Our Authors

Many Worlds is much more than a cycle of stories. Yet stories there are. Quiet, speculative tales which also face the passing surface of others, accounts both volatile and distant and grinding out their final moments in the void. And beautiful tales, though nothing is ever certain. There is a guiding hand, to be sure—a Simulacrum. But what in the worlds can be made of that?

Cadwell Turnbull is the founder and creative manager of Many Worlds. He is the author of the science fiction novels The Lesson and No Gods, No Monsters. His short fiction has appeared in The Verge, Lightspeed, Nightmare, Asimov’s Science Fiction and several anthologies, including The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018 and The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019. His debut novel The Lesson was a finalist for the Neukom Institute Literary Award, shortlisted for the VCU Cabell Award, and longlisted for the Massachusetts Book Award. Turnbull lives in Raleigh and teaches at North Carolina State University.

Josh Eure is the editorial manager of Many Worlds. His stories have won Asimov’s Dell Award and the Brenda L. Smart Prize and reached the finalist list in Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers. He has also won Sundress Publications’ Best of the Net Award and has appeared in Oxford American, Flame Tree Press, James Gunn’s Ad Astra, Surreal South, Southern Cultures, Raleigh Review, Black Sheep, and Not One of Us, among others. He was a finalist for the Piedmont Laureate. He is currently shopping a novel. He lives outside of Raleigh, NC with his wife and three children.

Theodore McCombs is the legal manager of Many Worlds. He is a writer in San Diego. His fiction and essays have appeared in Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy 2019, Guernica, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, Lit Hub, Electric Literature, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, among others. He is a 2017 graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Workshop. Find him at http://theodoremccombs.com or on Twitter @mrbruff.

Justin C. Key is a speculative fiction writer and psychiatrist whose short stories have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Tor.com, Escape Pod, and Lightspeed. A graduate of Clarion West, his debut short story collection The World Wasn't Ready For You is forthcoming from HarperCollins. When Justin isn’t writing, working with patients, or exploring Los Angeles with his wife, he’s chasing after his three young (and energetic!) children. You can follow his journey at justinckey.com and @JustinKey_MD on Twitter.

M. Darusha Wehm is the Nebula Award-nominated and Sir Julius Vogel Award winning author of the interactive fiction game The Martian Job, as well as the science fiction novels Beautiful Red, Children of Arkadia, The Voyage of the White Cloud, and the Andersson Dexter cyberpunk detective series. Their mainstream books include the Devi Jones’ Locker Young Adult series and the humorous coming-of-age novel The Home for Wayward Parrots. Darusha’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in many venues, including Terraform and Nature. Originally from Canada, Darusha lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand after spending several years sailing the Pacific.

Elizabeth (Betsy) Aoki is a poet, short story writer, and game producer. Her work has appeared and is forthcoming in Strange Horizons, Uncanny Magazine, Asimov’s Magazine of Science Fiction, and anthologized in Climbing Lightly Through Forests (Ursula K. Le Guin tribute poetry anthology). In 2021, she won the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize Honoring Jake Adam York, as selected by Jericho Brown. Her first poetry collection, Breakpoint, is a 2019 National Poetry Series Finalist and received the Patricia Bibby First Book Award. Breakpoint is forthcoming from Tebot Bach in 2022. You can find her tweeting at @baoki or contact her via her website at betsyaoki.com.

Smriti Ravindra is a Mumbai based Nepali writer. She is a Fulbright scholar and holds an MFA in creative writing from North Carolina State University. Her full length book, A Bad Boy’s Guide to a Good Indian Girl, co-authored with Annie Zaidi, was published by Zubaan in 2010 and was released in the U.S. by HarperVia in Summer 2022. Her debut novel, The Woman Who Climbed Trees (HarperCollins), was published in February 2023. Her works have appeared in various magazines, journals, and newspapers in India, Nepal, the US, and Australia, including in Fabula Argentia, 42 Magazine, Pratilipi, Annalemma, Out of Print, and Westerly Magazine, among others.

Rebekah Bergman is the author of the novel The Museum of Human History (Tin House, 2023). Her fiction has been published in Joyland, Tin House, The Masters Review Anthology, and other journals. She lives in Rhode Island with her family.

Mark Galarrita's writing can be found in McSweeney's, Electric Literature, Split Lip, The Wrath-Bearing Tree, and elsewhere. His play MANNY PACQUIAO PUNCHES THE WORLD BUT THE EARTH DOESN'T EVEN FLINCH was a finalist in the 2020 Arts in the Armed Forces contest judged by David Henry Hwang and the 2021 44th Annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Previously he was the Editor-In-Chief of The Whiting Award-winning journal: The Black Warrior Review. He is a graduate of the 2017 Clarion West Writers' Workshop and the University of Alabama MFA Program, where he was a McNair Fellow and a recipient of the Don F. Hendrie Jr. Short Story Prize.

