 Terry Pratchett once said that "J.R.R. Tolkien has become a sort of mountain, appearing in all subsequent fantasy in the way that Mt. Fuji appears so often in Japanese prints." But the world is bigger than Middle Earth and many artists write stories from a perspective where, instead of Mt. Fuji, they see Mount Kilimanjaro, Mauna Kea, the Andes, or other landmarks. We demand stories that expand their worldbuilding beyond Tolkien- to Asia, Africa, the Americas and elsewhere. We demand stories that take us out of fantasy's comfort zone. Dr. Joy Sanchez-Taylor is a Professor of English at LaGuardia Community College (CUNY) whose research interest is science fiction and fantasy literature by authors of color. Her first book Diverse Futures: Science Fiction and Authors of Color (2021) examines the contributions of late twentieth and twenty-first century U.S. and Canadian science fiction authors of color to the genre. Her newest book is titled Dispelling Fantasies: Authors of Color Reimagine a Genre (July 2025). Chelsea Abdullah is the award-winning author of The Sandsea Trilogy, an epic fantasy series that begins with The Stardust Thief. An American-Kuwaiti writer born and raised in Kuwait, she grew up listening to stories about mysterious desert creatures and wily (only sometimes likable) heroes. Consumed by wanderlust, she has put down roots in various states. After earning her MA in English at Duquesne University, she moved to the East Coast, where she currently lives. When not immersed in her own fictional worlds, she spends her free time playing video games, doodling characters, and hoarding books she doesn’t have the shelf space for." C. S. E. Cooney (she/her) is a two-time World Fantasy Award-winning author: for novel Saint Death’s Daughter, and collection Bone Swans, Stories. Other work includes The Twice-Drowned Saint, Dark Breakers, and Desdemona and the Deep. Just out in April 2025: Saint Death’s Herald, second in the Saint Death Series. As a voice actor, Cooney has narrated over 120 audiobooks, and short fiction for podcasts like Uncanny Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Tales to Terrify, and Podcastle. In March 2023, she produced her collaborative sci-fi musical, Ballads from a Distant Star, at New York City’s Arts on Site. (Find her music at Bandcamp under Brimstone Rhine.) Forthcoming from Outland Entertainment is the GM-less TTRPG Negocios Infernales (“the Spanish Inquisition… INTERRUPTED by aliens!”), co-designed with her husband, writer and game-designer Carlos Hernandez. Find her website and Substack newsetter via her Linktree or try “csecooney” on various social media platforms. Carlos Hernandez is the author of the critically acclaimed short story collection The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria (Rosarium, 2016), the novel Sal and Gabi Break the Universe (Disney Hyperion, 2019), which won the 2019 Pura Belpré Award from the American Library Association, and its sequel, Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe (2020).
He's also written dozens of short stories, poems, and works of drama, usually in the SFF mode, which have found homes in magazines such as Uncanny, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, the New York Times Bestselling The Cursed Carnival and Other Calamities, and many others. Recently, he's written several one-shots for Marvel Comics, both in-print and in digital formats, as well as a three-story arc for them for the Strange Academy line. Carlos earned his Ph. D. in English, with an emphasis in Creative Writing, from Binghamton University in 2000. He is Professor of English at the City University of New York (CUNY), where he teaches Composition, Creative Writing, Science Fiction, and other courses at BMCC. Carlos has been a Visiting Professor of English at Western Colorado University's Graduate Creative Writing Program, and more regularly teaches graduate classes at the CUNY Graduate Center, where he runs courses in the Interactive Technology and Pedagogy Program. His academic interests have centered around game-based learning in postsecondary environments; since 2008, he has worked extensively in game writing and game design. He has served as lead writer and a game designer on the CRPG Meriwether, as a writer and designer for the installation art of Mary Miss, and as literary curator on the Apple Arcade game Dear Reader, among other video games. As a co-founder of the CUNY Games Network and of the Board Game Designers Group of New York, he's contributed to the development of many board and card games, both educational and commercial. Most recently, he and his wife, award-winning author C. S. E. Cooney, have successfully Kickstarted their GM-less roleplaying game Negocios Infernales, which will be published by Outland Entertainment in 2025.
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