor of the bestselling fantasy series Magisterium with Holly Black. She is also one of the authors in the anthologies The Bane Chronicles (spotlighting the Mortal Instruments warlock), the Shadow Hunters books (chronicling the adventures of Simon Lewis), and Welcome to Bordertown (exploring a city on the border between our human world and the elfin realm).

“Politics is a tool, power is a tool and magic is a tool. You decide how significant these things are going to be in your world” (Source: The Bookseller)

The author lives in western Massachusetts with her husband and three fearsome cats.

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Daniel José Older

Daniel José Older

“I really love reading Harry Potter. And a lot of the ideas for Shadowshaper came out of thinking about Harry Potter, but trying to think of it in a context that was from Latinos and other people of color.” (Source: National Book Foundation)

Daniel José Older: Complete Bone Street Rumba series + Author Q&A

Daniel José Older is the New York Times bestselling author behind the YA series the Shadowshaper Cypher. The first book in that series—Shadowshaper—was listed by TIME magazine as one of the best fantasy books of all time. Esquire says the title is one of 80 Books Every Person Should Read.

He’s also author of the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy crime series, the YA urban fantasy Outlaw Saints series (endorsed by Rick Riordan), and the Dinosaurs vs Civil War kids series Dactyl Hill Squad.

Writing a number of Star Wars books, Older is also behind Star Wars: The High Republic. That multimedia project includes stories set hundreds of years before the first Star Wars movie.

Older won the International Latino Book Award. He’s also been nominated for the Kirkus Prize, the Mythopoeic Award, the Locus Award, the Andre Norton Award, and the World Fantasy Award.

The author’s life experiences have included lots of jobs outside writing. On Antioch University’s Common Thread, Older talks about how life experience can be more important to an author than just reading:

“I think there’s one idea that we should always be reading when we’re not writing. I’m a huge advocate of living—not at the expense of reading, but I just don’t think our education emphasizes enough the power of experiencing things.

“Being a bike messenger, a paramedic, and a community organizer, all made me a better writer—being able to see the city from so many different sides (class, race, etc.). You have to understand race, gender, and power in order to negotiate the world and to maneuver the world of publishing because it’s so messed up on so many levels.”

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C.E. Murphy

C.E. Murphy

“I grew up reading fantasy and science fiction (after I exhausted the horse books and childrens mysteries in the library), and it’s where my heart is, as a reader.” (Source: Vision: A Resource for Writers)

An American-born author based in Ireland, C. E. Murphy writes in the fantasy and romance genres. She is the author of the Walker Papers series, the Negotiator Trilogy, the Worldwalker Duology, the Dublin Driver Mysteries, the Heartstrike Universe series, the Inheritor’s Cycle, and the Guildmaster Saga, as well as the Strongbox Chronicles. She also contributed to the werewolf anthology Running with the Pack and wrote the graphic novel Take a Chance.

C.E. Murphy began writing around age six, when she submitted three poems to a school publication. She has also held the usual grab-bag of jobs usually seen in an authorial biography, including public library volunteer (at ages 9 and 10—it’s clear she was doomed to a career involving books), archival assistant, cannery worker, and web designer. Writing books is better.

Born and raised in Alaska, she now lives with her family in her ancestral homeland of Ireland.

“You can’t get what you don’t ask for. Always let the other guy say no.” (Source: Jami Gray)

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Jessica Cage

Jessica Cage

“I am inspired by my childhood. My grandmother had a love of books, and my mother a love of fantasy, paranormal, and sci-fi.” (Source: Write 2 B Magazine)

Complete Djinn Rebellion Series by Jessica Cage

Award-winning and USA Today bestselling author, Jessica Cage dabbles in artistic creations of all sorts but at the end of the day, it’s the pen that her hand itches to hold. Her latest fiction includes the Accidents Happen titles I Accidentally Summoned a Demon Boyfriend and I Accidentally Hooked Up with a Vampire. She also wrote the series Scorned by the Gods, Djinn Rebellion, High Arc Vampires, the Alphas werewolf series, and Siren.

For the award-winning, best-selling author, writing has always been a passion for her. Cage’s dream has always been to write the stories she grew up loving—with characters who look like her.

“I can remember as a little girl wondering why there were no black vampires, werewolves, and fairies in the stories I read,” she says. “Well, now there are because I’ve written them! This is my passion and I’m overjoyed to be able to share it with the world.”

She hopes to continue writing and bringing her signature Caged Fantasies to readers everywhere.

“I find inspiration in life, dreams, nature, colors, sounds, energy. I like to keep myself open to any form of inspiration.” (Source: Prose & Quan’s)

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Kevin Hearne

Kevin Hearne

“I definitely think about how characters speak and how that reveals who they are.” (Source: Grimdark Magazine)

Kevin Hearne is an American urban fantasy novelist born and raised in Arizona. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling series the Iron Druid Chronicles, which features a shapeshifting druid dealing with supernatural creatures like vampires, werewolves, demons, elementals, and various mythologies.

Hearne’s fiction also includes the Star Wars novel Heir to the Jedi, the Ink & Sigil novels, and the Seven Kennings trilogy. He has also co-written the Tales of Pell series with Delilah S. Dawson.

“I’d been reading a lot of urban fantasy and thought perhaps it would be fun to drop a Druid into the modern world.” (Source: Fantasy Book Critic)

Hearne hugs trees, pets doggies, and rocks out to heavy metal. He also thinks tacos are pretty nifty.

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Delizhia D. Jenkins

Delizhia D. Jenkins

“I don’t write books. I build WORLDS.”

Complete Vampire Hunters Academy from Delizhia D. Jenkins

Delizhia Jenkins is an urban fantasy and paranormal romance author whose love for writing began in elementary school when the passion for storytelling developed into a journey of writing. Over the years, she excelled in subjects such English and English Literature, and read the works of Anne Rice, K’Wan, Christopher Pike, Carl Weber, Omar Tyree, and the late L.A. Banks. J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood also claimed her heart and author Karen Marie Moning joined the ranks of Miss Jenkins’ all time favorite authors.

“[Vampire Hunters Academy] began as a sort of homage to the late L.A. Banks. When she died, there was a hole in the (black) Sci-Fi community and I (at the time) was a new author and I loved her work so much I needed a way to thank her. I wish that I had been granted the opportunity to meet her in person because her work, is really what inspired me to go forward with fulfilling a dream of bringing my own characters to life.” (Source: Monster Complex)

Jenkins’ fiction includes The Vampire Hunters Academy series and The Lost Queen: Mercury’s Heir. She was also one of the authors in the Rise of the Elites project, and a contributor for Black Magic Women: Terrifying Tales by Scary Sisters.

“I’ve always read anything and everything involving supernatural entities. When I decided to publish seven years ago, it was a no-brainer.” (Source: Jessica Cage)

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Kalayna Price

Kalayna Price

“Quote” (Source: )

Kalayna Price is an author best known for her Alex Craft novels, an urban fantasy series about a witch who solves crimes by speaking to the dead. She also writes the Haven books, about a werecat named Kita who has escaped her world for a life of exile, living off the streets, and is being tracked by  werewolf hunters.

Price was also one of the authors in Kicking It (Chicagoland Vampires), along with Faith Hunter, Rachel Caine, Chloe Neill, and more.

“Quote” (Source: )

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N.D. Jones

N.D. Jones

“What is wonderful about fantasy, science fiction, and paranormal novels is that the unknown, fantastical, and unmanageable can exist alongside the mundane and the familiar. These genres, at their core, are about the human condition, regardless of whether the ‘human’ is a heartbroken banshee, an identify-conflicted robot, or a gluttonous vampire queen. That is the beauty of these kind of books.” (Source: Monster Complex)

N.D. Jones, Ed.D. is a USA Today bestselling author who wanted to see more novels with positive, sexy, and three-dimensional Black characters as soul mates, friends, and lovers—so set out to write them herself.

Her books include the Fairy Tale Fatale series, which are urban fantasy stories that reimagine fairy tales. She also wrote the urban fantasy duology Feline Nation, the paranormal romance Death and Destiny trilogy, the paranormal romance series Winged Warriors and the Dragon Shifter Romance series.

Her novel A Queen’s Pride: An African American Shapeshifter Urban Fantasy (Feline Nation Book #1) was a U.S. Selfies Book Award 2021 Adult Fiction finalist and a Wishing Shelf Book Awards 2021 Adult Fiction finalist.

“For aspiring science fiction, fantasy, and horror authors, I advise them to read widely in their chosen genre, including authors from diverse backgrounds and books with characters and themes not traditionally given a public platform.” (Source: Publishers Weekly)

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Keri Arthur

Keri Arthur

“My main goal for every book is to create characters people care about, and a story that is action packed and sexy.” (Source: Great (book) expectations)

Urban fantasy and paranormal romance author Keri Arthur has written more than 55 novels. This includes the Lizzie Grace series (set in a world where magic and science sit side by side, and powerful witches are considered necessary aides for all governments); the Relic Hunters series (the relics of the old gods are dangerous—as the world is discovering), and the Riley Jenson Guardian series (starring a rare hybrid of vampire and werewolf who works for an organization that polices the supernatural races).

“I’ve always loved books filled with action, be they fantasy, horror or mystery.”

Arthur has won six Australian Romance Readers Awards for Favourite Sci-Fi, Fantasy, or Futuristic Romance and the Romance Writers of Australia RBY Award for Speculative Fiction. Her Lizzie Grace series won ARRA’s Fav Continuing Romance Series in 2022 and she has in the past won The Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for Urban Fantasy.

When she’s not at her computer writing the next book, she can be found somewhere in the Australian countryside taking photos.

“I tried for many years to write straight fantasy, but it just never fully clicked for me. So I switched to the real world, and started mixing fantasy elements with the ordinary, everyday world.”

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Zen Cho

Zen Cho

“I suppose being from a relatively small country that nobody in the West cares about—a postcolonial, multicultural, Southeast Asian country—has given me a certain perspective. If you have a background like mine, culturally you’re always seeing double.” (Source: SFF World)

Sorcerer to the Crown series by Zen Cho

Malaysian fantasy author Zen Cho lives and works in England. Her novel The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water—a 2021 Locus Award finalist, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, a Book Riot Must-Read Fantasy of 2020, an Amazon’s Best of 2020—is a found family wuxia fantasy that combines the vibrancy of old school martial arts movies with characters drawn from the margins of history.

Her debut novel, Sorcerer to the Crown, was a finalist for the Locus Award for Best First Novel in 2016, and in the same year, Ms. Cho won the British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer. Sorcerer to the Crown is a Regency fantasy novel that outlines what happens when magic and mayhem collide with the British elite.

In the sequel, The True Queen, a young woman with no memories of her past finds herself embroiled in dangerous politics in England and the land of the fae.

She was the joint winner of the IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award in 2015 for her short story collection Spirits Abroad. The collection also won the LA Times/Ray Bradbury Prize.

“I would like people to see my name on the spine of a book and think, ‘Oh my gosh, a new book by HER!’ and buy it straight away and feel like their afternoon or holiday has been sorted.” (Source: Banana Writers)

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N.E. Conneely

N.E. Conneely

Complete Witch’s Path Series by N.E. Conneely

An urban fantasy series by N.E. Conneely, the Witch’s Path series explores the adventures of a witch named Michelle who is often hired as a consultant by local police and is joined by her elven companion, Elron. The author also writes the spin-off series Witch’s Path World, as well as the Kelsey Pine: Urban Necromancer series and the Earth Born Cycle series.

“Many of the problems characters face in a fantasy world mirror ones each of us face in life. To me, that gives the reader a way to process a problem that they may struggle with in real life in a much less threatening way.” (Source: Author website)

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Roshani Chokshi

Roshani Chokshi

“Growing up in a mixed-race home, my parents supplied me and my siblings with books on world mythology. We always had a vast amount of fairytales lying about the house! The stories I grew up with are the bones of the stories I write now.” (Source: Strange Horizons)

Roshani Chokshi is the author of commercial and critically acclaimed books that draw on world mythology and folklore. Her work has been nominated for the Locus and Nebula awards, and has frequently appeared on Best of The Year lists from Barnes and Noble, Forbes, Buzzfeed and more.

Her fiction includes The Last Tale of the Flower Bride, a gothic magical realism story about a marriage unraveled by dark secrets, a friendship cursed to end in tragedy, and the danger of believing in fairy tales.

She also wrote the Pandava series, an Indian-mythology infused adventure published by the Rick Riordan Presents imprint, plus the Star-Touched Queen books and The Gilded Wolves series.

