Urban Fantasy Showcase: 100 Authors To Know and Their Works
Combining the Supernatural With The World Out Your Window
The category of urban fantasy has exploded in the past couple of decades, so there are quite a few authors who write it. Below, you’ll find a list featuring wide assortment of some of the best authors, including L.A. Banks, Jim Butcher, Zoraida Cordova, Patricia Briggs, Nalini Singh, Faith Hunter, Rebecca Roanhorse, Ben Aaronovitch, Zen Cho, Kelley Armstrong, Kenesha Williams, Neil Gaiman, Kiran Manral, Seanan McGuire, Nalo Hopkinson, Kim Harrison, Maurice Broaddus, and many more.
Based on a number of recommendations, I’m in the process of updating the list below. Are there any authors YOU would add to our list? Let me know in the comments below! I’m often updating this page.
Updated February 2024
Related links:
30+ Indie Urban Fantasy Authors—including Ilona Andrews, Brandon Sanderson, more
25+ Indian Authors Who Write Science Fiction, Horror, and Urban Fantasy
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What Is “Urban Fantasy”?
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 Manly Wade Wellman’s occult detective stories in the 1940s, the Chicago-set TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker in the 1970s, the supernatural comedy films Ghostbusters and Teen Wolf in the 1980s, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (film and TV) and the X-Files in the 1990s.
What Authors Write Urban Fantasy?
Urban fantasy has taken publishing by storm—and has become one of the most popular literary categories today. You can find urban fantasy series among our big list of 200 monster book series.
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!
Faith Hunter
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.
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L.A. Banks
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.
“I like the good guys to win in the end,” she said. She won several literary awards, including the 2008 Essence Literary Awards Storyteller of the Year.
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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
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’ve always been a great fan of good horror writing in fiction and film,” she told DESIblitz. “I think the inexplicable is always something that has interested me. We live in a world where we experience just one of the dimensions. There are so many more levels of consciousness lying unexplored.”
In 2013, she was awarded the Young Environmentalist’s Women Achievers Award, and in 2016, the WOW, Women of Worth awards for Creative Writing. 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.
Considered a social media influencer, she was part of the core founding team of Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Month and Violence Against Women Awareness Month, two social media initiatives that ran for four years. She also initiated India Helps, a volunteer network to help disaster victims which worked on the rehabilitation of 26/11 attack victims. She is the anchor for the monthly talk series, Bombaywaali, from SheThePeople.tv and a mentor with Vital Voices Global Walk 2017.
She lives in Mumbai with her family.
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Ilona Andrews
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 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.
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Seanan McGuire
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.
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Nalini Singh
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).
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Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman is an award-winning author of books, graphic novels, short stories, and films for all ages. His titles include American Gods, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (with Terry Pratchett), Neverwhere, Norse Mythology, The Graveyard Book, Coraline, and the Sandman series of graphic novels, among other works.
His fiction has been honoured with many awards internationally, including the Newbery and Carnegie Medals. His books and stories have also been honoured with Hugos, Nebulas, the World Fantasy Award, Bram Stoker Awards, Locus Awards, British SF Awards, British Fantasy Awards, Geffens, Mythopoeic Awards, and numerous others. A prolific writer of prose, poetry, film, journalism, comics, song lyrics, and drama, adaptations of his works include Sandman, Good Omens, and so many more.
Born in Hampshire, UK, Gaiman now lives in the United States near Minneapolis. As a child he discovered his love of books, reading, and stories, devouring the works of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, James Branch Cabell, Edgar Allan Poe, Michael Moorcock, Ursula K. LeGuin, Gene Wolfe, and G.K. Chesterton.
A self-described “feral child who was raised in libraries,” Gaiman credits librarians with fostering a life-long love of reading: “I wouldn’t be who I am without libraries. I was the sort of kid who devoured books, and my happiest times as a boy were when I persuaded my parents to drop me off in the local library on their way to work, and I spent the day there. I discovered that librarians actually want to help you: they taught me about interlibrary loans.”
