Christina Trujillo was a semi-finalist in the 2013 Galaxy Press Writers of the Future competition, a recipient of the Glimmer Train 2013 Top 25 in Short Story Award for New Writers, and a 2020 Hermana with Las Musas. Her YA novels Burnt and What Remains have been long-listed for the Voyage Summer 2021 and Spring 2021 First Chapter Contests. Her work has appeared in Dark Phrases, Glassworks Magazine, Gingerbread House, and Dynamite Entertainment. When not writing, Christina teaches English, enjoys hanging out with her two cats, and loves cooking (but not baking — she’s not allowed to bake. Not after The Incident)

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Will Tulin is an actor, voice artist, writer, and speculative fiction fanatic. He recently completed work on the animated feature, “Eden,” and had an appearance in “The Grift,” for La Jolla playhouse. Will currently splits his time between Los Angeles and the Biggest Little City in the World.

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Celeste Tyler is an author of the weird, wild, and wonderful. Her stories have (literally) taken her across the Sahara on the back of a camel, sky high on aerial silks, and aboard a replica 18th century tall ship. She is a graduate of the 2019 Odyssey Writing Workshop and her fiction has been published in Fantasy Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and PodCastle. She currently resides in Colorado with her 10/10 husband, three marvelous children, and a bearded dragon that goes by the name Divine Beast Vah Rudania.

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Eve Upton is huddled in the darkness of the cupboard. She appears to be scratching words into the floor. Upon closer inspection, they say: nolite the bastardes carborundorum.

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Valerie Valdes lives in an elaborate meme palace with her husband and kids, where she writes, edits and moonlights as a muse. When she isn’t co-editing Escape Pod, she enjoys crafting bespoke artisanal curses, playing video games, and admiring the outdoors from the safety of her living room. Her debut novel Chilling Effect was shortlisted for the 2021 Arthur C. Clarke Award, and her short fiction and poetry have been featured in Uncanny Magazine, Magic: the Gathering and several anthologies. Writing as Lia Amador, her first contemporary fantasy romance novel, Witch You Would, is forthcoming from Avon Books in September 2025.

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Catherynne M. Valente is the New York Times bestselling author of over two dozen works of fiction and poetry, including Palimpsest, the Orphan’s Tales series, Deathless, Radiance, and the crowdfunded phenomenon The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Own Making (and the four books that followed it). She is the winner of the Andre Norton, Tiptree, Sturgeon, Prix Imaginales, Eugie Foster Memorial, Mythopoeic, Rhysling, Lambda, Locus, Romantic Times’ Critics Choice and Hugo awards. She has been a finalist for the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. She lives on an island off the coast of Maine with a small but growing menagerie of beasts, some of which are human.

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Genevieve Valentine is the author of Two Graves, alongside artists Ming Doyle and Annie Wu. Her novels include Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, The Girls at the Kingfisher Club, Persona, and Icon; she is the recipient of the Crawford Award for best first novel, and has been shortlisted for the Nebula, Locus, Shirley Jackson, and World Fantasy awards. Her comics work includes Catwoman, Ghost in the Shell, and Batman and Robin Eternal. Her short stories have appeared in over a dozen Best of the Year anthologies, including Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her cultural criticism has appeared at http://NPR.org , The AV Club, LA Review of Books, Vice, Vox, and The New York Times, among others.

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Jeffrey Valka is the author of Dragonfly Heart: A Collection of Short Fiction.

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Greg van Eekhout is the author of stories and novels for adults and middle-grade audiences. His work has been nominated for the Nebula, Andre Norton, and Locus Awards.

His most recent work is the Daniel Blackland trilogy from Tor Books — California Bones, Pacific Fire, and Dragon Coast — about wizards who get their powers from eating the bones of extinct magical creatures. “The Authenticator” and “The Osteomancer’s Son” (previously featured on PodCastle) take place in the Daniel Blackland universe.

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