“I’ve always liked fairytales and myths because they either seek to explain the world around them or offer no explanation for the magic that might at times be cruel and other times kind. That kind of callous randomness is almost comforting. It says, ‘It’s nothing personal. It’s just, well, life.’ Other times it suggests that such awfulness is outside our mortal scope of understanding and that’s also fine.” (Source: The Fantasy Hive)

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Mercedes Lackey

Mercedes Lackey

“I’d been writing fiction for a long, long time – I always wrote.” (Source: Locus)

One of the most prolific SF / Fantasy writers of all time, Mercedes Lackey has published like 150 novels as well as lots of short fiction. Many of her novels are set in the land of Valdemar, featuring interaction between human and non-human protagonists with many different cultures and social mores.

Her other fiction includes the Diana Tregarde Investigation thrillers, which revolve around a witch who fights evil; the Bedlam’s Bard series, following a young man with the power to work magic through music; and the SERRAted Edge books, about racecar driving elves. Her Five Hundred Kingdoms series re-works well-known fairy tales in the early 20th century in a world where magic is real but hiding from the mundane world.

In 2022, Lackey received SFWA’s Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award (Source: Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association).

Lackey is also a professional lyricist and a licensed wild bird rehabilitator. She lives in Oklahoma with her husband and their flock of parrots.

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Rebecca Roanhorse

Rebecca Roanhorse

“Love’s not supposed to try to kill you.”

Rebecca Roanhorse is a New York Times bestselling speculative fiction author who has won Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards. Her fiction includes The Sixth World series, Star Wars: Resistance Reborn, Race to the Sun for the Rick Riordan imprint, and the epic fantasy trilogy Between Earth and Sky. She was the guest editor of America’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy (2023) and a contributor to the New York Times “100 Best Books of the 21st Century.”

She has also written for Marvel comics and games, and her TV writing includes FX’s A Murder at the End of the World, and the Marvel series Echo for Disney+. She has had her own work optioned by Paramount, Amazon Studios, Netflix, and AMC Studios. Her short fiction can be found in Apex Magazine, New Suns, The Mythic Dream, and various other anthologies.

“Sometimes the ones we call our heroes are the greatest monsters of all.”

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Dan Willis

Dan Willis

“I love detective stories. At the same time I’m fascinated by the industrial era. Now, you take that setting—add a dash of magic and some good old fashioned murder and mayhem. What’s not to like?” (Source: Monster Complex)

Dan Willis is an award-winning, best-selling author who has been writing for most of his life. He writes the Arcane Casebook series, an urban fantasy supernatural detective series that offers a fantasy twist on the 1930s noir detective story. His Dragons of the Confederacy series offers an urban fantasy twist on the Civil War. He’s also written for the long-running DragonLance series of fantasy novels, and worked in the board game and video game industries as well.

“I love the idea of telling someone a story and having them transported by it.” (Source: YA Steampunk)

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Tade Thompson

Tade Thompson

“Genre subdivisions were invented so books could be found and catalogued, not to shackle the writer. I don’t set out to create genre mash-ups. I read a lot of different books in different fields, and this tends to affect my writing.” (Source: Lightspeed Magazine)

A full-time hospital psychiatrist in Britain, Tade Thompson has somehow also found time as an award-winning author. His fiction includes the science fiction mystery Far from the Light of Heaven, as well as the Rosewater trilogy (winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the Nommo Award), The Murders of Molly Southbourne (nominated for several awards), and Making Wolf (winner of the Golden Tentacle Award).

Thompson was also one of the contributors for the anthology Creatures: The Legacy of Frankenstein. He even has an upcoming book for Doctor Who fans, Doctor Who: Icons.

Thompson lives and works on the south coast of England—but considers himself a citizen of the world.

“When you make sleep optional there are so many opportunities that open up. I’m half-kidding. It’s true that I don’t sleep a lot. Six hours seems to be enough for me. While I don’t advocate this for everyone, I’m one of those people who write every day. Most of it is twee nonsense, but some of it can be salvaged in the rewrite. I’m also quite organised. My dayjob is time-consuming and requires a lot of study to keep a sharp edge. I have no choice but to use my time wisely.” (Source: Interfictions Online)

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Sarah J. Maas

Sarah J. Maas

“For years and years, I had sprinkled little hints throughout all of my books that they were part of a megaverse. Then, I had this idea out of the blue that, bam, this is the moment. I just felt like, ‘I can f-cking do this. It’s going to be amazing.’” (Source: TIME Magazine)

A #1 New York Times and internationally bestselling author, Sarah J. Maas’ books have sold millions of copies and are published in 37 languages. Her fiction includes the Throne of Glass series, which reimagines Cinderella as an assassin who went to the ball to kill the prince; the A Court of Thorns and Roses series, which is a loose retelling of Beauty and the Beast; and the Crescent City series, where half-Fae and half-human Bryce Quinlan seeks revenge in a contemporary fantasy world of magic, danger, and searing romance.

There are plans to adapt A Court of Thorns and Roses as a TV series for Hulu.

“[Buffy the Vampire Slayer] was one of the first times I saw a teenage girl getting to not only save the world, but also be a teenage girl. She would fight the vampires, fight the monsters, but then she still was wanting to go to prom. I’ve always been drawn to writing women that can’t be placed in any definable category. … They can be very feminine, but then also go kick the you-know-what out of the bad guy and save the world and look good doing it.” (Source: Today Show)

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Tashan Mehta

Tashan Mehta

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Tashan Mehta is a novelist whose interest lies in form and the fantastical, and how a dialogue between these elements may offer us new and collective ways of seeing.

Her lyrical debut novel, The Liar’s Weave, is a wondrous journey though an alternative history of India, weaving reality and SF through constantly shift­ing prose in which people’s lives revolve around their birth charts. In a world where birth charts are real and one’s life is mapped out in the stars, Zahan Merchant has a unique problem: he is born without a future. The book was shortlisted for the Prabha Khaitan Woman’s Voice Award.

Mehta was part of the 2015 and 2021 Sangam House International Writers’ Residency (India) and was British Council Writer-in-Residence at Anglia Ruskin University (Cambridge, UK) in 2018.

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Charles de Lint

Charles de Lint

“I’m pretty much fixated on certain themes. Basically it boils down to: treat people like you’d like them to treat you, leave the world a little better than it was when you got here, respect others and stand up for those who can't stand up for themselves.” (Source: SF Site)

Charles de Lint is a Canadian writer of urban fantasy, magical realism, horror, fantasy, and mythic fiction. Credited with being one of the pioneers writing urban fantasy in the 1980s—along with authors like Emma Bull, John Crowley, and Terri Windling—he writes novels, novellas, short stories, poetry, and lyrics.

His work includes the Juniper Wiles series, Moonheart, Memory and Dream, and the Newford books. As an essayist/critic/folklorist he writes book reviews for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, has judged several literary awards, and has been a writer-in-residence for public libraries.

A man of Dutch, Spanish, and Japanese ancestry, he is married to—and plays music with—MaryAnn Harris.

“I now call my work ‘mythic fiction’… because it has broader resonances and alludes to the heart of this fiction, which is, of course, myth. These are stories that have modern sensibilities—dealing with contemporary people and issues—but they utilize the material of folklore, fairy tale, and myth to help illuminate that. I think a lot of people who don’t like fantasy just haven't had the chance to have the right book put in front of them.” (Source: Locus Online)

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Seressia Glass

Seressia Glass

“No matter the genre, my books feature tales of overcoming the odds to achieve love and acceptance–universal desires for everyone no matter who or what they are.” (Source: Author homepage)

Complete Shadowchasers books by Seressia Glass

Author Seressia Glass’ fiction spans urban fantasy, paranormal romance, and contemporary romance.

Her Shadowchasers series is set in a supernatural Atlanta where Kira Solomon is an antiquities expert by day—and by night a Shadowchaser, a bounty hunter charged by the Light to hunt the Fallen. Glass also was one of the authors that was part of Vegas Bites, a werewolf anthology with romance novellas by Glass, L.A. Banks, J.M. Jeffries, and Natalie Dunbar.

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Laurell K. Hamilton

Laurell K. Hamilton

“When I was first setting out to start writing the series… at that time, only mystery novels had long running series. And what I noticed, even the best mystery series, there is a slump for at least one book. And I thought, If I had to write a straight mystery, and I couldn’t play with anything else, I think I would get bored. So, I decided I would add my love of the supernatural and folklore and myth into our modern world.” (Source: Mindy McGinnis)

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Books by Laurell K. Hamilton In Order

Laurell K. Hamilton is the bestselling author of the acclaimed Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series, which includes novels, short story collections, and comic books. The hero of the series, Blake, is a professional zombie raiser, vampire executioner and supernatural consultant for the police. There are six million copies of the Anita Blake novels in print.

Hamilton also writes the paranormal P.I. series Merry Gentry, which follows the princess of the high court of Faerie, posing as a human in Los Angeles, working as a private investigator specializing in supernatural crime.

Several media outlets, including USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, and Time have identified Hamilton’s works as significant contributions to the development of urban fantasy as a genre.

“A fan came up to me at a signing and said, ‘I’m so glad you’re doing the horror movie trope’. I said, ‘I don’t know which trope you’re talking about’. And he said, ‘I’m so glad you’re doing the thing where the virgin survives, and the bad girl dies, like a slasher flick’. I think that’s sexist, and I think that’s horrible. I didn’t tell him all this, but I just said, ‘No, that’s not my intent’.” (Source: River Front Times)

Hamilton lives near St Louis with her husband, daughter, two dogs, and an ever-fluctuating number of fish.

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Kuzhali Manickavel

Kuzhali Manickavel

“I’m not really sure what ‘experimental’ means but it’s definitely a word that I have used to describe my writing.” (Source: So to Speak)

The most esoteric writer in India, Kuzhali Manickavel writes short fiction and chapbooks. She pens strange, quirky fiction that moves between fantasy and surrealism.

Her books include short story collections Insects Are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings and Things We Found During the Autopsy. Her book Conversations Regarding the Fatalistic Outlook of the Common Man is a collection of 40 dialogues—interviewing children on the subject of ghosts, shoe racks, and gender-neutral pronouns—melding the classical philosophical tradition of Plato and Socrates with the anarchic freedom of a mid-1990s chat room.

“I like to take ordinary things and look at them in a different way. I think it’s interesting to think about the extraordinary in the ordinary.” (Source: SmokeLong)

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Jennifer Estep

Jennifer Estep

“Originally, I tried to write the book as an epic fantasy, but I’m just not that great at writing a medieval-type of world. So after a couple of tries, I decided to write the story as an urban fantasy, and that’s when the story really started working for me.” (Source: Fantasy Book Critic)

Jennifer Estep is a New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author who prowls the streets of her imagination in search of her next fantasy idea. Estep has written like 50 books, along with lots of novellas and stories.

Her fiction includes the Gargoyle Queen series, the Galactic Bonds series, the Section 47 series, the Elemental Assassin series, the Black Blade series, the Crown of Shards series, Mythos Academy, the Mythos Academy spinoff, and the Bigtime superhero series.

“I always think it’s an interesting character and story arc to take someone … who is considered weak and unimportant and is overlooked by everyone around her, and have her grow as a person, learn about her magic, and come into her own as a force to be reckoned with.” (Source: Den of Geek)

In her spare time, Jennifer enjoys hanging out with friends and family, doing yoga, and reading fantasy and romance books. She also watches way too much TV and loves all things related to superheroes.

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Liselle Sambury

Liselle Sambury

“I have always loved the idea of a gray area, of people who are not purely good or purely bad. I like making people grapple with an idea that on paper seems like a terrible thing that could be used for good. But you have to have a pure intent to do it.” (Source: F(r)iction)

Liselle Sambury is a Trinidadian-Canadian author who writes genre-blended speculative fiction with dark themes, complicated families, and edges of hope. Her debut novel Blood Like Magic garnered multiple starred reviews and was a Governor General’s Literary Awards Finalist. Its sequel, Blood Like Fate, was featured on Bustle, PopSugar, CBC Books, and more.

Her psychological thriller Delicious Monsters was a Barnes & Noble YA Pick and Goodreads Choice Awards selection. “Delicious Monsters is best described as The Haunting of Hill House meets Sadie,” the author said on Instagram. She described the novel as “an evocative and mind-bending psychological thriller following two teen girls navigating the treacherous past of a mysterious mansion ten years apart.”

Her novel Tender Beasts—which Kirkus called “a creepily potent story of family legacy”—returns to Toronto to follow a dysfunctional wealthy Black family grappling with a serial killer and a sinister past.

Sambury’s latest novel is 2025’s A Mastery of Monsters, the first in a dark academia fantasy trilogy. A teen must join a secret society that may be responsible for the disappearance of her brother. To infiltrate their ranks, she agrees to team up with a boy who is only months away from becoming a flesh-eating monster—but she has to win a deadly competition to master control of his monstrosity…

In her free time, Sambury shares helpful tips for upcoming writers and details of her publishing journey through a YouTube channel dedicated to demystifying the sometimes complicated business of being an author.

