The Functional Nerds Podcast Creators & Guests

Patrick Hester is an author of science fiction and fantasy fiction, a blogger, and a podcaster. He produced and hosted the podcast "SFSignal," produced the podcast "‘I Should Be Writing," and produces and hosts the podcast "Functional Nerds."Hester's stories have been collected in anthologies. He has published five ebooks. His first paperback, "Into the Fire," was published in 2017.

Stephen Graham Jones is an author of experimental fiction, horror fiction, crime fiction, and science fiction.

"Kate Elliott" is the pseudonym of fantasy and science fiction writer Alis A. Rasmussen.Rasmussen's first novel, "The Labyrinth Gate," was published in 1988 under her own name. She published three more novels under her own name before switching to Kate Elliott.

Marie Brennan is the pseudonym of Bryn Neuenschwander, an author of fantasy fiction.Previously, Brennan was an anthropologist and folklorist, and was pursuing her PhD at Indiana University Bloomington before she became a full-time writer.Brennan has published over sixty short stories and eleven books in the Victorian adventure series The Memoirs of Lady Trent, the Onyx Court series, and the Rook & Rose series, as well as two non-series novels. She wrote three non-fiction guides to world-building for writers. She is also a co-author of the books published under the pseudonym M. A. Carrick.

Jason Sanford is a science fiction author. He is best known for his short stories.Sanford's fiction has appeared in Interzone, Asimov's Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Year's Best SF 14, InterGalactic Medicine Show, and other anthologies. His first novel, "Plague Birds," was published in 2021. Sanford founded the magazine storySouth and ran their annual Million Writers Award for best online short stories.

Ursula Vernon is a writer, artist, and illustrator. She is best known for her graphic novel "Digger" (2003–2011) and for her children's books series "Hamster Princess and Dragonbreath." Under the name T. Kingfisher, she is also the author of books for older audiences.

Robert H. "Rob" Reid is an American author and entrepreneur. He is the author of two cyberthriller novels, Year Zero: A Novel and After On: A Novel of Silicon Valley. He also wrote a non-fiction book, Architects of the Web, which is about the rise of the internet business.

Elizabeth Bear is an author who works primarily in speculative fiction genres.

Leanna Renee Hieber is a writer and author of the book A Summoning of Souls.

Aliette de Bodard is a science fiction writer. Although French is her first language, she writes in English.de Bodard works as a software engineer specialising in image processing.de Bodard is a graduate of École Polytechnique.

Catherynne M. Valente is a writer, poet, and literary critic. She is best known for her speculative fiction novels, and for having coined the term "mythpunk."Valente has published six novels, and her stories have appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine and in anthologies.Valente was born and raised in Seattle. She attended the University of California at San Diego and Edinburgh University. She received her B.A. in Classics.

Rena Mason is a writer of horror fiction and dark speculative fiction.Mason's stories have appeared in Weird Tales, Nightmare Magazine, Tales to Terrify, and in many anthologies. Her first book, "The Evolutionist," was published in 2013 and won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel.

Anaea Lay is a writer and podcaster.Lay is the fiction editor and narrator of the podcast Strange Horizons. She is the president of the Dream Foundry, an organization dedicated to bolstering and nurturing the careers of nascent professionals working with the speculative arts.Lay's work has appeared in Nightmare, Lightspeed, Apex, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Pod Castle. Her first novel, "Gilded Rails," was published in 2018.

Nancy Kress is a science fiction author, best known for her 1991 novella "Beggars in Spain."Kress began writing in 1976. She won her first Hugo Award in 1986. She has published over thirty novels and hundreds of short stories, and she is a regular columnist for Writer's Digest. She is a regular at Clarion writing workshops.In 2008/09, Kress was the Picador Guest Professor for Literature at the University of Leipzig's Institute for American Studies in Leipzig, Germany.

Nisi Shawl is a writer, editor, and journalist. They are best known as an author of science fiction and fantasy short stories. In addition to writing, they teach about how fantastic fiction might reflect real-world diversity of gender, sexual orientation, race, colonialism, physical ability, age, and other sociocultural factors.Shawl's short stories have appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, the Infinite Matrix, Strange Horizons, and Semiotext(e). Their first collection, "Filter House," was published in 2008, and won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. Their first novel, "Everfair," was published in 2016 and was nominated for a Nebula Award.With with Cynthia Ward, Shawl co-authored the creative-writing handbook "Writing the Other: Bridging Cultural Differences for Successful Fiction." The book is derived from the authors' workshop of the same name, in which participants explore techniques to help them write credible characters outside their own cultural experience. It received special mention for the James Tiptree Jr. Award.

Alix E. Harrow is a writer and author of the book The Once and Future Witches.

Fran Wilde is a science fiction and fantasy fiction author.Wilde's work has appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Tor.com, and Nature Magazine. Her first novel, "Updraft," was published in 2015.Wilde received a B.A. in English from the University of Virginia, an M.F.A. in Poetry from Warren Wilson College, and a master's degree in information architecture and interaction design from the University of Baltimore.

Kat is a London-based Greek/Serbian speculative writer and podcaster. She is a Hugo Award winning podcast editor for Strange Horizons magazine, hosts and produces The Write Song podcast, and also organises Spectrum, the largest critique group for science fiction and fantasy writers in the UK.

Tobias S. Buckell is a science fiction writer. His 2008 novel, Halo: The Cole Protocol, made The New York Times Best Seller list.