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Maurice Broaddus
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. His 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.
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Kelley Armstrong
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.
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Minister Faust
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.
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Carrie Vaughn
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.
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 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.
Champions of her work include Neil Gaiman, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, George R.R. Martin, 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.
The author 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.
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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.
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Anita Krishan
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.
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M.D. Massey
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.
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Kenesha Williams
Kenesha Williams is an independent author, speaker, and 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.
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Kim Harrison
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.
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Shweta Taneja
Anantya Tantrist Mystery Series by Shweta Taneja
Shweta Taneja is a bestselling speculative fiction author from India. With several published novels and graphic novels, she is a leading voice in feminist science fiction and fantasy, most known for her series the Anantya Tantrist Mysteries—Cult of Chaos, The Matsya Curse, and The Rakta Queen. She 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.
Other than novels and short stories, she also writes comics. Her graphic novel Krishna Defender of Dharma (Campfire, 2012) is in a Must-Read for government schools.
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Ben Aaronovitch
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…
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Zoraida Córdova
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.
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Charlaine Harris
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.
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Krishna Udayasankar
A fantasy writer, Krishna Udayasankar has published Beast, an urban fantasy where a female detective is dragged into the terrifying world of werelions post a triple homicide in Mumbai, and Immortal, an urban fantasy based on Ashwathama, an immortal character from Hindu epic of Mahabharata who is a drunken professor solving a mystery. She also wrote Farside.
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Dana Fredsti
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 film Army of Darkness.
She is also the author of the Ashley Parker zombie adventure series.
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Nalo Hopkinson
House of Whispers series by Nalo Hopkinson
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 Neil Gaiman’s Sandman universe with the comic book limited-series House of Whispers (DC Comic), taking readers from the bayou to the Dreaming. “What’s wonderful is that Neil and the artists who did the original Sandman series wrote the roads into to inclusivity,” 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 Richard Green is a British science fiction and fantasy author. Green is the author of the bestselling DEATHSTALKER cycle. He has also written the thief and a con man Gideon Sable novels, the Nightside series, the paranormal private detective Ismael Jones series, and the Secret Histories series. Green was born in Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire. He holds a degree in modern English and American literature from the University of Leicester.
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Marjorie Liu
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 Hunters Kiss, 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.
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Cassandra Clare
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).
The author lives in western Massachusetts with her husband and three fearsome cats.
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Daniel José Older
Bone Street Rumba series by Daniel José Older
Daniel José Older is the New York Times bestselling author of the YA series the Shadowshaper Cypher (Scholastic), the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy crime series (Penguin), and the Outlaw Saints series. He has also written a number of Star Wars books. He won the International Latino Book Award and has been nominated for the Kirkus Prize, the Mythopoeic Award, the Locus Award, the Andre Norton Award, and the World Fantasy Award.
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C.E. Murphy
C. E. Murphy, an American-born author based in Ireland, 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.
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Jessica Cage
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 books include the series Scorned by the Gods, Djinn Rebellion, High Arc Vampires, the Alphas werewolf series, and Siren. “My dream is to write the stories I grew up loving with characters who look like me,” she says on her website homepage. “I can remember as a little girl wondering why there were no black vampires, werewolves, and fairies in the stories I read. 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.”
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Kevin Hearne
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, the Seven Kennings trilogy, and co-author of the Tales of Pell series with Delilah S. Dawson. He also wrote Star Wars novel Heir to the Jedi.
Hearne hugs trees, pets doggies, and rocks out to heavy metal. He also thinks tacos are a pretty nifty idea.
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Delizhia Jenkins
Complete Vampire Hunters Academy from Delizhia 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.
“I create worlds with broken dreams. I live my life with the help of dragon wings…”
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.