“I do really love to write about families. I feel like there is so much interest in exploring them because while the parents choose each other, children do not. There’s something especially complicated about grappling with people who you’ve known your entire life, and as we get older, I think we question those relationships more as we find ourselves.” (Source: United by Pop)

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John Conroe

John Conroe

“I don’t like characters who are weak—I prefer a strong character. I like strong women. All the women in my life are strong.” (Source: LMBPN Publishing)

Urban fantasy and science fiction writer John Conroe writes the Demon Accords series, the Zone War series, and the Shadows of Montshire series. Raised in Saint Lawrence County, New York— a wild and rural place that’s a few heartbeats away from the Canadian border at the very top of the state—as a boy he was a fan of reading Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert Heinlein, JRR Tolkien, Jack London, Andre Norton, Robert E. Howard, H. Beam Piper, and Anne McCaffrey.

He wrote his first readable novel, God Touched, after finishing his daughter’s copy of Twilight and muttering: “Vampires don’t farging sparkle!”

After writing for 10 years, he finally quit his day job—a 32-year career in banking, investments and financial planning. Writing full-time, he regularly hunts paper targets at the range, dabbles in martial arts and takes long walks on Maine beaches with his amazingly patient wife.

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Fonda Lee

Fonda Lee

“I’ve written a lot of fights, strategic politicking, and economics into my novels. My martial arts background does help me write combat scenes. I try to bring the same sense of high stakes and tension to scenes that take place in a boardroom, because those, too, are character conflicts.” (Source: Famous Writing Routines)

Fonda Lee is a Canadian-American author of speculative fiction. She is best known for writing The Green Bone Saga, the first of which, Jade City, won the 2018 World Fantasy Award and was named one of the 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time by TIME magazine.

She is also the author of the science fiction novels Zeroboxer, the Exo books, and the Green Bone Saga prequel novellas The Jade Setter of Janloon and Untethered Sky.

Fonda is a winner of the World Fantasy Award, the Locus Award, and a four-time winner of the Aurora Award (Canada’s national science fiction and fantasy award), as well as a multiple finalist for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Oregon Book Award.

She has also written acclaimed short fiction and been an instructor at writing workshops including Viable Paradise and Clarion West. Fonda is a former corporate strategist and black belt martial artist who loves action movies and Eggs Benedict. Born and raised in Canada, she currently resides in the Pacific Northwest.

“When I was writing Jade City, I had no idea if it would even be published, much less if it would be critically or commercially successful. It didn’t fit neatly into any fantasy sub-genre, nor were there any comparable titles, but it was a story that excited me and that I wanted to read. I told myself that even if it didn’t go anywhere, I would be proud to have written it. So seeing these books resonate with readers and find their audience has been incredibly meaningful.” (Source: Grimdark Magazine)

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Karen Marie Moning

Karen Marie Moning

“I’m drawn to the gray, the ambiguous, the unsettled, and I enjoy characters who dwell there, too. Enemies to lovers rock my world. Good luck figuring out who the villains are...” (Source: KarenMoning.com)

Karen Marie Moning is a paranormal romance author whose novels have appeared on the New York Times bestseller list. She is a winner of the prestigious Romance Writers of America RITA award for Best Paranormal Romance. Her fiction includes the Highlander series, the Fever series, and the graphic novel Fever Moon.

“The only other calling I ever felt was an irrepressible desire to be Captain of my own Starship. I was born in the wrong century and it wasn’t possible, so I chose to explore the universe by writing fiction instead. Books are doors to endless adventure.”

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L.L. McKinney

L.L. McKinney

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An advocate for equality and inclusion in publishing, L.L. McKinney is the creator of the hashtags #PublishingPaidMe and #WhatWoCWritersHear. Her works include the Nightmare-Verse books (an urban fantasy retelling of Alice in Wonderland), the DC Comics project Nubia: Real One, the Marvel Comics project Black Widow: Bad Blood, the Power Rangers Unlimited: Heir to Darkness comics, and more.

McKinney has also been part of the anthologies Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda (short story collection), Twice Cursed: An Anthology (blend of traditional and reimagined curses from fairy-tales), The Grimoire of Grave Fates (a multi-author wizard school murder mystery), Wonderland: An Anthology (stories inspired by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland written by fantasy and horror authors), and A Phoenix First Must Burn: Sixteen Stories of Black Girl Magic, Resistance, and Hope (featuring tales that explore the Black experience through fantasy, science fiction, and magic).

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McKinney’s also a gamer, Blerd, and adamant Hei Hei stan, living in Kansas, spending her free time plagued by her cat—Sir Chester Fluffmire Boopsnoot Purrington Wigglebottom Flooferson III, esquire, Baron o'Butterscotch or #SirChester for short.

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James Aquilone

James Aquilone

“I’ve loved the classic monsters ever since I watched those Abbott and Costello horror-comedies on Sunday afternoons as a kid.” (Source: Con Skipper)

The owner of Monstrous Books, James Aquilone is also the writer of the Dead Jack, Zombie Detective series, and the editor of anthologies including Classic Monsters Unleashed, Shakespeare Unleashed, and the Kolchak: The Night Stalker 50th Anniversary graphic novel. He’s won a Bram Stoker Award and two Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards.

Aquilone’s anthology Dead Detectives Society focuses on supernatural investigators—who have to deal with vampires, zombies, ghosts, myth monsters, and the like. The collection includes stories from Kevin J. Anderson, Nancy A. Collins, Jonathan Maberry, Rena Mason, Tim Waggoner, Lisa Morton, Jeff Strand, Nancy Holder & Alan Philipson, Steve Niles, Joe R. Lansdale & Kasey Lansdale, David Avallone, John Jennings, and Aquilone himself.

“[Dead Detectives Society] is anthology of short stories featuring weird detectives, supernatural detectives,” Aquilone told Comic Book Couplers Counseling. “Half of them are maybe characters you already know. The other half are new stories with these new weird detectives. I want to get more writers to create these these types of characters. We want to expand the genre.”

Monstrous Books also now has the license for Kolchak. Aquilone has a whole team of writers and artists working on the upcoming comic book project Kolchak Meets the Classic Monsters. This mini-series promises to show Kolchak meeting the likes of the Werewolf, Frankenstein, Dracula, giant ape Konga, and Count Crowley.

“Kolchak was integral in my career as a journalist. I’ve always wanted to be a writer and it seemed that being a reporter would allow me not only to write but have some adventure too. Things didn’t turn out quite like Kolchak, but the upside is that I now get to write, edit, and publish Kolchak stories. So my life has come full circle.” (Source: Freak Sugar)

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Annette Marie

Annette Marie

“I don’t pay a ton of attention to genre trends, but I love New Adult, and I want to see an even greater variety of stories being told, from college romances to high-adventure urban fantasy to everything in between.” (Source: YA SFF)

Annette Marie’s first love is fantasy, while fast-paced adventures and tantalizing forbidden romances are her guilty pleasures. Her fiction includes Her fiction includes the Guild Codex, an expansive collection of interwoven urban fantasy series ranging from thrilling adventure to hilarious hijinks to heartrending romance.

This world includes the Guild Codex: Warped series, the Guild Codex: Demonized series, the Guild Codex: Spellbound series, the Guild Codex: Unveiled series, and the Guild Codex Comic Collection.

Her other works include the romantic fantasy trilogy Red Winter, the YA urban fantasy series Steel & Stone, and its prequel trilogy Spell Weaver.

Marie lives in Alberta, Canada with her husband and their cat. When not writing, she can be found elbow-deep in one art project or another while blissfully ignoring all adult responsibilities.

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Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015)

“You start with the fairytales and the fairytales segue way up as you get older and you start realizing, if you are growing up, that fairytales aren't exactly the same as what's really going on and what's happening around you. And if you're paying attention, you ask why and look for more stories to help find out.” (Source: The Guardian)

His first story published when he was just 13 years old, Sir Terence David John Pratchett OBE—AKA Terry Pratchett—was a British humorist, satirist, and author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his Discworld series of 41 novels.

His other work included Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (1990), a funny look at the Apocalypse, adapted into a streaming series by Amazon Prime. Pratchett also collaborated with British SF author Stephen Baxter on a parallel earth series The Long Earth.

Pratchett brainstormed with Larry Niven what eventually became the short novel Rainbow Mars (2000). Although Niven finished the story on his own, he said a number of Pratchett’s ideas are still part of the final work.

Pratchett also wrote the science fiction novels The Dark Side of the Sun (1976) and Strata (1981). He wrote the fiction collections A Blink of the Screen (2012) and Dragons at Crumbling Castle: And Other Tales (2015), and the nonfiction collection A Slip of the Keyboard (2014). Pratchett also wrote a number of children’s books, as well as dialogue for the games The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Pratchett was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1998 and was knighted for services to literature in the 2009 New Year Honours. In 2001, he won the annual Carnegie Medal for The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, the first Discworld book marketed for children. He received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2010.

Overall, Pratchett focused a lot on fantasy. “Fantasy isn’t just about wizards and silly wands,” he said in his acceptance speech for his Carnegie Medal. “It’s about seeing the world from new directions.”

Pratchett was the UK’s best-selling author of the 1990s. During his career—writing an average of two books a year—he sold more than 100 million books worldwide in 43 languages.

He died in March 2015 after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.

“Life doesn’t happen in chapters—at least, not regular ones. Nor do movies. Homer didn’t write in chapters. I can see what their purpose is in children’s books—‘I’ll read to the end of the chapter, and then you must go to sleep’—but I’m blessed if I know what function they serve in books for adults.” (Source: Indiebound)

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Kat Richardson

Kat Richardson

“I write detective novels, at heart. Many [Urban Fantasy] novels put the fantasy elements and personal lives of the characters at the center of the story. I put the detective story at the center and use the fantasy elements to give it a new spin.” (Source: SciFiChick)

Kat Richardson writes and edits science fiction, fantasy, crime fiction, and mysteries. She is the award-winning and bestselling author of the GREYWALKER paranormal detective novels.

She started writing after working several dispiriting non-writing jobs. First, Richardson tried her hand at screenwriting—penning an obscure short horror spoof called The Glove, for which she also served as part of the production crew. She also did some game writing.

Oh, and she wrote the first of six drafts of a novel about a PI who worked for ghosts. Attending her first Bouchercon, she acquired an agent, who sold that manuscript that became the first of her bestselling Greywalker paranormal detective series.

“They’re paranormal detective novels; hardboiled PI with Ghosts and Monsters.” (Source: Falcata Times)

In 2014, Richardson took four years off to manage a bout with cancer, but “kicked its ass” and got back to beating up on her keyboard and writing “whatever amalgam of mystery and weirdness takes her fancy.”

Richardson has by now written and published a heap of novels, novellas, and short stories across a slew of genres. Her other work includes…

  • The SF police procedural Blood Orbit (published under the name K. R. Richardson), which won the 2019 Endeavour Award for best Science Fiction novel by a northwest author;

  • one of the books in the multi-author Grifters series;

  • a story in the anthology Shadowed Souls, which also includes stories by Jim Butcher, Seanan McGuire, Kevin J. Anderson, Rob Thurman, Tanya Huff, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and more;

  • and the collaboration Indigo: A Mosaic Novel, a fantastical crime-solving novel by Richardson and also Charlaine Harris, Christopher Golden, Kelley Armstrong, Jonathan Maberry, Seanan McGuire, Tim Lebbon, Cherie Priest, James A. Moore, and Mark Morris;

  • She has a new dark fantasy crime noir novel, Storm Waters, that came out November 2024—think Harry Dresden mashed up with The Saint in golden age Hollywood.

Richardson also co-edited an anthology of short stories featuring Death as a character—The Death of All Things includes stories from Faith Hunter, Stephen Blackmoore, K.M. Laney, Andrea Mullen, Kendra Leigh Speedling, Jason M. Hough, Julie Pitzel, Shaun Avery, Christie Golden, Leah Cutter, Aliette de Bodard, Andrew Dunlop, Juliet E. McKenna, A. Merc Rustad, Ville Meriläinen, Amanda Kespohl, Mack Moyer, Fran Wilde, Kathryn McBride, Andrija Popovic, Jim C. Hines, and Kiya Nicoll.

Richardson is a member of International Thriller Writers, and has served as the Northwest Chapter President of Mystery Writers of America. She is also distantly related to Mark Twain (really!)

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Emma Bull

Emma Bull

“We’re storytelling animals. We impose narrative on everything, even random events. When something’s important to our survival, like water or the change of seasons, the first thing we’re going to do is turn it into narrative, because narrative makes sense.” (Source: Lightspeed Magazine)

Emma Bull writes science fiction and fantasy—including novels, screenplays, a children’s book, and short stories. Her novels also include the urban fantasy War for the Oaks and the Hugo- and Nebula-nominated Bone Dance: A Fantasy for Technophiles. She has also written anthologies set in Liavek, a shared universe created with her husband, Will Shetterly.

