Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond

N. K. Jemisin is the first author in history to win three consecutive Best Novel Hugo Awards, for her Broken Earth trilogy. She is a MacArthur 2020 Genius Grant Fellow. Her work has won the Nebula and Locus Awards, and the first book in her current Great Cities series, The City We Became, is a New York Times bestseller. Among other critical work, she was formerly the speculative book reviewer at the New York Times. In her spare time she's a gamer and gardener, responsible for saving the world from Ozymandias, her dangerously intelligent ginger cat, and his destructive sidekick Magpie. Essays and fiction excerpts are available at nkjemisin.com.

Victor LaValle is the author of The Changeling and The Ballad of Black Tom, among many other books. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a Whiting Writers' Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Shirley Jackson Award, and an American Book Award.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia is the author of The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, Velvet Was the Night, Mexican Gothic, Gods of Jade and Shadow, and many other books. She has won the Locus and British Fantasy awards for her work as a novelist, and the World Fantasy Award as an editor.

Called "violent, poetic, and compulsively readable" by Maclean's, science fiction author Tobias S. Buckell is a New York Times bestselling writer born in the Caribbean. He grew up in Grenada and spent time in the British and US Virgin Islands, and these places influence much of his work. His Xenowealth series begins with Crystal Rain. Along with other stand-alone novels and his more than fifty stories, Tobias's works have been translated into eighteen different languages. He has been nominated for such awards as the Hugo, Nebula, Prometheus, and John W. Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction Author. His latest original novels are Hurricane Fever, a follow-up to the successful Arctic Rising, which NPR says will "give you the shivers," and the acclaimed Halo: Envoy. He currently lives in Ohio, with his wife, twin daughters, and a pair of dogs. He can be found online at TobiasBuckell.com.

Nisi Shawl is a multiple-award-winning writer and editor. Their novel Everfair was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the short story collection Filter House won the James Tiptree Jr. Award. They cofounded the Carl Brandon Society to help give people of color greater visibility in the science fiction and fantasy worlds, and their "Writing the Other" workshops and accompanying book (cocreated with Cynthia Ward and K. Tempest Bradford) have taught thousands of writers new ways of thinking about diversity and representation within fiction.

Nisi received the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Speculation is their first novel for young readers. Born near Kalamazoo, Michigan, Nisi now lives near Seattle. Find them online at nisishawl.com and on Twitter at @nisishawl.

S.P. Somtow is the author of over forty books which have been translated into over a dozen languages. He has also published a few hundred shorter piece—fiction and nonfiction—under his birthname of Somtow Sucharitkul. He is also an internationally known composer and filmmaker. 

Eden Robinson is a member of the Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations, and has become one of Canada’s first female Native writers to gain international attention. Her 2000 novel, Monkey Beach, was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Award; it was the first English-language novel to be published by a Haisla writer. Traplines, her first book, was a collection of short stories published in 1995; it was a New York Times Editor’s Choice as well as a New York Times Notable Book. Her third work of fiction, Blood Sports, was released in 2006. Robinson lives in British Columbia.

Ibi Zoboi is the New York Times bestselling author of American Street, a National Book Award finalist; Nigeria Jones, a Coretta Scott King Award winner; Pride; My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich; Okoye to the People: A Black Panther Novel for Marvel; and the Walter Award and LA Times Book Prize–winning Punching the Air, cowritten with Exonerated Five member Yusef Salaam. She is also a two-time Coretta Scott King Honor Award winner for her picture book The People Remember and her middle grade biography of Octavia Butler, Star Child. She is the editor of the anthology Black Enough. Born in Haiti and raised in New York City, she now lives in New Jersey with her family. You can find her online at ibizoboi.net.

Sofia Samatar's first novel, A Stranger in Olondria, won the 2014 William L. Crawford Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, and was included in Time Magazine's list of the 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time. She also received the 2014 Astounding Award for Best New Writer. Her novel The Winged Histories completed the Olondria duology, and was followed by Tender: Stories, Monster Portraits (with the artist Del Samatar), and The White Mosque: A Memoir. Sofia lives in Virginia and teaches at James Madison University.

katherena vermette (she/her/hers) is a Red River Métis (Michif) writer from Treaty 1 territory, the heart of the Métis Nation, Winnipeg, Manitoba.

In 2013, her first book, North End Love Songs (The Muses’ Company) won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. Since then, her work has garnered awards and critical accolades across genres. Her novels The Break (House of Anansi) and The Strangers (Hamish Hamilton) were both national best sellers and won multiple literary awards.

She is the author of numerous other bestselling titles, including the A Girl Called Echo series (HighWater Press) and the Seven Teachings Stories series (HighWater Press).