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The Vampire Issue: L.A. Banks, Delizhia Jenkins, Faith Hunter, Anne Rice, Laurell K. Hamilton
‘What We Do in the Shadows’ Fans—16 Vampire Books You Should Check Out
Author Q&A: Delizhia Jenkins | The Book of Maya (Vampire Hunters Academy)
Delizhia Jenkins: Sanctum: A Last Vampire Huntress Novel [Spotlight]
60+ Special Vampire Book Series—from Anne Rice, L.A. Banks, Charlaine Harris, more
30+ Indie Urban Fantasy Authors—including Ilona Andrews, Brandon Sanderson, more
Kalayna Price
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.
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N.D. Jones
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.
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Keri Arthur
Urban fantasy and paranormal romance author Keri Arthur has written more than 50 novels. Her fiction 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 about to discover), and the Riley Jenson Guardian series (starring a rare hybrid of vampire and werewolf who works for an organization that polices the supernatural races).
She’s won five Australian Romance Readers Awards for Favourite Scifi, Fantasy, or Futuristic Romance & has also won the Romance Writers of Australia RBY Award for Speculative Fiction. The Romantic Times also awarded her a Career Achievement Award for Urban Fantasy.
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Zen Cho
Sorcerer Royal 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.
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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.
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Roshani Chokshi
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.
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Mercedes Lackey
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.
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 is a NYTimes bestselling and Nebula, Hugo and Locus Award-winning speculative fiction writer and the recipient of the 2018 Astounding (Campbell) Award for Best New Writer.
Her fiction includes the Between Earth and Sky series (inspired by the civilizations of the Pre-Columbian Americas and woven into a tale of celestial prophecies, political intrigue, and forbidden magic), and the dark fantasy Tread of Angels (a card sharp with a need for justice defends her sister, accused of murdering a member of the ruling class of the mining town).
The Sixth World books feature monster hunters in an apocalypse. By the way, Sixth World Series #1—Trail of Lightning—won the Locus Award for Best First Novel.
She also wrote the Star Wars book Resistance Reborn and the Marvel Comics mini-series Phoenix Song: Echo.
Roanhorse also was part of the collection New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color, the myth retellings collection The Mythic Dream, and the comic book collection Marvel’s Voices: Indigenous Voices (2020) #1.
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Dan Willis
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.
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Tade Thompson
The Wormwood Trilogy by Tade Thompson
British author Tade Thompson is the author of the Rosewater trilogy (winner of the Nommo Award and John W. Campbell finalist), The Murders of Molly Southbourne (nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award, the British Science Fiction Award, and the Nommo Award), and Making Wolf (winner of the Golden Tentacle Award). His interests include jazz, visual arts and MMA. He is addicted to reading.
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Sarah J. Maas
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.
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Tashan Mehta
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 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.
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Seressia Glass
Complete Shadowchasers books by Seressia Glass
Author Seressia Glass’ fiction spans urban fantasy, paranormal romance, and contemporary romance. “No matter the genre,” she says on her author website homepage, “my books feature tales of overcoming the odds to achieve love and acceptance–universal desires for everyone no matter who or what they are.”
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 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.
Hamilton lives near St Louis with her husband, her daughter, two dogs and an ever-fluctuating number of fish.
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Kuzhali Manickavel
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.
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Jennifer Estep
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, Crown of Shards series, Mythos Academy, Mythos Academy spinoff, and the Bigtime superhero series.
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’s fiction spans multiple genres, from fantasy to sci-fi, horror, and more. She is the Trinidadian-Canadian author of the Governor General’s Literary Awards Finalist Blood Like Magic. She also wrote Delicious Monsters.
In her free time, she 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.
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John Conroe
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 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 two novellas—the Green Bone Saga prequel 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.
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Karen Marie Moning
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,” Moning says on her author website. “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
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).
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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Annette Marie
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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Alicia Ellis
Who will survive the war between man and machine? Alicia Ellis’ Flesh and Metal series about a cyborg woman combines action movie energy with classic story ideas and mystery solving.