Bull is also the producer for Shadow Unit, a webfiction project she shares with her husband and also Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette, and Amanda Downum. It combines novella-length episodes of a series story with hypertext “DVD extras” and character on-line journals. Contributing writers in its eight-episode second “season” include Holly Black and Leah Bobet.

Bull played guitar and sang in the Flash Girls, a goth-folk duo. She was also a member of Cats Laughing, a psychedelic improv folk-jazz band.

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Catherine Webb

Catherine Webb / Kate Griffin / Claire North

“Obviously I think genre is a lie. It’s a very useful lie, a useful algorithm which allows you to walk into a bookshop and I say, I enjoyed this so I might enjoy that. The reason I call myself a fantasy writer and a sci-fi writer is, there is pride to be had in that genre.” (Source: Pages of Julia)

Under different author names, Catherine Webb writes a variety of fiction—including urban fantasy, fantasy, science fiction, and literary fiction.

Her first novel—completed when she was 14 years old!—was Mirror Dreams (2002), which got comparisons with Terry Pratchett and Philip Pullman. She went on to publish seven more YA novels under her own name, earning her extensive critical acclaim and two Carnegie nominations for her novels Timekeepers and The Extraordinary and Unusual Adventures of Horatio Lyle.

Writing urban fantasy as Kate Griffin, she wrote the urban fantasy Matthew Swift series for adult readers. The books are set in a London where rival sorcerers, hidden in plain sight, do battle for the very soul of the city.

Her first Claire North novel—the award-winning science fiction title The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August—is an extraordinary story of a life lived again and again. Described as being wildly original, funny and moving, the book won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.

Her fiction also includes The Sudden Appearance of Hope (the World Fantasy Award-winning thriller about a girl no one can remember), Touch (an electrifying thriller about body switching), and 84K (a powerful dystopian vision of a world where money reigns supreme).

“I was infinitely more worried about the affect of having multiple pseudonyms back when I was writing Kate Griffin books, and the main character had some personality issues.” (Source: Gabbing Geek)

When she’s not writing under one of her various author names, Webb works as a live music lighting designer and teaches women’s self-defense. A fan of big cities, long walks, Thai food and graffiti-spotting, she lives in London.

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Terri Windling

Terri Windling

As a writer and editor, Terri Windling is considered one of the founders of urban fantasy, having published and promoted the first novels of Charles de Lint, Emma Bull, and other pioneers of the genre. Born in Fort Dix, New Jersey, Windling is also a visual artist, folklorist, and fairy tale historian.

Windling has published more than 40 books for adults and young readers, receiving ten World Fantasy Awards (including the Life Achievement award in 2022), the Mythopoeic Award (for her novel The Wood Wife), the Bram Stoker Award, and the SFWA Solstice Award for “outstanding contributions to the speculative fiction field as a writer, editor, artist, educator, and mentor.” She’s also been short-listed twice for the Shirley Jackson Award and once for the Tiptree/Otherwise Award.

She writes articles on folklore, fairy tales, and fantasy; gives talks on all these topics; and makes art inspired by folk tales, women’s stories, and natural history. Her work has been translated into French, German, Spanish, Italian, Czech, Lithuanian, Turkish, Russian, Japanese, and Korean.

One of the primary creative forces behind the mythic fiction resurgence that began in the early 1980s, Windling served as the editor of more than 30 anthologies of magical fiction. With Ellen Datlow, Windling edited the Snow White, Blood Red series of literary fairy tales for adult readers.

As an author, Windling’s fiction also includes several children’s books. Her essays on myth, folklore, magical literature and art have been widely published in newsstand magazines, academic journals, art books, and anthologies. She was a contributor to The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales, edited by Jack Zipes.

“I’ve loved fairy tales, folklore, and myth since I was a child, and then studied myth and folklore at university. When I discovered fantasy—an entire genre full of fiction and art rooted in ancient, magical stories—I knew I’d found my aesthetic home. The field I wanted to work in, and the professional community I wanted to be a part of.” (Source: ActuSF)

Starting out as a New Yorker, she now lives in a small village on Dartmoor, in Devon, England, with British husband, dramatist and puppeteer Howard Gayton.

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Connie Suttle

Connie Suttle

“I learn something with every book I write.” (Source: Authors Interviews)

Connie Suttle lives in Oklahoma with her patient, long-suffering husband and three cats. Suttle’s fiction includes her new Lotus series, kicking off with Black Skies, an urban fantasy crime book about kidnapping and the threat of murder; the wedding murder mystery urban fantasy The Dragon and Mrs. Muir; the Future Wars series; the Black Rose Sorceress series; the Blood Destiny series; the BlackWing Pirates series; the First Ordinance series; the Seattle Elementals series; the R-D Series, featuring supernatural mysteries with a woman sleuth; and more.

Suttle told Authors Interviews:

“I love writing about strong women—the ones who start out as the underdog, and through determination and a never-give-up attitude, achieve great things.”

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C. Gockel

C. Gockel

“I write stories about myths, modern and ancient.” (Source: Lindsay Buroker)

C. Gockel has been writing stories for friends and family since before word processors existed. A few years ago, she started posting stories online and started being told by fans that she “should do this professionally.”

Her fiction now includes the Urban Magick & Folklore series, featuring retellings of fairy tales; the Archangel Project series, set in outer space in the distant future; and the I Bring the Fire series, which develops new angles for folktales and mythology for anyone who just wants a good fantasy romp through modern Earth, ancient Asgard, and beyond.

“I got my start writing fanfiction–and I’m not ashamed. Much. My fans told me I should write professionally. Being a coward, I ignored them. It was actually my husband’s nagging that finally wore me down.” (Source: Awesome Gang)

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Annie Bellet

Annie Bellet

“I think as a writer you always have to be growing and looking forward.” (Source: SFF World)

USA Today bestselling and Alfie Award-winning author Annie Bellet writes science fiction and fantasy for gamers and nerds! She holds a BA in English and a BA in Medieval Studies—and thus can speak a smattering of useful languages such as Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Welsh.

Her fiction includes the Twenty-Sided Sorceress series, the Apocalypse Triptych series, the Six-Gun Shifters series, the A Remy Pigeon Story series featuring paranormal mysteries, her Pyrrh Considerable Crimes Division, the Gryphonpike Chronicles Complete Series (including all six Gryphonpike Chronicles novellas in one convenient volume), and the fairy tale retelling West of the Moon.

She was also part of the box set Shadow Magic: Six Strong Heroines of Urban Fantasy, and contributed to the space opera anthlogies Beyond the Stars: A Planet Too Far and Dark Beyond the Stars.

Beyond writing, Bellet’s other interests include rock climbing, reading, horse-back riding, video games, comic books, table-top RPGs and many other nerdy pursuits. She lives in the Netherlands with her husband.

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Pippa DaCosta

Pippa DaCosta

“I write kick-a$$ urban fantasy novels with conflicted characters, breathless action, and no-holds-barred dialogue. There will be plot-wists, there will be angst, probably a few dead bodies, and very likely your favorite character will turn out to be the bad guy. Don’t say I didn’t want you.”

Pippa DaCosta writes lots of kinds of stories—including urban fantasy, fantasy, sci-fi, mythology, contemporary fiction, general & literary fiction, and romance fiction.

Her fiction includes the magical crime series Messenger Chronicles, the urban fantasy The Veil series, and the intergalactic 1000 Revolution series.

She’s also part of the multi-author box sets:

  • After Midnight: 9 Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy Novels Featuring Demons, Shifters, Fae, Vampires, & Other Creatures That Go Bump in the Night

  • Shadow Magic: Six Strong Heroines of Urban Fantasy

  • Star Rebels: Stories of Space Exploration, Alien Races, and Adventure

  • Rogue Stars: 7 Novels of Space Exploration and Adventure

“I go looking for themes and content that walk the edgier side of life. All the fascinating and interesting things happen on the fringes.” (Source: SFF World)

In the South West of England, DaCosta grew up among the dramatic moorland and sweeping coastlands of Devon & Cornwall. With a family history brimming with intrigue, complete with Gypsy angst on one side and Jewish survivors on the other, she draws from a patchwork of ancestry and uses it as the inspiration for her writing.

Happily married and the mother of two little girls, she resides on the Devon & Cornwall border. She loves fencing, archery and photography.

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Debra Dunbar

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Debra Dunbar primarily writes dark fantasy, but has been known to put her pen to urban fantasy, paranormal romance, and YA fiction. After majoring in English Literature with a concentration in Medieval and Folklore studies, Debra promptly sold out to the corporate world, occasionally dabbling in writing marketing copy and op/ed articles for a local city paper. By day, she designs compensation programs, after dark she stuffs her nose into obscure mythology and feverishly writes her novels.

Her fiction includes the Half-Breed series, the California Demon series, the Imp series, and the Imp World series.

Dunbar was also part of the multi-author box sets

  • Bad Magic: 5 Novels of Demons, Djinn, Witches, Warlocks, Vampires, and Gods Gone Rogue

  • Urban Mythic Box Set: Eleven Novels of Adventure and Romance, featuring Norse and Greek Gods, Demons and Djinn, Angels, Fairies, Vampires, and Werewolves in the Modern World

Dunbar also was one of the authors that was part of Vegas Bites, a werewolf anthology with romance novellas by Dunbar, Seressia Glass, L.A. Banks, and J.M. Jeffries.

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Find Debra Dunbar online

  • Author website

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  • Barnes & Noble

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  • SF Encyclopedia

  • Fable profile

  • Monster Complex articles

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Glen Cook

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Glen Cook is a U.S. Navy veteran who writes fantasy and science fiction. His fiction includes the gritty fantasy mercenary series The Black Company and the occult-detective Garrett P.I. series, featuring a human solving cases for gnomes, elvs, ogre, gods and the like.

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Find Glen Cook online

  • Author fan site

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  • Barnes & Noble

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Anne Bishop

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Dark fantasy writer Anne Bishop is a New York Times bestselling author and the winner of the RT Book Reviews 2013 Career Achievement Award in Fantasy and the 2017 Career Achievement Award in Urban Fantasy. She also received the RT Book Reviews Pioneer Award as well as the William L. Crawford Memorial Fantasy Award.

Her most noted work is the Black Jewels series. She won the Crawford Award in 2000 for the first three Black Jewels books: Daughter of the Blood, Heir to the Shadows, and Queen of the Darkness.

She also writes the Novel of the Others series and World of the Others series. Bishop’s world of the Others is a place where unearthly entities—vampires and shape-shifters among them—rule the Earth and prey on the human race.

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Find Anne Bishop online

  • Bookshop.org (sells books and eBooks for your local independent bookstore)

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  • Barnes & Noble

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Stephen Blackmoore

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Stephen Blackmoore is a native Angeleno and author of the best-selling Eric Carter noir / urban fantasy series and the related book City of the Lost. His short stories have appeared in several anthologies, including Deadly Treats: A Halloween Anthology and Don’t Read This Book and The Death of All Things and Speculative Los Angeles.

Blackmoore also wrote one of the books in the multi-author series Gods and Monsters, which also includes novels from Chuck Wendig, Hillary Monahan, and Cassandra Khaw. He has also written tie-in novels for video-games and television.

The author explained his Eric Carter series to Paul Semel:

“Eric Carter is a modern day necromancer in Los Angeles in a world where mages and monsters exist and do their best to stay off the radar of all the normals out there. To say he’s a cynic is a bit of an understatement. He sees ghosts and has an understanding of all the gruesome ways people die. He doesn’t work per se so much as does favors for people. And though he gets the job done, there’s a good bet it will end badly with a lot of corpses along the way.”

Find Stephen Blackmoore online

  • Bookshop.org (sells books and eBooks for your local independent bookstore)

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  • Barnes & Noble

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  • Author website

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Rachel Caine

Rachel Caine (1962–2020)

“Writing is such a personal process that there’s no right or wrong way to work. Also: writing is not a sprint—it’s a marathon. Find your stride, and don’t worry about measuring yourself against others. They’re not your competition, they’re your colleagues. Celebrate everyone’s success, because the more good books people read, the more they want to pick up.” (Source: The Knight Agency)

Rachel Caine—the pen name of Roxanne Longstreet Conrad—wrote urban fantasy, horror fiction, science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, and suspense. She was the NYT, USA Today, and #1 WSJ bestselling author of more than 50 books in several categories and genres for adult and YA readers.

Her fiction includes the “erotic, funny, and scary” vampire horror novel The Undead, the Stillhouse Lake series, the Morganville Vampires series, and the Red Letter Days novels.

