George Raymond Richard Martin also known by the initials G.R.R.M. is an American author, television writer, and television producer. He is best known as the author of the series of epic fantasy novels A Song of Ice and Fire, which were adapted into the Primetime Emmy Award–winning television series Game of Thrones (2011–2019) and its prequel series House of the Dragon (2022–present). He also helped create the Wild Cards anthology series and contributed worldbuilding for the video game Elden Ring (2022).
Constance Elaine Trimmer Willis, commonly known as Connie Willis, is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. She has won eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards for particular works—more major SF awards than any other writer—most recently the "Best Novel" Hugo and Nebula Awards for Blackout/All Clear (2010). She was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2009 and the Science Fiction Writers of America named her its 28th SFWA Grand Master in 2011.
Pagan Kennedy is an American columnist and author, and pioneer of the 1990s zine movement.
Hiram Frederick Moody III is an American novelist and short story writer best known for the 1994 novel The Ice Storm, a chronicle of the dissolution of two suburban Connecticut families over Thanksgiving weekend in 1973, which brought him widespread acclaim, became a bestseller, and was made into the film The Ice Storm. Many of his works have been praised by fellow writers and critics alike.
Wade Hampton Sides is an American historian, author and journalist. He is the author of Hellhound on His Trail,Ghost Soldiers,Blood and Thunder, On Desperate Ground, and other bestselling works of narrative history and literary non-fiction.
Linda K. Hogan is an American poet, storyteller, academic, playwright, novelist, environmentalist and writer of short stories. She previously served as the Chickasaw Nation's writer in residence. Hogan is a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry.
Ann Cummins is an American fiction writer. She was born in Durango, Colorado, and grew up in New Mexico. She is a graduate of writing programs at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Arizona. She is the author of a short story collection, Red Ant House (2003), and a novel, Yellowcake. Cummins lives in Flagstaff, Arizona, where she teaches creative writing at Northern Arizona University, and in Oakland, California, with her husband, the musician S. E. Willis.
Alan Stuart Cheuse was an American writer, editor, professor of literature, and radio commentator. A longtime NPR book commentator, he was also the author of five novels, five collections of short stories and novellas, a memoir and a collection of travel essays. In addition, Cheuse was a regular contributor to All Things Considered. His short fiction appeared in respected publications like The New Yorker, Ploughshares, The Antioch Review, Prairie Schooner, among other places. He taught in the Writing Program at George Mason University and the Community of Writers.
Lucia Brown Berlin was an American short story writer. She had a small, devoted following, but did not reach a mass audience during her lifetime. She rose to sudden literary fame in 2015, eleven years after her death, with the publication of a volume of her selected stories, A Manual for Cleaning Women. It hit The New York Times bestseller list in its second week, and within a few weeks had outsold all her previous books combined.
Andrew Foster Altschul is an American fiction writer. He is the author of the novels Deus Ex Machina, Lady Lazarus, and The Gringa and his short fiction and essays have been published in Esquire, McSweeney's, Ploughshares, Fence, and One Story. His short story "Embarazada" was selected for Best American Nonrequired Reading 2014 and his short story "A New Kind of Gravity" was anthologized in both Best New American Voices 2006 and the O.Henry Prize Stories 2007.
Pam Houston is an American author of short stories, novels and essays. She is best known for her first book, Cowboys Are My Weakness (1992), which has been translated into nine languages, and which won the 1993 Western States Book Award. Also, "Cowboys Are My Weakness" was named a New York Times Notable Book in 1992.
Tara Ison is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist.
Wendy C. Ortiz is an American essayist, creative nonfiction writer, fiction writer, psychotherapist, and poet.
Angela Flournoy is an American writer. Her debut novel The Turner House (2015) won the First Novelist Award and was shortlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction, shortlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, nominated for an NAACP Image Award, and named a New York Times Notable Book of 2015. She was also listed on the National Book Awards' 5 under 35 list, nominated by her former teacher ZZ Packer.
Kanza Javed is a Pakistani author and poet, best known for her novel, Ashes, Wine and Dust and various short stories.
The Santa Fe Writers Project (SFWP) was founded in 1998 by Andrew Gifford. It began as a small effort supported by writers and arts advocates, and has since grown into a well-known independent press. SFWP hosts a literary awards program which has been judged by Deesha Philyaw, and an online journal.
Andrew Nash Gifford is an American publisher born in Washington, D.C. He is most known for founding Santa Fe Writers Project, an independent press. Gifford is also the author of the memoir We All Scream which details his family story; Gifford is the grandson of John Nash Gifford, the founder of Gifford's Ice Cream & Candy Co.
Deesha Philyaw is an American author, columnist, and public speaker.
Alison Stine is an American poet and author whose first novel Road Out of Winter won the 2021 Philip K. Dick Award. Her poetry and nonfiction has been published in a number of newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Paris Review, and Tin House.
Phyllis Barber is a writer of fiction and non-fiction, often set in the Western United States. She was raised in Boulder City, Nevada and Las Vegas as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She studied piano at Brigham Young University and moved to Palo Alto, California where her husband studied law at Stanford. There Barber finished her degree in piano at San Jose State College in 1967, and taught and performed piano in California. She studied creative writing at the University of Utah and received an MFA in writing from Vermont College in 1984. She started her writing career by publishing short stories in journals and magazines in the 1980s.