Alicia Ellis decided to write books about ten minutes before graduating from law school. Now, she’s an Atlanta attorney moonlighting as an author, 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.
Alicia writes mysteries, sometimes for young adults, sometimes in fantasy or science fiction settings, and sometimes in the real world. Her debut novel, Girl of Flesh and Metal, a young adult sci-fi mystery, 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.
Alicia Ellis writes sci-fi, contemporary, and fantasy mysteries. She is the author of the sci-fi action mysteries “Girl of Flesh and Metal,” the supernatural mystery Blood Spells and the “Gray Girls” mystery. Ellis told the GIRL MEETS MONSTER site that her love for SF and Fantasy came because her father raised her on Star Trek and Star Wars.
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Terry Pratchett (1948-2015)
His first story published when he was just 13 years old, Sir Terence David John Pratchett OBE 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 collaboration with Neil Gaiman about 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.
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Kat Richardson
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.
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, 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 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.
At the end of 2014, Richardson took four years off to manage a bout with cancer, but “kicked its ass” and is now back at beating up on her keyboard and writing “whatever amalgam of mystery and weirdness takes her fancy.”
Richardson is a member of International Thriller Writers, and has served as the Northwest Chapter President of Mystery Writers of America.
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Emma Bull
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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Claire North / Catherine Webb / Kate Griffin
Catherine Webb writes fiction under different names, 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 young adult 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 as Kate Griffin, she wrote the urban fantasy Matthew Swift series for adults. 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 First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, is an extraordinary story of a life lived again and again. The book, which is wildly original, funny and moving, became a word-of-mouth bestseller and was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.
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).
Webb has also won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and been shortlisted for the Sunday Times/PFD Young Writer of the Year Award, a Locus Award and the Philip K. Dick Award.
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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.
In 2020, she announced the establishment of a publishing company, Bumblehill Press.
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 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 a supernatural mystery with a woman sleuth; and more.
“I love writing about strong women,” Suttle told Authors Interviews. “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 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.
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Annie Bellet
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 new 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 writes lots of kinds of stories—including urban fantasy, fantasy, sci-fi, mythology, contemporary fiction, general & literary fiction, and romance fiction. “I write kick-a$$ urban fantasy novels with conflicted characters, breathless action, and no-holds-barred dialogue,” DaCosta says in her bio. “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.”
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:
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
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 and 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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Glen Cook
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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Anne Bishop
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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Stephen Blackmoore
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.”
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Rachel Caine (1962–2020)
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.
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Brian McClellan
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.
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 is a novelist from Metro Vancouver, British Columbia who writes fantastical stories with a dash of horror. She began writing in elementary school, when she started turning homework assignments into short stories and continued this trend well into university.
While attending Simon Fraser 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. Now she writes incessantly in hopes of finishing all of them.
Her fiction includes the White Noise series (White Noise, Static, and Dead Air), the Looking Glass Saga (including Return to Wonderland; Jabberwocky’s Book; Borrowed, Not Lost; and more), the City Without Heroes series (including City Without Heroes and Her Complex), and the Cloned Evil series (including Fredrika, Georgina, and Beatrice).
“I write stories that start from a single idea that grows into a universe and themes that require several books to explore,” she says. “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.”
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Graeme Rodaughan
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,” Rodaughan says. “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.”
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Jennifer Meinking
Loki of Midgard series by Jennifer Meinking
In Jennifer Meinking’s 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?
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Harry Connolly
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 a collection of short stories titled 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
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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CT Phipps
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 the Wraith Knight series, the Cthulhu Armageddon series, the Supervillainy Saga series, the Dark Destiny series, the Space Academy series, and the Cyber Dragons Trilogy.
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Jen Grey
Jen L. Grey is an USA Today bestselling author of urban fantasy and paranormal romance—her stories 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.