She also contributed to the anthologies…

  • Dark and Stormy Knights: A Paranormal Fantasy Anthology (with Jim Butcher, Ilona Andrews, Carrie Vaughn, and more);

  • Strange Brew (with authors Charlaine Harris, Patricia Briggs, Jim Butcher, and more);

  • Hex Appeal (with authors Ilona Andrews, Simon R. Green, Jim Butcher, and more);

  • and Hex Life: Wicked New Tales of Witchery (with Ania Ahlborn, Tananarive Due, Alma Katsu, Kelley Armstrong, Rachel Caine, Sherrilyn Kenyon, and more).

Caine lost her fight with cancer in November 2020.

“I try to balance my fantastic elements with the fact that everybody, even supernaturally gifted people, have to worry about bills and dry cleaning and child care.” (Source: Michael A. Ventrella)

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Brian McClellan

Brian McClellan

“I think writers are always testing out ideas and messing around with themes.” (Source: Campfire Writing)

Epic fantasy author Brian McClellan is from Cleveland, Ohio. His fiction includes the Powder Mage Trilogy (Promise of Blood, The Crimson Campaign, and The Autumn Republic), Gods of Blood and Powder (Sins of Empire, Wrath of Empire, and Blood of Empire), and the Valkyrie Collections (Uncanny Collateral and Blood Tally).

He kicks off his new series Glass Immortals with In the Shadow of Lightning, an epic fantasy where magic is a finite resource—and it’s running out.

“I’ll be the first one to admit that my writing isn’t necessarily ‘craft.’ I tend to be pretty bare-bones, and while I can appreciate poetic writing I’m all about story, characters, and setting.” (Source: SFF Chronicles)

McClellan now lives on the side of a mountain in Utah with his wife, Michele, where he writes books and nurses a crippling video game addiction.

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Tanya Lisle

Tanya Lisle

“I write stories that start from a single idea that grows into a universe and themes that require several books to explore.”

Tanya Lisle is a novelist from Metro Vancouver, British Columbia who writes fantastical stories with a dash of horror. While attending university, she developed an appreciation for public domain crossovers and cross-platform narratives. (She has a shelf full of notebooks with more story ideas than pens lost to the depths of her bag.)

Lisle’s fiction includes the White Noise series, the Looking Glass Saga, the City Without Heroes series, and the Cloned Evil series.

“I explore themes of identity, belonging, and changing expectations. The horror elements and darker themes are almost always incidental and come about through wanting to either convey a feeling that cannot be expressed in a few words, or because I thought the visual was a cool aesthetic rather than outright body horror.”

Currently—after a decade of writing novels—Lisle is taking a break to manage Long Covid. She now writes only when she’s able and is kept company by her cat, Remy. Details here: Long Covid cured my Burnout.

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Graeme Rodaughan

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With his fiction, Graeme Rodaughan has one rule: Deliver an immersive reading experience that will transport readers from the everyday world into a realm of fantastic imagination—and leave them there until they’re forced to come up for air.

His fiction includes the The Metaframe War series: Hunters and vampires are fighting a secret war for control of the fabric of reality. Whoever acquires mastery of the reality shifting powers of the Metaframe will become the new gods of the universe. The first three books in the series are available in the A Subtle Agency Omnibus at a special price.

“I’m in love with high-octane, action packed, thrilling stories with epic heroes and mighty villains—I want suspense, I want characters with depth who I really care what happens to them, and who I will both love and hate. I love fantasy and science fiction and I want both in the same story. I want pace, and more pace, and yet time for emotional intimacy and heart-rending scenes. This is what I dedicate myself to writing—and why. Because I love it.”

Find Graeme Rodaughan online

  • Author website

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  • Barnes & Noble

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Jennifer Evergreen

Jennifer Evergreen

“Worrying over the smallest things, including fears of misunderstanding, was not serving me as a writer and would not serve my readers either. I will never please everyone, and that is actually a healthy thing.” (Source: Authority Magazine)

Loki of Midgard series by Jennifer Evergreen

A business-minded woman who was focused on her growing family, Jennifer Evergreen (a.k.a. Jennifer Meinking) discovered she still needed to give her entrepreneurial spirit some room. Which included becoming an author.

Among her fiction is the Loki of Midgard series: As Loki’s rite of passage draws ever closer on Asgard, a secret portal just outside the palace repeatedly, almost forcibly, entices him back to Midgard (Earth)—during the Jazz Age of 1924. Torn between two worlds, Loki plays a high-stakes game of risk and danger that could cost him everything. Will his double life be his undoing?

“When I was 18, I wrote a mini-book about mermaids for my 8-year-old sister, all by hand. When I presented it to her for her birthday, the delight on her face was more of a reward for my hard work than I ever could have imagined. This was the birth of my 20-year-old dream to become a published author.” (Source: Authority Magazine)

Find Jennifer Evergreen (a.k.a. Jennifer Meinking) online

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Harry Connolly

Harry Connolly

“There are many dragons in the world. They help us maintain our sense of wonder, mystery, and most important of all, our humility. Without dragons, human beings lose control of themselves. They grow wild, proud, and violent, and the most terrible things begin to seem logical and necessary.” (Source: A Key, an Egg, an Unfortunate Remark)

Harry Connolly’s debut novel, Child of Fire—named to Publishers Weekly’s Best 100 Novels of 2009—was first in the Twenty Palaces series, revolving around a man who works for a mysterious organization of sorcerers in a world that includes the likes of demons, spirits, and werewolves. He also wrote the apocalyptic epic fantasy trilogy The Great Way.

Connolly’s fiction also includes…

  • The 30’s pulp adventure game tie-in King Khan

  • The pacifist urban fantasy A Key, an Egg, an Unfortunate Remark

  • And the collection of short stories Bad Little Girls Die Horrible Deaths and Other Tales of Dark Fantasy.

He contributed to the multi-author collections Don’t Read This Book, HELP FUND MY ROBOT ARMY!!! and Other Improbable Crowdfunding Projects, and A Glimpse of Darkness.

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Veronica Douglas

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Veronica Douglas is the pen name of a duo of professional archaeologists who love writing and digging together. After spending an inordinate amount of time doing painstaking research for academia, they suddenly discovered a passion for letting their imaginations go wild!

A cocktail of magic, romance, and ancient mystery (shaken, not stirred), their books are inspired, in part, by their life in Chicago and their archaeological adventures from around the globe. The duo’s fiction includes the urban fantasy Magic Side: Wolf Bound series, the paranormal/fantasy romance Ruthless Gods: Wolf God series, and the angels vs. demons Dragon’s Gift: The Storm series.

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Find Veronica Douglas online

  • Bookshop.org (sells books and eBooks for your local independent bookstore)

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C.T. Phipps

C.T. Phipps

“I feel like strong characters are more important than strong plot. For me, I tend to come up with characters first and try to figure out how they would interact with events versus actually trying to structure a story around them. They tend to appear fully formed in my mind so I can’t say where the inspiration comes from.” (Source: Cozy With Books)

C.T Phipps is a lifelong student of horror, science fiction, and fantasy. An avid tabletop gamer, he discovered this passion led him to write and turned him into a lifelong geek.

His fiction includes…

  • Agent G (cyberpunk spy novels set in a pre-cyberpunk world);

  • Cthulhu Armageddon (post-apocalypse Western set in the aftermath of the Great Old Ones rising);

  • The Red Room series (an urban fantasy series where a secret agent trained in magic works for a global conspiracy);

  • Lucifer’s Star (a dark space opera series set centuries in the future);

  • Straight Outta Fangton (a dark urban fantasy series connected to the United States of Monsters books);

  • The Supervillainy Saga (superhero novels in a world of heroes, villains, and monsters).

“I try to make a blender of everything I love about the genres I write in. My books are a celebration of what I love about the genre rather than just books that try to invent the wheel.” (Source: Book Worm Blues)

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Jen L. Grey

Jen L. Grey

“My favorite genres are fantasy, paranormal, and contemporary romance. So of course that’s what I’m inclined to write.” (Source: Author website)

USA Today bestselling author Jen L. Grey writes stories that feature angsty fated mate stories with tons of action. Her fiction includes the Shadow City: Silver Wolf series, the Marked Dragon Prince Trilogy, the Royal Vampire series, the Marked Wolf series, the Hidden King series, and the Silver Mate series.

“It’s steamy. There’s people who write clean, and there’s people who write very spicy—I’m in the middle.” (Source: FanGrrrl Romance Recs)

Grey and her family live in Tennessee. She is “extremely addicted” to caffeine and enjoys drinking coffee and lattes.

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J.F. Lewis

J.F. Lewis

“All the killing and eating people aside, Grudgebearer opens the door to some genuine discussion about slavery and gender equality.” (Source: Kobold Press)

Alabama madman J.F. Lewis doesn’t eat people, but some of his characters do. From potty-mouthed vampires to cats who play video games, Jeremy’s fiction is often irreverent, funny, and over the top. He is the author of the Void City series (featuring vampires, werewolves, demons, and more) and the Grudgebearer Trilogy (epic fantasy series), and some very fun stuff you haven’t seen yet.

Always a writer, Lewis decided that he wanted to be actually published when his college creative writing teacher questioned his sanity and suggested therapy. In short, he writes things that get him into trouble.

“I didn’t catch the vampire bug until Lost Boys came out. Before then I was more into Godzilla, Ray Harryhausen effects movies, and Japanese Super Robots. I read a lot of epic fantasy, but I wasn’t a big Dracula fan until after Lost Boys. Then I began reading tons of Steven King, H.P. Lovecraft, that sort of thing.” (Source: Princess Alethea)

Also want to mention that Lewis spent eight years working in comic and game stores. Just sayin’…

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Lindsay Buroker

Lindsay Buroker

“I was always reading and writing stories as a kid. I was an only child, so I had to entertain myself somehow on road trips. I’m not sure I was into analyzing my feelings then (okay, now either), but making up stories in my head kept me busy. I wasn’t always the best at finishing them though. Completing stories is a more recent development.” (Source: Notes From an Alien)

A full-time independent fantasy and science fiction author who has written more than 60 novels, Lindsay Buroker has appeared on the USA Today bestseller list, and has been twice nominated for a Goodreads Readers Choice Award.

Her fiction includes the Legacy of Magic series, the Death Before Dragons series, the Rust & Relics series, the Dragon Blood series, the Dragon Gate series, and the Forgotten Ages series.

“There are a lot of books out now, aren’t there? You have to be fairly prolific if you want to make a living as an author. The pulp writers of old definitely knew that!” (Source: SFF World)

Before becoming a full-time author, Buroker has been a lifeguard, a fast-food-flinger, a network administrator, a blogger and affiliate marketer, and even a soldier in the U.S. Army. She loves travel, hiking, tennis, and vizslas.

She grew up in the Seattle area but has itchy feet and moves every couple of years. Wherever she is right now, she’s probably working on her next book.

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Tim Marquitz

Tim Marquitz

“All of my stories are ultimately bound together by my twisted sense of storytelling but I like to expand what I’m doing so as not to get stuck in a rut. Ideas come to me and I don’t want to have to push them aside because I’m an urban fantasy author only. That would get boring. I want the story to take me somewhere regardless of where we end up. As long as I can do that I feel the reader will feel my excitement leaping off the pages and will be dragged along.” (Source: Fantasy-Faction)

A former grave digger, bouncer, and dedicated metalhead, Tim Marquitz is a huge fan of Mixed Martial Arts, and fighting in general. Marquitz has always been interested in writing, but it wasn’t until about 1995 the urge became a compulsion.

His fiction includes the sword & sorcery Blood War Trilogy, the AI military space opera Superdreadnought series (co-written with other authors), the magic anthology Unbound series, the military horror anthology SNAFU books, and the alien galactic military science fiction adventure Enemy of My Enemy series.

“My writing style is very entertainment-based. I’m never looking to impart anything to the reader. I want them to have a good time and come back for seconds, but that’s it.” (Source: Adventures in Sci Fi Publishing)

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Gail Carriger

Gail Carriger

“I like steampunk but it tends to be a little too dark and riddled with technobabble for me. I enjoy urban fantasy but am not wild about a modern setting. So I thought I might just combine the two, and then shake it up with a jot of romance and a whole lot of comedy.” (Source: Never Ending Interview)

Once an archaeologist, Gail Carriger writes books that are often comedies of manners mixed with steampunk, urban fantasy, and sci-fi (plus “sexy queer joy” as G.L. Carriger).

Carriger’s debut novel, Soulless—the first book in the Parasol Protectorate series (said to be “Buffy meets Jane Austen”) about a young woman whose brush with the supernatural leads to a deadly investigation of London’s high society—won the American Library Association’s Alex Award, made Audible.com’s Best List, and was a Publishers Weekly Best Book, IndieBound Notable, and a Locus Recommended Read.

Carriger’s steampunk Parasolverse contains multiple series—including the Parasol Protectorate, the Delightfully Deadly, the Custard Protocol, the Supernatural Society, the Finishing School series, and the Claw & Courtship novellas.

Also want to mention that she has a tale included in The Mammoth Book of the Mummy.

