Sunspot Jungle

by Bill Campbell

  Kristine Ong Muslim is the author of eight books of fiction and poetry, including the short story collections, Age of Blight (Unnamed Press, 2016) and Butterfly Dream (Snuggly Books, 2016), as well as the poetry collections, Lifeboat (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2015), Meditations of a Beast (Cornerstone Press, 2016), and Black Arcadia (University of the Philippines Press, 2017). She is poetry editor of LONTAR: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction, a literary journal published by Epigram Books in Singapore, and was co-editor with Nalo Hopkinson of the original fiction section of the Lightspeed Magazine special issue, People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction. Her stories recently appeared in Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk & Eco-Speculation (Upper Rubber Boot Books, 2017) and Weird Fiction Review. She grew up and continues to live in southern Philippines.

  Ramez Naam was born in Cairo, Egypt, and came to the US at the age of 3. He’s a computer scientist who spent 13 years at Microsoft, leading teams working on email, web browsing, search, and artificial intelligence. He holds almost 20 patents in those areas. Ramez is the winner of the 2005 H.G. Wells Award for his non-fiction book, More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement. He is also the author of The Nexus Trilogy, the first book of which, Nexus, was nominated for the Campbell Award and won the Prometheus Award. The third novel, Apex, won the Philip K. Dick Award.

  Shweta Narayan was born in India, has lived in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, Scotland, and California, and feels kinship with shapeshifters and other liminal beings. Their short fiction and poetry have appeared in places like Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, Tor.com, and the 2012 Nebula Showcase anthology. Shweta was a recipient of the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship. They’ve been mostly dead since 2010 but have a few stories in the works again and are trying not to do an Orpheus and look back.

  Iheoma Nwachukwu has won fellowships from the Michener Center for Writers and the Chinua Achebe Center for Writers, Bard College, New York. His fiction has appeared in The Iowa Review, The Southern Review, Black Renaissance Noire, and elsewhere. His poetry has been published in PRISM International, Rusty Toque, Forklift Ohio, and elsewhere. He has non-fiction in Electric Literature.

  Irenosen Okojie is a writer and Arts Project Manager. Her debut novel, Butterfly Fish, won a Betty Trask Award and was short-listed for an Edinburgh International First Book Award. Her work has been featured in The Observer,The Guardian, the BBC, and the Huffington Post, amongst other publications. Her short stories have been published internationally, including Salt’s Best British Short Stories 2017, Kwani?, and The Year’s Best Weird Fiction. She was presented at the London Short Story Festival by Ben Okri as a dynamic writing talent to watch and was featured in the Evening Standard Magazine as one of London’s exciting new authors. Her short story collection, Speak Gigantular (Jacaranda Books), was short-listed for the Edgehill Short Story Prize, the Jhalak Prize, the Saboteur Awards, and nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award.

  Malka Older is a writer, aid worker, and PhD candidate. Her science fiction political thriller, Infomocracy, was named one of the best books of 2016 by Kirkus, Book Riot, and the Washington Post, and the sequel, Null States, came out in September 2017. She was nominated for the 2016 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Named Senior Fellow for Technology and Risk at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs for 2015, she has more than a decade of experience in humanitarian aid and development. Her doctoral work on the sociology of organizations at the Institut d’Études Politques de Paris (Sciences Po) explores the dynamics of multi-level governance and disaster response using the cases of Hurricane Katrina and the Japan tsunami of 2011.

  Johary Ravaloson is an author and visual artist, in addition to his day job as a lawyer. Born in Antananarivo, Madagascar, in 1965, he lived and studied in Paris and Réunion before returning to his hometown in 2007. He has won numerous prizes for his novels and short stories, including the Grand Prix de l’Océan Indien and the Prix roman de la Réunion des livres. With his wife, the contemporary artist Sophie Bazin, he founded a new publishing house in the 2000s, starting a new trend of in-country publishing in Madagascar and Réunion. His most recent novel, Vol à vif, was published simultaneously in France and Madagascar in February 2016.

