Biographical note

Jesse J. Holland is a bestselling non-fiction author, longtime comic book and science-fiction fan, and the writer of the children's novel Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Finn's Story, co-author of the late, lamented-by-no-one-except-a-couple-of-diehard-fans collegiate comic strip Hippie and the Black Guy. He is a Race & Ethnicity reporter with The Associated Press in Washington, D.C and currently lives in Bowie, Maryland, with his wife and children. Sheree Renée Thomas is an award-winning fiction writer, poet, and editor. Her work is inspired by myth and folklore, natural science, and the genius of Mississippi Delta culture and conjure. Her fiction collection Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future (Third Man Books) was a finalist for the 2021 Locus and the 2021 Ignyte Awards. She is also the author of two hybrid collections, Sleeping Under the Tree of Life (Aqueduct Press), longlisted for the 2016 Otherwise Award, and Shotgun Lullabies (Aqueduct Press). She edited the two-time World Fantasy Award-winning, groundbreaking anthologies Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora (Warner Books) and Dark Matter: Reading the Bones (Warner Books), that first introduced W.E.B. Du Bois’ work as science fiction. She co-edited Trouble the Waters: Tales of the Deep Blue with Pan Morigan and Troy L. Wiggins (Third Man Books), and Africa Risen: A new Era of Speculative Fiction (Tordotcom) with Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and Zelda Knight, and she is a collaborator with Janelle Monáe on the New York Times-bestselling collection, The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer (Harper Voyager). Sheree is associate editor of Obsidian: Literature & the Arts in the African Diaspora, founded in 1975, and is the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, founded in 1949. Thomas’ work is widely anthologized, appearing most recently in The Big Book of Modern Fantasy (Vintage) and Marvels Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda (Titan). In 2020 she was honored to be named a finalist for the World Fantasy Award in the Special Award—Professional category for her contributions to the genre. In 2021 she joined the Curatorial Council of Carnegie Hall’s Afrofuturism exhibit sponsored by Bill T. Jones’ New York Live Arts and the Black Speculative Arts Movement. She was honored to serve as co-host of the 2021 Hugo Awards in Washington, D.C., with Malka Older. Sheree lives in her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, near a mighty river and a pyramid. Visit www.shereereneethomas.com