Carriger is published in many languages, has more than a million books in print, more than a dozen New York Times and USA Today bestsellers, and starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Kirkus, and Romantic Times. Her awards also include the Prix Julia Verlanger, the Elbakin Award, the Steampunk Chronicle’s Reader’s Choice Award, and a Starburner Award.

“I’ve long been troubled by certain quirks of history that seem never adequately explained. How did one tiny island manage to conquer an empire upon which the sun never set? I decided that the only possible answer was that England openly accepted supernatural creatures, and put them to good use, while other countries continued persecution. This led me to postulate that King Henry’s breach with the Church was over open acceptance of vampires and werewolves into society (the divorce thing was just a front). This gave Great Britain a leg up dealing with messy little situations like winning major foreign battles or establishing an efficient bureaucracy or convincing the world cricket is a good idea. Suddenly, everything made sense: cravats cover bite marks, the British regimental system is clearly based on werewolf pack dynamics, and pale complexions are in vogue because everyone wants to look like the trend-setting vampires.” (Source: Read & Find Out)

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Larry Correia

Larry Correia

“The Monster Hunter International is a fun, action adventure, fantasy series. The short pitch is that it’s The X-Files meets The Expendables. The series takes place in our world, only with the premise that monsters are real, and some people deal with monster problems for profit.” (Source: Paul Semel)

Bestselling fantasy and science fiction writer Larry Correia’s writing often involves Second Amendment rights. (Guns.) His fiction includes his Monster Hunter International series, the urban fantasy hardboiled adventure saga Grimnoir Chronicles, and the epic fantasy series Saga of the Forgotten Warrior. His stories have also been assembled for more than one collection, and he has co-edited a number of anthologies.

Correia’s fiction has won and been nominated for a number of awards. He has won the Dragon Award for Best Military Science Fiction or Best Fantasy Novel at least four times. He has won the Audie Award at least twice.

An avid gun user and advocate, Correia has shot on a competitive level for many years. Before becoming a full-time writer, he was a military contract accountant, and a small business accountant and manager.

“I was a firearms and concealed weapons instructor and’ve always been a gun nut. I asked, ‘What would horror movies be like if they starred my kind of people?’ And then, I wrote a book called Monster Hunter International that answered that question.” (Source: Author Media)

Correia lives in Utah with his wife and family.

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V.E. Schwab

V.E. Schwab A.K.A. Victoria Schwab

“I think fantasy does its best work when we feel the reality in its bones. Character needs to feel like people, no matter where their stories are set and if there’s magic.” (Source: BookTrib)

V.E. Schwab and/or Victoria Schwab is the bestselling author of more than two-dozen books, published for different ages groups (though she’s never liked labeling her stories for any particular audience). Her greatest goal as an author is to make you doubt your reality—not by convincing you that magic is real, but by planting a seed of doubt that it’s not. 

Schwab’s fiction includes the acclaimed Shades of Magic series, the superpowered Villains series, and the spine-tingling City of Ghosts series. She also wrote the “bone-chilling standalone” Gallant, which Publishers Weekly says “fuses Shirley Jackson’s gothic horror sensibilities with warmth and dark whimsy.” The author’s historical fantasy The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue stars a young woman who makes a Faustian bargain to live forever—and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.

Her books have garnered critical acclaim and been featured in the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, and NPR. They have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and been optioned for TV and movies.

“I don’t read fiction of the same ilk when I’m writing fiction. I go through spells of three to six months where all I do is consume memoirs on audio, because they tend to be narrated by the author. I feel like from a craft perspective, it gives me a capsule of a character. I feel like it’s a character study.” (Source: Reactor)

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K.D. Edwards

K.D. Edwards

“The Tarot Sequence series reimagines a modern world with a very real Atlantis. The series is built around several broad concepts: LGBT+ inclusion, found family, humor, tarot card imagery, a lack of toxic masculinity, and lots of immersive world-building in a society that blends science fiction and fantasy.” (Source: Geeks Out)

K.D. Edwards writes adult urban fantasy. His fiction includes the series The Tarot Sequence and The Magnus Academy Series. You can also read his collection Tales from New Atlantis free on his author website.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that readers have saved the lives of characters. I pay close attention to readers and what they say, including written reviews. They let me know when characters are working well, and where I need improvement.” (Source: Black Gate)

Mercifully short careers in food service, interactive television, corporate banking, retail management, and bariatric furniture have led to a much less short career in Higher Education.

He lives and writes in North Carolina, but has spent time in Massachusetts, Maine, Colorado, New Hampshire, Montana, and Washington. (Common theme until NC: Snow. So, so much snow.)

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Dannika Dark

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Dannika Dark is a best-selling author of urban fantasies and paranormal romances. She is an Earphones Award winner from AudioFile Magazine and Audie Awards Finalist with the Audio Publishers Association.

Dark’s fiction includes the urban fantasy Crossbreed series, starring a half-mage/half-vampire agent for a secret organization to rid the world of evil. Dark’s urban fantasy Mageri series follows a young woman who receives the gift of immortality—but her falls for her mortal enemy.

Dark’s paranormal romance Seven series revolves around family, second chances, and finding that person who completes you. Some characters from the Seven series continue on in the paranormal romance Black Arrowhead series, as new friends and old unite, overcoming all odds to leave their mark in this action-packed series.

With more than 30 books under her belt, Dark crafts her stories with unique world-building, unforgettable characters, heartwarming relationships, and twists that will keep you reading through the night.

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When she’s not glued to work, Dannika likes gardening, binge-watching TV shows, reading, and indie music.

Find Dannika Dark online

  • Author website

  • Bookshop.org (sells books and eBooks for your local independent bookstore)

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  • Barnes & Noble

  • Books-a-Million

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  • SF Encyclopedia

  • Fable profile

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Richard Kadrey

Richard Kadrey

“My book is a crime novel for the simple reason that there is no mystery to solve. My protagonist comes back to Earth to kill some people. That’s it. All he has to do is find them. That’s the closest we get to a mystery: Where the hell is everyone?” (Source: The Rumpus)

Complete Sandman Slim series by Richard Kadrey

The Sandman Slim books—a supernatural noir series starring a vengeful magician who is back from Hell—“does urban fantasy right—by doing it all wrong” (Entertainment Weekly). A New York Times bestselling author, Kadrey has also written other books, comics, and movies. His nonfiction includes writing about art, culture, and technology. Kadrey also makes music with the band A Demon In Fun City.

Among the author’s fiction…

  • His novel The Dead Take the A Train (Carrion City #1), co-written with Cassandra Khaw, is a dark story with magic, monsters, and mayhem.

  • The hilarious, rollercoaster supernatural series Another Coop Heist stars a master thief who has sort of gone legit and has to deal with apocalyptic dangers. (Really hoping more of these books are on the way.)

  • The horror noir novels in the Discreet Eliminators Series features paranormal mercenaries—one living, one undead.

  • The short story collection, The Secrets of Insects, takes readers to long forgotten cities, hidden murder rooms, and houses haunted by more than ghosts.

  • Kadrey created and wrote the Vertigo comics miniseries Accelerate.

  • He was also a writer on the Lucifer comic book series.

Kadrey’s Wired magazine cover story “Carbon Copy” was made into one of the “worst movies” of 2001. (“It starred Bridget Fonda. Sorry, Bridget.”)

“One of the primary influences on Sandman Slim were the Parker novels written by Richard Stark. I read them when I was about 18 and their simple language and brutal storytelling made me wonder if I could do anything similar in science fiction or fantasy.” (Source: Electric Spec)

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Holly Black

Holly Black

“Something I think I come back to again and again, the idea of being caught between two worlds and being caught between two senses of self and having to have to figure out how to integrate them. How to figure out how to make those two things match, how to have both.” (Source: Writer’s Digest)

Holly Black is a bestselling author of urban fantasy and contemporary fantasy fiction, including novels, short stories, and comic books. Her The Curse Workers series is set in a world of capers, curse magic, and organized crime.

Her fiction also includes the novel The Coldest Girl in Coldtown—a tale of rage and revenge, guilt and horror, love and loathing. The story follows a young lady who lives in a world where quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey.

Black’s Folk of the Air series follows a mortal girl who finds herself caught in a web of royal faerie intrigue. Black also wrote the Stolen Heir series, the Modern Faerie Tale series, and co-wrote the Magisterium series with Cassandra Clare.

She collaborated with her long-time friend, Caldecott-award-winning artist Tony DiTerlizzi, to create the bestselling Spiderwick Chronicles. They were even adapted into a movie.

Black published a collection of her own short fiction, Poison Eaters and Other Stories. Also a frequent contributor to anthologies, she has co-edited three of them: Geektastic (with Cecil Castellucci), Zombies vs. Unicorns (with Justine Larbalestier), and Welcome to Bordertown (with Ellen Kushner).

Her comics writing includes the Eisner-nominated graphic novel series The Good Neighbors and several issues of the Lucifer comics series.

“I think there’s a narratively significant difference between enemies and people who don’t trust one another or who are even on opposite sides of a conflict.” (Source: BookPage)

Black lives in New England with her husband, son, and cats, in a house with a secret library.

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Benedict Jacka

Benedict Jacka

Writing “urban fantasy with progression elements” (Source: Nerd Daily), Benedict Jacka became an author almost by accident: At 19, he sat in his school library and started a story in the back of an exercise book. Since then, he’s studied philosophy at Cambridge, lived in China, and worked as everything from civil servant to bouncer to teacher before returning to London to take up law.

His fiction includes the thrilling urban fantasy series starring probability mage Alex Verus. He told Grimdark Magazine:

“I always had a particular interest in ethics. I don’t know if it had much impact on Alex’s character, but it definitely had a big impact on his story—much of the series is about the intersection of power and morality, and the conflicts between them. The mechanics of Alex’s divination also draw on the philosophical arguments involving free will and determinism that I used to write essays about.”

Jacka is now launching the new dark academia-inspired An Inheritance of Magic fantasy series, set in a world where anyone can use magic—if they can afford the price.

“With the Alex Verus series complete,” Jacka says, “I decided for my next series to try something different: a story where the mundane and supernatural worlds were integrated through trade and where you could buy magical powers out of a catalogue.”

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Chloe Neill

Chloe Neill

“I’m a very sarcastic person and love being witty, so my book snark is very much an extension of that.” (Source: Before We Go Blog)

Chloe Neill Chicagoland Vampires Books In Order + Interview

Chloe Neill is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of…

  • The Chicagoland Vampires series (“In a city full of vampires, trouble never sleeps”);

  • Heirs of Chicagoland (Vampire Elisa Sullivan and shifter Connor Keene must overcome paranormal feuds in the city of Chicago);

  • Captain Kit Brightling (a swashbuckling fantasy series starring a seafaring heroine setting sail for the high seas and high sorcery);

  • Devil’s Isle urban fantasy series (Claire Connolly struggles to control her magic powers before they consume her, while battling the forces of darkness in New Orleans);

  • And the Dark Elite novels (Protecting Chicago from the dark side of life can be an exhausting job—especially when you’re in high school).

Neill shared what makes Chicagoland Vampires star Merits so different:

“She is entirely unlike any vampire I’d ever met before. So strong, so stubborn, and so very human. She has been a delightful challenge. An ally and an opponent in very unexpected ways.”

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Jim C. Hines

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Winner of the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer, Jim C. Hines is the author of the humorous science fiction Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse series, the hilarious and clever Magic ex Libris series (where books come alive), the humorous Goblin trilogy, the Princess series of fairy tale retellings, and the Fable Legends tie-in Blood of Heroes.

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Also an active blogger, Hines’ short fiction has appeared in more than 50 magazines and anthologies.

Find Jim C. Hines online

  • Bookshop.org (sells books and eBooks for your local independent bookstore)

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  • Author website

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Alicia Ellis

Alicia Ellis

“My father raised me on Star Trek and Star Wars, and I loved every minute of it.” (Source: Girl Meets Monster)

An attorney by day and author by night, Alicia Ellis writes sci-fi, contemporary, and fantasy mysteries. Her Flesh and Metal series—starring a cyborg woman—combines action movie energy with classic story ideas and mystery solving. The first novel, Girl of Flesh and Metal, was the first self-published book ever to make the American Library Association’s LITA Excellence in Children’s and Young Adult Science Fiction Notable Lists.

Ellis decided to write books about 10 minutes before graduating from law school. So—in addition to being an author—she’s an Atlanta attorney, electronics junkie, and secret superhero. With two degrees in computer science and an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction, she loves creative problem-solving. (Especially as it relates to high-tech things.)

Her fiction also includes the urban fantasy Blood Spells and the Gray Girls mysteries. She also wrote a story for the collection of fairy tale retellings, Once Upon a Realm, which can be categorized as YA / Sci-Fi / Fantasy/ Dystopian.