Jen lives in Tennessee with her husband, two daughters, and two Australian Shepherds. When she isn’t writing, you'll find her with a nitro cold brew in hand while chauffeuring her children around town or watching television.
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J.F. Lewis
Alabama madman J.F. Lewis lives with his patient wife, two growing sons, and a crazy canines. J spent eight wonderful years working in comic and game stores and is currently employed by a major telecomm.
Lewis’ fiction includes the Void City series (featuring vampires, werewolves, demons, and more) and the Grudgebearer Trilogy (epic fantasy series).
He’s always been a writer—but he decided that he wanted to be actually published when his college creative writing teacher questioned his sanity and suggested therapy. In short, J writes things that get him into trouble.
An avid reader, Lewis also enjoys sushi, popcorn, lukewarm sodas, and old black and white movies. His two favorite activities are reading to his kids and typing into the wee hours of the morning. (He used to be a person who took very little sleep.)
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Lindsay Buroker
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.
She loves travel, hiking, tennis, and vizslas.She grew up in the Seattle area but has itchy feet and moves every couple of years. She's currently living in Bend, Oregon, and working on the next book.
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30+ Indie Urban Fantasy Authors—including Ilona Andrews, Brandon Sanderson, more
Tim Marquitz
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.
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Gail Carriger
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.
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Larry Correia
Larry Correia has authored or co-authored more than 20 novels, more than 50 published short works, and has co-edited at least three published anthologies. He is the creator of the best-selling Monster Hunter International series; the urban fantasy hardboiled adventure saga The Grimnoir Chronicles; and the epic fantasy series The Saga of the Forgotten Warrior.
He is an avid gun user and advocate who 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. Correia lives in Utah with his wife and family.
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V.E. Schwab
V.E. Schwab is the bestselling author of more than 20 books, including the historical fantasy The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, about a young woman who makes a Faustian bargain to live forever—and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.
Schwab’s fiction also 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 the warmth and dark whimsy of Neil Gaiman.”
Her books have garnered critical acclaim and been featured in the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, and NPR; have been translated into more than a dozen languages; and been optioned for TV and movies.
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K.D. Edwards
K.D. Edwards’ fiction includes the urban fantasy series The Tarot Sequence and the book The Eidolon, the first title in The Magnus Academy Series.
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.)
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.
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Dannika Dark
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 worldbuilding, unforgettable characters, heartwarming relationships, and twists that will keep you reading through the night. When she’s not glued to work, Dannika likes gardening, binge-watching TV shows, reading, and indie music.
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Richard Kadrey
Richard Kadrey is the New York Times bestselling author of the Sandman Slim supernatural noir books. Sandman Slim was included in Amazon’s “100 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books to Read in a Lifetime.”
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.
His horror noir novel The Pale House Devil features two detectives—one dead, one living—hired by an embittered old landowner to banish a bloody cosmic monster from his ancestral home.
His whimsical, fast-paced supernatural series Another Coop Heist features a doomsday gizmo, a horde of baddies determined to possess its power, and a clever thief who must steal it back...again and again.
His short story collection The Secrets of Insects covers more than 20 years of his career. These tales take readers from the plains of Siberia to a decimated Los Angeles, from Hell to long forgotten cities, from hidden murder rooms to houses haunted by more than ghosts.
Kadrey created and wrote the Vertigo comics miniseries Accelerate and was a writer on the Lucifer comic book series.
He has also written and spoken about art, culture, and technology for a number of media outlets. Kadrey’s Wired magazine cover story “Carbon Copy” was made into one of the “worst movies” of 2001. (“It starred Bridget Fonda. Sorry, Bridget.”)
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Holly Black
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. The Spiderwick Chronicles were 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.
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 became a writer almost by accident, when 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. Regarding the series, 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 is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Chicagoland Vampires series, the Heirs of Chicagoland series, the Captain Kit Brightling series, the Devil’s Isle series, and the Dark Elite novels.