Elizabeth Sinden Pipher is a graduate of the North Carolina State University MFA program. After a stint in the advertising world and a wonderful few years teaching literature to eighth graders, she now works at home on her novel and short stories, but mostly on raising her three young sons (one then twins!). When not rearing her boys or writing, she loves cooking, baking, hiking, sleeping, and using the restroom without an audience.

Craig Lincoln is a writer of science fiction and fantasy and a graduate from North Carolina State University, earning an MFA in Fiction. He has held a myriad of odd jobs, including but not limited to: bus boy, projectionist, cruise ship janitor, fast food worker, and an airplane refueler. His fiction has been published in places such as Daily Science Fiction and The Drabblecast. He currently resides in Durham, North Carolina with his wife, two kids, one dog, and various cheeses. You can find him on Twitter @craigabyte or at http://craig-lincoln.com.

Cliff Winnig writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror. His short fiction has appeared on the Escape Pod podcast and in magazines and anthologies, including Mad Scientist Journal, Footprints (Hadley Rille Books), and Straight Outta Deadwood (Baen Books). He is a graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop. When not writing, Cliff plays sitar, studies aikido and tai chi, sings in two different choirs, and does social dance, including ballroom, swing, and Argentine tango. He lives with his family in Silicon Valley, which constantly inspires him to think about the future. He can be found online at http://cliffwinnig.com.

Ben Murphy lives in North Carolina with his wife and a small menagerie. After a brief but fulfilling career as an unsuccessful rock star, he turned to writing. A graduate of the MFA program at North Carolina State University, where he now teaches composition, he is at work on a novel.

Shiv Ramdas is an Indian storyteller. His work has appeared in publications such as Strange Horizons, Slate, Fireside, Podcastle, and others, and he has been nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, and Ignyte Awards. You can find out more about him at https://shivramdas.net/ or find him tweeting as @nameshiv.

Elliot Richards was born in New York City but currently lives and writes on the island of St. Thomas. He’s currently enrolled in the undergraduate creative writing program at the University of the Virgin Islands, and his short fiction is soon to be published in The Caribbean Writer. In between classes, he’s also hard at work on his debut fantasy novel.

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam is the author of the short story collection Where You Linger & Other Stories and the novella Glorious Fiends. Her fiction has appeared in over 90 publications such as LeVar Burton Reads and Popular Science, as well as in six languages. By night, she has been a finalist for the Nebula Award. By day, she works as a Narrative Designer for mobile games. She lives in Texas with her partner and a mysterious number of cats.

Darkly Lem is five authors in an impeccably-tailored trenchcoat (Josh Eure, Craig Lincoln, Ben Murphy, Cadwell Turnbull, and M. Darusha Wehm). They live in an Earth-type locality in the Central Cluster with their five kids, several spouses, and a modest menagerie, where they are at work on Many Worlds novels.

Maria Haskins is a Swedish-Canadian writer and reviewer of speculative fiction. She lives just outside Vancouver with a husband, two children, several birds, a snake, and a black dog. Her short story collection Six Dreams About the Train & Other Stories was published in 2021. Her work has appeared in The Best Horror of the Year Volume 13, Black Static, Interzone, Fireside Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, LampLight, Flash Fiction Online, Strange Horizons, Bracken, Mythic Delirium, Shimmer, Cast of Wonders, PseudoPod, Escape Pod, The Deadlands, Diabolical Plots, Kaleidotrope, and elsewhere.

Misha Vaagen Lazzara is the author of the novel Manmade Constellations and the forthcoming Skipped a Generation. Her poetry and short stories have appeared on poets.org, Amethyst Review, October Hill Magazine and more. She has an MFA at NC State and currently teaches fiction writing at UNC Charlotte. Learn more at mishalazzara.com

Jendayi Brooks-Flemister is a queer, Black Afro-speculative fiction writer and a graduate from North Carolina State University's MFA program. Their work has appeared in Lightspeed, Asimov's, FIYAH, Constelación, and more. While they work in People Operations for their current career, they're also busy writing their debut novel (and squeaking out short stories on the side). They currently reside in Portland, OR where they've been engrossed in foraging, gaming, and finding the best coffee in town. Keep up with them on Twitter @jendayi_bf or jendayibrooksflemister.com

Veronica G. Henry is the author of Bacchanal, The Quarter Storm, and The Foreign Exchange in the Mambo Reina series. Her work has debuted at #1 on multiple Amazon bestseller charts, was chosen as an editors’ pick for Best African American Fantasy, and shortlisted for the Manly Wade Wellman Award. She is a Viable Paradise alum and a member of SFWA and MWA. Her stories have appeared in the Hugo Award winning FIYAH Literary Magazine.