“I love science fiction and fantasy because it’s simultaneously real and unreal.” (Source: Girl Meets Monster)

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Steven Van Patten

Steven Van Patten

“As far as horror was concerned, everything I was exposed to became part of this rich fantasy world I developed in my head. There’s also been a lot of cross pollination within genres, like drama and comedy. That’s why there are certain things I cannot stop doing, like inserting humor into some of my work, or creating these dialogues that could easily be inserted into a family drama, if not for the fact it’s a vampire and a werewolf having the argument.” (Source: Horror Writers Association)

Brooklyn native Steven Van Patten has written about everything from sleep demons to the Harlem Hellfighters of WWI. His critically acclaimed Brookwater’s Curse trilogy features an 1860s Georgia plantation slave who becomes law enforcement within the vampire community.

In contrast, the main character in his Killer Genius series is a modern day hyper-intelligent Black woman who uses high-end technology as a socially conscious serial killer.

SVP’s well-reviewed short fiction includes contributions to horror anthologies—including SLAY: Stories of the Vampire Noire, plus the Bram Stoker Award-nominated books Under Twin Suns and A New York State of Fright: Horror Stories from the Empire State.

Van Patten also contributed to Hell’s Kitties and Other Beastly Beasts, Shopping List 4: A Terrifying Anthology of 18 Tales of Horror!, Even in The Grave. He has also made multiple appearances in Tales from The Canyons of The Damned.

Van Patten and co-author Marc Abbott wrote the collection of short horror and dark fiction stories Hell At The Way Station. The authors were joined by sword & sorcery writer Kirk Johnson for the sequel collection, Hell at Brooklyn Tea.

SVP’s honors include three African American Literary Awards in 2019, two for Hell at The Way Station (“Best Anthology” and “Best in Science Fiction”) and one for “Best Independent Publisher” for his company Laughing Black Vampire Productions.

“If there was ever a way to mix fright with nostalgia, that is me watching ‘Exorcist.’ Of course, that same kind of nostalgia hits me whenever I watch any of the old Universal monster movies. Then, of course, came my spirit animal, William Marshall, the Black Shakespearean-trained actor who starred in Blacula and Scream, Blacula, Scream!” (Source: Lydz)

When he’s not writing fiction, Van Patten can be found stage managing television shows in New York City, as well as writing for productions seen on YouTube. He’s a member of the New York Chapter of The Horror Writer’s Association, the Director’s Guild of America, and the professional arts fraternity Gamma Xi Phi.

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Laini Taylor

Laini Taylor

Laini Taylor is a writer and artist living in Portland, Oregon. “I write books for youngish people,” she says, “but they can also be read and enjoyed by oldish people, aka grown-ups. You know grown-ups? They tend to be a little bigger and hairier than kids. But not always.”

Taylor is the author of the epic fantasy Daughter of Smoke & Bone series, the Strange the Dreamer series (about a mythic lost city and its dark past), the short-story collection Lips Touch: Three Times (National Book Award Finalist), and Dreamdark: Blackbringer (a Book Sense Children’s Pick, winner of the Baker & Taylor/PYRG Teen Readers Sweepstakes, and on the Sequoyah Book Awards Master List).

She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, illustrator Jim Di Bartolo, and their daughter.

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Paul Cornell

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Paul Cornell is a writer of science fiction and fantasy in prose, comics and TV, one of only two people to be Hugo Award-nominated for all three media. He’s written for lots of famous characters, including Doctor Who for the BBC and Wolverine for Marvel Comics. He’s won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, an Eagle Award for his comics, and shares in a Writer’s Guild Award for his television.

His fiction includes the Shadow Police series (an urban fantasy twist on the classic police procedural), the Witches of Lychford series (which explores the relationship between local politics and witchcraft), the novelization Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time (featuring the Twelfth Doctor), the prose tie-in novel Marvel’s Secret Invasion (about shapeshifting aliens invading the Marvel Universe), and Rosebud (a multilayered, locked-room science fiction novella).

His comics include the graphic novel The Witches of World War II, the mini-series Wild Cards: The Drawing Of Cards, the trade collections of Captain Britain and MI: 13, the Star Trek Valentine’s Day special, the trade paperback Death Of Wolverine Prelude: Three Months To Die, I Walk With Monsters, Black Widow: Widowmaker, Saucer Country (blending UFO lore and alien abduction with political intrigue), the twisted horror/romance The Modern Frankenstein series, Superman: Reign of Doomsday, and Stormwatch Vol. 1: The Dark Side.

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Find Paul Cornell online

  • Author website

  • Bookshop.org (sells books and eBooks for your local independent bookstore)

  • Libro.fm (sells audiobooks for your local independent bookstore)

  • Barnes & Noble

  • Books-a-Million

  • StoryGraph

  • BookBub

  • SF Encyclopedia

  • Fable profile

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Mishell Baker

Mishell Baker

“I’m one of those people who has to suppress turning everything into a joke, to be honest. So it’s easy, and it’s hard. It’s easy (for me) to find the humor in everything, harder to get the timing and the rhythm of a joke right.” (Source: Speculative Herald)

A 2009 graduate of the Clarion Fantasy & Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop, Mishell Baker’s urban fantasy trilogy The Arcadia Project was shortlisted for the World Fantasy, Nebula, Tiptree and Mythopoeic awards. The series revolves around Millicent Roper, a snarky double-amputee and suicide survivor who works with a ragtag collection of society’s least-wanted, keeping the world safe from the chaotic whims of supernatural beasties.

Baker says that Millie has some of the characteristics of a standard noir protagonist—coloring the story with cynicism and badly-managed pain. “But her filter can also be treacherous at times if you forget you’re looking through it. Her version of the facts is sometimes clear-eyed and sometimes very distorted. It’s not always obvious which is which, and I think trying to sort that out is part of the fun.”

Baker’s short stories have appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Redstone Science Fiction, and Electric Velocipede. She was also part of the writing team for the audiobook podcast Orphan Black: The Next Chapter, narrated by Tatiana Maslany.

When not writing, Baker can be found playing video games, learning languages for fun, and/or managing correspondence for the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America’s Estates-Legacy Program.

Baker told Huffpost:

“Often in urban fantasy and mystery, there is a single viewpoint character whose attitude and experiences serve as a filter for everything we see in the book. That’s true to some extent of any viewpoint, but in these genres the filter can really tighten the emotional color palette of a story, giving it a ‘noir’ feel for example. So the book really is the protagonist.”

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Zin E. Rocklyn

Zin E. Rocklyn

“I write anything within horror—from weird to supernatural to even fanfic of slashers! I love the dark and love exploring the creatures within it.” (Source: Nightmare Magazine)

Of Trinidadian descent, Zin E. Rocklyn (she/her) is a horror and dark fantasy author hailing from Jersey City, New Jersey. A contributor to several anthologies, Rocklyn contributed to the Bram Stoker-nominated and This is Horror Award-winning anthology Nox Pareidolia, as well as the giant monster anthology Kaiju Rising II: Reign of Monsters, the dark fantasy underworld anthology Brigands: A Blackguards Anthology, and the Colors in Darkness anthology Forever Vacancy. She also contributed the story “Summer Skin” in the Bram Stoker-nominated anthology Sycorax’s Daughters.

Rocklyn told The Lineup that she absolutely loves horror:

“I’m obsessed with everything about it. There is so much that is inherently fearful about being human and the catharsis that horror offers is unrivaled in any other genre, in my opinion. It touches on such human emotions and helps you process, understand, and in a way, get a deeper understanding of yourself, your limitations, and your boundaries. Horror is incredible. It’s a lot more ubiquitous than a lot of people give it credit for.”

Rocklyn’s dark fantasy novella Flowers for the Sea—said to read like Rosemary’s Baby by way of Octavia E. Butler—won the Shirley Jackson Award and the Pulver Award. It was also an Ignyte Award Finalist, a Library Journal Editor’s Pick, and one of Den of Geeks Best Books of 2021.

 About the book Flowers for the Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn

We are a people who do not forget.

Survivors from a flooded kingdom struggle alone on an ark. Resources are scant, and ravenous beasts circle. Their fangs are sharp.

Among the refugees is Iraxi: ostracized, despised, and a commoner who refused a prince, she’s pregnant with a child that might be more than human. Her fate may be darker and more powerful than she can imagine…

“Gorgeously written.”—Seanan McGuire, New York Times bestselling author

“Rocklyn’s lyrical gothic fantasy debut considers how life can persist in a world of rot, death, and destruction. [She] conjure Iraxi’s precarious position in fluid, lovely prose.”—Publishers Weekly

“This novella will whet the appetite of fans of classics like Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby, P. D. James’ The Children of Men, and Octavia Butler’s Bloodchild.”—Booklist

“A gorgeous, powerful debut.. You don’t want to miss it.”—Cassandra Khaw, USA Today bestselling author

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C.N. Crawford

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C.N. Crawford is a pen name for two authors of urban fantasy and fantasy romance. Their fiction includes the Dark Fae FBI series, the Frost and Nectar series, the Shadow Fae series, the Demon Queen Trials series, the Night Elves Trilogy, and the Hades Castle Trilogy.

The two authors take turns writing drafts and revising—passing their laptops back and forth to edit each other’s words. Christine is from Lexington, Massachusetts and has has a lifelong interest in New England folklore–with a particular fondness for creepy old cemeteries and execution histories. Nick spent his childhood reading fantasy and science fiction during Vermont’s long winters, which have rendered him impervious to the cold.

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Find C.N. Crawford online

  • Author website

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  • Barnes & Noble

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Lilith Saintcrow

Lilith Saintcrow

“Much of my work lies in the valleys or interstices between genres. I’ve learned to let the books be what they are during writing, not worrying overly much about genre or shelf placement.” (Source: Paul Semel)

Lilith Saintcrow writes urban fantasy, steampunk, historical fantasy, and paranormal romance. Her fiction includes the Dead God’s Heart series (American Gods vs. Baba Yaga in this Russian-inspired contemporary fantasy), the Watchers series, the Jill Kismet series (about an exorcist), the Strange Angels series (where Dru Anderson battles killer zombies, jealous djamphirs, and bloodthirsty suckers), The Steelflower Chronicles (starring sellsword, assassin, and thief Kaia Steelflower), the Dante Valentine series (featuring a necromance-for-hire), the Ghost Squad series, and the Bannon & Clare series (revolving around a forensic sorceress commissioned to protect an unregistered mentath).

She also wrote the novel She-Wolf and Cub (a post-apocalyptic adventure where a cyborg assassin opts to save—not take—her target’s life). She contributed to the anthology My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon: A Collection of New Short Stories, which also includes stories from Kelley Armstrong, Jim Butcher, Rachel Caine, P.N. Elrod, Caitlin Kittredge, Marjorie M. Liu, and Katie MacAlister.

Born in New Mexico, Saintcrow bounced around the world as an Air Force brat, and fell in love with writing in second grade.

Saintcrow says that much of her fiction lies in the valleys between genres:

“Once the work is actually written, then one can figure out how to use the tools of genre and cover art are to tell readers, This is what you might expect to find here.”

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Mia Marshall

Mia Marshall

“I write urban fantasy, not horror. Sure, there’s action and suspense and a few creepy characters, but no blood-stained dark hallways or anything really scary, like clowns.” (Source: Nicholas Kaufmann)

Mia Marshall is the award-winning author of the Elements urban fantasy series—all about magic, murder, and mayhem on the shores of Lake Tahoe. She talked to The Qwillery about why she chose the elemental/shifter combo:

“Despite being categorized as urban fantasy, this series is set in the natural world and relies on an earth-based mythology, and these were the only magical races that felt believable as ones that could be born from the earth’s original creation magic. Vampires, demons, the fae, etc. always felt too ‘other,’ whereas I could imagine shifters & elementals always being part of this world.”

Before Marshall started writing about imaginary worlds, she worked as a high school teacher, script supervisor, story editor, legal secretary, and day care worker. She has lived all along the US west coast and throughout the UK, where she collected an unnecessary number of degrees in literature, education, and film.

“My primary theme throughout the series, the one I consciously refer back to while I write, is that of choice—choosing your family, choosing your life, choosing the right path rather than easy one.” (Source: Silk Screen Views)

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Errick Nunnally

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Errick Nunnally writes dark pulp, sci-fi, crime, fantasy, and horror stuff. “I don’t believe horror needs to be scary, shocking, or gory, per se as much much as it needs to be disturbingly horrific,” Nunnally told My Life My Books My Escape. “It should also plumb as much human depth and emotion as possible. It is horrific by demonstration, not necessarily that the characters are experiencing the emotion of horror as much as they are in a horrific situation. If their solution to the problem is as disturbingly horrific as the problem, we’re good. That said, everyone has their threshold and there are plenty of different writers out there willing to go mining for it.”