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
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.
Also an active blogger, Hines’ short fiction has appeared in more than 50 magazines and anthologies.
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Related link: Wizard Writers: Jim Butcher + 31 More
Steven Van Patten
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.
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 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
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 12th 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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Related link: 100 Supernatural Detective Series
Mishell Baker
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.
“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,” Baker told Huffpost. “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.”
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.
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Zin E. Rocklyn
“I write anything within horror,” Zin E. Rocklyn told Nightmare Magazine, “from weird to supernatural to even fanfic of slashers! I love the dark and love exploring the creatures within it.”
Rocklyn is a contributor to 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. They also contributed the story “Summer Skin” in the Bram Stoker-nominated anthology Sycorax’s Daughters.
Rocklyn told The Lineup that they absolutely love 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. . . . [They] 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
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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Lilith Saintcrow
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.
Saintcrow says that much of her fiction lies in the valleys between genres:
“I’ve learned to let the books be what they are during writing, not worrying overly much about genre or shelf placement. 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.”
Born in New Mexico, Saintcrow bounced around the world as an Air Force brat, and fell in love with writing in second grade.
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Mia Marshall
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.
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Errick Nunnally
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.
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
Sarah Beth Durst
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.
Find Sarah Beth Durst online
Rick Riordan
Rick Riordan writes bestselling urban fantasy books that revolve around current youngsters dealing with modern takes on mythological figures from Greek, Egyptian, and Norse mythology. His blockbuster Percy Jackson & the Olympians series is currently being developed as a Disney+ streaming TV show. His books have also inspired other media, including movies, comic books and short story collections.
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.
“Over the years, I’ve gotten many questions from my fans about whether I might write about various world mythologies,” Riordan says. “But in most cases I knew I wasn’t the best person to write those books. Much better, I thought, to use my experience and my platform at Disney to put the spotlight on other great writers who are actually from those cultures and know the mythologies better than I do. Let them tell their own stories, and I would do whatever I could to help those books find a wide audience!”
Find Rick Riordan online
Related links:
More Monster Complex lists with horror authors and books:
The Vampire Issue: Faith Hunter, L.A. Banks, Anne Rice, Buffy Vs. X-Files, More!
The Zombie Issue: Isaac Marion, Justina Ireland, Zombie Comedy Movies, More!
‘What We Do in the Shadows’ Fans—16 Vampire Books You Should Check Out
60+ Special Vampire Book Series—from Anne Rice, L.A. Banks, Charlaine Harris, more
25+ Indian Authors Who Write Science Fiction, Horror, and Urban Fantasy
Related links
The Urban Fantasy Subgenre, Explained (Game Rant)
27 Female Authors Who Rule Sci-Fi and Fantasy Right Now | EW.com (Entertainment Weekly)
Seanan McGuire's Personal Top 10 Urban Fantasy Books for Adults (Tor.com)
10 Books Like The Dresden Files (Book Riot)
10 Spellbinding Books Like the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (The Portalist)
Urban fantasy novels: why they matter and which ones to read first (The Mandarin)
'Sandman Slim' Is Urban Fantasy With Brains, Guts And A Blackened Heart (NPR)
Urban fantasy fiction: there's more to it than sex with were-leopards (The Guardian)
5 Shows That Prove You Love Urban Fantasy — and What to Read After Watching (POPSUGAR)
10 Urban Fantasy Books You Should Read If You Loved 'Jessica Jones' (Bustle)
Shows Like Lucifer That Urban Fantasy Fans Need To See (Looper)
Buffy The Vampire Slayer Fans Are Ready For Real Paranormal Romance (Bleeding Cool)
Exclusive interview with the author about her new urban fantasy that takes readers on thrilling journey into Bay Area’s supernatural underbelly. “Expect drama, romance, steamy sex, and heightened emotions—with Democracy hanging in the balance!”