  Sarah Pinsker is the author of the Nebula winning novelette, Our Lady of the Open Road, and the Theodore Sturgeon Award-winning novelette, In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind. Her stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, and Uncanny, among others, and in anthologies, including Long Hidden and The New Voices of Fantasy. She is also a singer/songwriter and toured nationally behind three albums on various independent labels. A fourth is forthcoming. She lives with her wife and dog in Baltimore, Maryland. Find her online at sarahpinsker.com and on Twitter @sarahpinsker.

  SF writer Geoff Ryman was born in Canada in 1951, went to high school and college in the United States, and has lived most of his adult life in Britain. His longer works include The Unconquered Country, the novella version of which won the World Fantasy Award in 1985; The Child Garden, which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1990; the hypertext novel, 253, the “print remix” of which won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1999; and Air, which won the Arthur C. Clarke and James Tiptree, Jr. Awards in 2006. An early Web design professional, Ryman led the teams that designed the first web sites for the British monarchy and the Prime Minister’s office. He also has a lifelong interest in drama and film; his 1992 novel, Was, looks at America through the lens of The Wizard of Oz and has been adapted for the stage, and Ryman himself wrote and directed a stage adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s The Transmigration of Timothy Archer.

  Eve Shi is Indonesian, a lifelong fangirl, and writer. She has published six novels in Indonesian with more coming in 2018 and written several short stories in English. Since 2011 she has been the Indonesian municipal liaison for NaNoWriMo. You can reach her on Twitter at @Eve_Shi or via email at stormofblossoms@gmail.com.

  Angela Slatter’s debut novel, Vigil, was published by Jo Fletcher Books in 2016, with Corpselight following in 2017; Restoration is slated for release in 2018. She is the author of eight short story collections (two co-authored). Angela has won a World Fantasy Award, a British Fantasy Award, one Ditmar Award, and six Aurealis Awards. She has been a Queensland Writers Fellow, the Established Writer-in-Residence at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre, and has an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing. Her work has been translated into Bulgarian, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, Polish, Romanian, and French.

  Gabriel Teodros is a musician and writer from South Seattle who first made a mark with the group Abyssinian Creole, and reached an international audience with his critically-acclaimed solo debut, Lovework. In 2015, Teodros made his speculative fiction debut with a story published in Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, and in 2016 he graduated from the Clarion West Writers Workshop for Speculative Fiction. For more information log on to www.gabrielteodros.com

  Walter Tierno studied graphic arts and journalism and worked as an adman for almost twenty years. He has also taken his chances on comic books and theater projects. His first novel, Cira, was published in 2010, followed by Anardeus: In the Heat of Destruction in 2013. In 2016, he published the novel, Like a Tattoo. He is also the co-author of two coloring books, Love in Every Color and From Father to Son. Walter is an illustrator, an editor, a writer, and a very honest liar. He lives in São Paulo.

  Francesco Verso has published several novels, Antidoti Umani (finalist at 2004 Urania Mondadori Award), e-Doll (2008 Urania Mondadori Award), and Livido (aka Nexhuman in English; 2013 Odissea Award, 2014 Italia Award for Best SF Novel). In 2015 he won the Urania Award for the second time with BloodBusters. His stories have appeared in various Italian magazines (Robot, iComics, Fantasy Magazine, Futuri) and has been produced for the stage (The Milky Way); they have also been sold abroad (International Speculativ
e Fiction #5, Chicago Quarterly Review #20). In 2014 Verso founded Future Fiction (a book series by Mincione Edizioni), publishing the best speculative fiction from around the world.

  Bryan Thao Worra is author of Demonstra (2013); Barrow (2009); Winter Ink (2008); On the Other Side of the Eye (2007); and The Tuk-Tuk Diaries: Our Dinner with Cluster Bombs (2003). His work appears in over 100 international publications, including Astropoetica, Cha, Asian Pacific American Journal, Hyphen, Lantern Review, Kartika Review, Journal of the Asian American Renaissance, Expanded Horizons, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Strange Horizons, Tales of the Unanticipated, and Innsmouth Free Press. He was selected as a Cultural Olympian during the 2012 London Summer Olympics’ Poetry Parnassus convened by the Southbank Centre. He works on Lao and Southeast Asian American refugee resettlement issues across the United States.