Nunnally’s work includes the werewolf detective Alexander Smith novels Blood for the Sun and All The Dead Men, and the superhero novel Lightning Wears a Red Cape. He has also contributed to several anthologies, including Halloween Nights: Tales of Autumn Fright, After the Fall: Tales of the Apocalypse, The Bad Book, Wicked Witches: An Anthology of the New England Horror Writers, and Fright Train.

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Born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, Nunnally served one tour in the Marine Corps before deciding art school would be a safer—and more natural—pursuit. He is permanently distracted by art, comics, science fiction, history, and horror. Trained as a graphic designer, he has earned a black belt in Krav Maga/Muay Thai kickboxing after dark. Eventually, the author came to his senses and moved to Rhode Island with his two lovely children and one beautiful wife.

More about Errick Nunnally online

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Sarah Beth Durst

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Sarah Beth Durst is the award-winning author of more than 20 books for different audiences—including the survival horror thriller The Lake House (Yellowjackets meets One of Us Is Lying), the epic fantasy Queens of Renthia series and the related book The Deepest Blue: Tales of Renthia, the dark fantasy novel The Bone Maker, and the epic fantasy Race the Sands.

She also wrote the YA fantasy novel Fire & Heist, about a teen were-dragon who must steal her first treasure—but a dark discovery during her heist could put her family in incredible danger.

She wrote something for the Star Wars anthology The Clone Wars: Stories of Light and Dark. Durst also contributed to the fantasy anthology Unfettered II: New Tales By Masters of Fantasy, which also includes stories from Bradley Beaulieu, Jim Butcher, Rachel Caine, Sarah Beth Durst, Charlaine Harris, Seanan McGuire, Naomi Novik, Brandon Sanderson, Scott Sigler, and more.

She won an American Library Association Alex Award and a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award and has been a finalist for SFWA’s Andre Norton Nebula Award more than once.

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Find Sarah Beth Durst online

  • Author website

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Rick Riordan

Rick Riordan

“I thought five books would be all I would need to completely cover Greek mythology. Of course, I was wrong. I barely scratched the surface.” (Source: The Guardian)

Best-known for his fiction that brings mythological figures into the real world, Rick Riordan’s bestselling urban fantasy fiction often shows modern-day young people dealing with modern takes on Greek, Egyptian, and Norse mythology. Riordan’s blockbuster series Percy Jackson & the Olympians has been adapted to both the big screen as well as streaming. The series has also been adapted to other media, like a video game, graphic novels, and even a stage musical.

For 15 years, Riordan taught English and history to middle school students. While teaching full time, Riordan began writing mystery novels for grownups. (His Tres Navarre series went on to win the top three national awards in the mystery genre—the Edgar, the Anthony, and the Shamus.)

His success with the myth-driven adventures have led to Riordan helping other authors with similar visions through the Disney-Hyperion imprint Rick Riordan Presents. Like his Percy Jackson (and similar) books, the imprint is also providing books that draw on myths and folklore in adventures for middle grade readers.

Following his Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, Riordan has also written…

  • The Heroes of Olympus (a sequel to the Percy Jackson series);

  • The Kane Chronicles (a similar trilogy that focused on Egyptian mythology);

  • Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard (which focused on Norse mythology);

  • The Trials of Apollo (a follow-up series from the point-of-view of Apollo, who had been cast down from Olympus by Zeus)

Riordan has also been co-writing Nico di Angelo Adventure novels with author Mark Oshiro.

“I never expected this kind of longevity or reach for Percy. It’s stayed alive because that core of trying to make sense of who you are and struggling and finding out that you have strengths that you didn’t maybe know about or appreciate, that just resonated and people could relate to that. It also doesn’t hurt to have the Greek mythology angle. Those stories are around after however many thousands of years, we’re still telling them, still drawing inspiration from them. Because they’re just very human stories. And humans really haven’t changed all that much. So that’s a kind of built-in advantage that I can’t take credit for, but it helps.” (Source: Paste Magazine)

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D.M. Guay

D.M. Guay

“If people laugh, I have succeeded.”

A big geek, huge horror fan, and and a fan stand-up comedy, author D.M. Guay (aka Denise Marie) writes supernatural fiction that mish-mashes her love of all that’s scary / gory / geeky / funny into stories about creeps and critters, ghouls and ghosts, and all of the unseemly things that go bump in the night. . Her series 24/7 Demon Mart puts the fun back in fantasy and the comedy back in horror.

Guay has stage 4 kidney cancer, despite being young and having no risk factors. She donates some of her book profits to the Kidney Cancer Research Alliance.

She also runs “Monsters In Your Inbox” a monthly round-up of B-horror movies, horror comedy books, and weird news.

“Life is way too short, so make it count. Read good books, love your friends and family with all your heart, and never, ever turn down a chance to have fun. Plan for tomorrow, but don’t forget to live for today.”

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Jonathan Maberry

Jonathan Maberry

“If you battle monsters, you don’t always become a monster. But you aren’t entirely human anymore, either.”

Jonathan Maberry is a New York Times bestselling author, multiple Bram Stoker Award winner, anthology editor, comic book writer, executive producer, magazine feature writer, playwright, and writing teacher. He writes in multiple genres—including horror, suspense, thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and adventure—for adults, teens, and middle grade.

He is the editor of Weird Tales Magazine and president of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers. He’s won the the Inkpot Award, three Scribe Awards, and was named one of the Today’s Top Ten Horror Writers.

As a busy author, just some of his fiction includes…

  • The Joe Ledger thrillers and Rogue Team International series (where Joe Ledger and a band of international troubleshooters fight bio-terrorism);

  • Weird Tales Presents: NecroTek series (full of weird science, kick-ass heroes, humor, passion, heroism, and sacrifice);

  • Beneath the Skin: The Sam Hunter Case Files (starring a low-rent private investigator—and werewolf—in a series of “weird, strange, funny, heartbreaking and disturbing adventures”);

  • The Rot & Ruin series (set in a world of post-zombie apocalypse);

  • The Dead of Night series (zombie apocalypse novels);

  • The Kagen the Damned series (a dark epic fantasy epic where “The Witcher meets Game of Thrones”);

  • Empty Graves: Tales of the Living Dead, (a collection featuring stories that range from horror and science fiction to biological thriller);

  • Plus The X-Files Origins: Devil’s Advocate, Glimpse, Mars One, and many others.

Several of Maberry’s works are in development for film and TV, including V Wars, which is a Netflix original series.

As an editor, his anthologies include X-Files story collections, Aliens: Bug Hunt, Out of Tune, Hardboiled Horror, Baker Street Irregulars, Nights of the Living Dead, and others.

“I don’t aspire to write like Stephen King. Sure, I admire his work, and I think he’s a hell of a nice guy. I aspire to write like Jonathan Maberry.”

More Jonathan Maberry online

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Deborah Wilde

Deborah Wilde

“Smart (ass) heroines. Epic Magic. Red-hot romance.”

Author Deborah Wilde writes funny, sexy, urban fantasy and paranormal women’s fiction novels, and never looked back. She loves writing smart, flawed, wisecracking women who can solve a mystery, kick supernatural butt, banter with hot men, and still make time for their best female friend, because those were the women she grew up around and admired. Granted, her grandmother never had to kill a demon at her weekly friend lunches, but Deborah is pretty sure she could have.

“I write funny, sexy urban fantasy and paranormal women’s fiction, or, as I like to describe it, magic, sparks, and snark! Whether my heroines are in the 20s or 40s, they’re smart woman determined to live life on their terms. My stories also involve strong female friendships and worldbuilding and magic systems drawn from Judaism and Jewish mythology.” (Source: Monster Complex interview)

More Deborah Wilde online

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William Meikle

William Meikle

“Stay away from monsters. They’ll eat you.” (Source: Authors Interviews)

A Scottish writer living in Canada, William Meikle has published fantasy and horror novels—more than 30 to date (so far). He has also sold more than 300 short stories.

His fiction includes…

  • The Watchers (a Scottish historical fantasy epic retelling the 1745 Jacobite rebellion with vampires);

  • The Midnight Eye Files (a crime and horror series following an old-school private investigator);

  • S-Squad (a tribute to 1950s big-bug B-movies, Alistair MacLean, and Aliens);

  • Plus his takes on classic characters like Sherlock Holmes, Carnacki, and Professor Challenger.

“It’s all about the struggle of the dark against the light. I write to escape. I haven’t managed it yet, but I’m working on it.” (Source: Art of Narrative)

Meikle lives in a small fishing town on the eastern side of Newfoundland on the Atlantic shore with whales, bald eagles and icebergs for company.

More William Meikle online

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Cherie Priest

Cherie Priest

“I write about people in peculiar, sometimes historically improbable situations. To answer in a broader, more philosophical fashion, I’d say that I tend to write about people who struggle to define themselves.” (Source: Clarkesworld Magazine)

Born on the day that Jimmy Hoffa disappeared, Cherie Priest’s fiction includes the Booking Agent Series (starring a psychic travel agent and a detective), The Borden Dispatches (exploring Lizzie Borden’s war against cosmic horrors threatening humanity), and the Eden Moore books (edgy Southern gothic fantasies), among others.

Her Clockwork Century Universe series includes the 2009 novel Boneshaker, which won the Locus Award for best science-fiction novel, won the Pacific Northwest Book Award, and was named Steampunk Book of the Year by Steampunk.com. The novel was also nominated for a Nebula Award and a Hugo Award. 

Her books also include the gothic novel It Was Her House First, the ghost thriller The Drowning House, and the horror novel Cinderwichlist.

Priest is also one of the notable authors who’ve helped build the Wild Cards series. Created by George R. R. Martin, Wild Cards is a series of science fiction stories, novels, and mosaic novels that serve as the foundation for a shared universe of SF-driven superheros. In addition to her previous Wild Cards stories, Priest was one of the authors in the 2024 book George R. R. Martin Presents Wild Cards: Sleeper Straddle: A Novel in Stories.

“Real life is a lot weirder than anything I could make up.” (Source: Apex Book Company)

More Cherie Priest online

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Stuart Jaffe

Stuart Jaffe

“All Max Porter books take real history of the North Carolina triad and mix it with ghosts, witches, and magic.” (Source: Amazing Stories)

Stuart Jaffe mixes his unique brand of old pulp adventure with a contemporary sensibilities, resulting in his own take on a variety of SF/F sub-genres. His fiction includes The Max Porter Paranormal Mysteries, the Ridnight Mysteries, Nathan K thrillers, The Parallel Society, The Malja Chronicles, The Bluesman, Founders, Real Magic, and so much more.

He trained in martial arts for more than a decade until a knee injury ended that practice. Now, he plays lead guitar in a local blues band, The Bootleggers, and enjoys life on a small farm in rural North Carolina.

And yes, the chickens are still not allowed in the house.

“Max Porter is not gonna die permanently, but there’s a lot of things that can and do happen to him that can alter his life terribly. That’s always a challenge as an author—how much damage can you do to your characters and get away with it.” (Source: Genome Presents)

More Stuart Jaffe online

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Jaye Wells

Jaye Wells

“I’m not sure why I’m drawn to [vampires]. My mom says it started early with a fascination for the Count on Sesame Street, so it obviously started at an early age. I write about them now because they’re such rich sources for metaphor and symbolism. Plus, it’s fun to write about creatures that are strong and immortal. My favorite thing is to put a character like that in an embarrassing situation and watch them squirm.” (Source: Lori Devoti)

The author of more than a dozen novels, Jaye Wells is best-known for writing urban fantasy with her USA Today bestselling Sabina Kane series and the Prospero’s War series.

In 2012, she won the Best Urban Fantasy Reviewers’ Choice Award from RT Book Reviews for Blue-Blooded Vamp. Her novels that have also been nominated include Dirty Magic, Volatile Bonds, and Silver-Tongued Devil.

A member of both International Thriller Writers and Horror Writers Association, Wells is also a sought-after speaker and teacher on writing craft and the writing life. She offers writing workshops and seminars through Wells Writing Workshop.

“I’m a recovering Catholic. No offense to any believers out there, but being raised in a church that actively employed exorcists had an interesting effect on my young, overactively imaginative mind. For example, I used to believe a vampire waited outside my window at night for me to go to sleep. It’s funny to think about now, but back then it caused many sleepless nights. But I guess at some point in my life, my fear turned into fascination.” (Source: Fantasy Literature)

Before she became an author, Jaye was a magazine editor and freelance writer. When Jaye is not writing or teaching, she loves to travel, cook, and do things that scare her so she can write about them. She lives in Texas.

More Jaye Wells online

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Chris Well

Chris Well been a writer pretty much his entire life. (Well, since his childhood.) Over the years, he has worked in newspapers, magazines, radio, and books. He now is the chief of the website Monster Complex, celebrating monster stories in lit and pop culture. He also writes horror comedy fiction that embraces Universal Monsters, 1960s sitcoms, 1980s action movies, and the X-Files.

https://chriswell.substack.com/
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