Authors in This Issue
Allen M. Steele has been a frequent contributor to Asimov’s beginning with his first published story, “Live from the Mars Hotel” (Mid-December 1988). Dozens more stories have appeared in this magazine over past thirty-five years, including three that have received Hugo awards. Before becoming a science fiction writer, he was a journalist and investigative reporter. Allen’s latest tale was inspired by Martin Caidin’s Ghosts of the Air (Bantam, 1991), a nonfiction account of unsolved aeronautical mysteries that includes aircraft disappearances. He tells us, “Reading this book, I began to wonder, now that space tourism has become a reality and adventure flights to the Moon are being proposed by private space carriers, how long it will be before we lose a manned spacecraft for reasons no one can explain.”
Andy Dudak’s stories have appeared in Clarkesworld, Analog, F&SF, Apex, Interzone, and Year’s Best anthologies edited by Neil Clarke, Jonathan Strahan, and Rich Horton. He’s been a finalist for the Eugie Foster Award, and his translations of Chinese science fiction have been published widely, including here at Asimov’s.
Garcia y Robertson, “Mars Gambit” is a prequel to “The Girl Who Stole Herself “ (July/August, 2017), “Grand Theft Spacecraft” (September/October, 2017), and all the stories that have followed. The pawn opening in this tale is one that the author used on his high school chess team.
Tom Purdom’s byline has been appearing on contents pages for over sixty-five years. He’s been a regular contributor to Asimov’s for over thirty years and reprints of his Asimov’s stories can be found in two collections published by Fantastic Press and major anthologies like Gardner Dozois’s best-of-the year series. He usually writes about futures that are nicer than the present, but he’s well aware there’s no guarantee the world will continue to improve. Tom was born in the middle of the Great Depression, in 1936. He has lived through all the conflicts, upheavals, and follies that have enlivened the last eighty-seven years. Every now and then his imagination presents him with stories like this trek across a future New Jersey.
Ursula Whitcher (superyarn on Twitterand @yarntheory@ wandering.shop on Mastodon) is a mathematician, editor, and poet whose writing can be found everywhere from the magazine Cossmass Infinities or the anthology Climbing Lightly Through Forests to the American Mathematical Society’s Feature Column. Find more of Ursula’s projects at yarntheory.net. Reading a history dissertation about Sufi mystics while riding the train to National Science Foundation headquarters inspired this story about an administrator on a distant planet.
Sandra McDonald is a former military officer, Hollywood assistant, and college instructor, with over one hundred stories in print in magazines, anthologies, and annual collections ofbest fiction. Her writing spans the genres of romance, humor, history, fantasy, science fiction, and YA fiction, with awards including the Lambda Literary Award, Booklist Editor’s Choice, ALA Over the Rainbow, and multiple Tiptree/Otherwise honorable mentions. She mostly resides in Florida, overseeing a large collection of children, cats, books, and art supplies. Her “Sexy Robot” series looks at human-robot relations from a variety of gender and orientation lenses, including gay and intersex (“Sexy Robot Mom” Asimov’s, April/May 2012), polyamory (“Seven Sexy Cowboy Robots”) and transgender (“Sexy Robot Heroes.”) This latest installment was inspired, she says, by the daydream of owning a Manhattan classic six apartment overlooking the East River with a particularly handsome neighbor.
For those playing along at home: Zack Be’s first pro sale “True Jing” appeared in Asimov’s in the July/August 2018 issue, the same month he began his graduate school training to become a psychotherapist. Five years and many exams later, he is both fully licensed and excited to share his fourth Asimov’s story, which draws directly on his professional training. Zack’s writing has also appeared or is forthcoming in Analog and Writers of the Future vol. 36, and he is the editor of Inner Workings, an upcoming anthology of SFF short fiction and craft essays. Last ear, his band Pretty Bitter released their lp Hinges on all streaming platforms. More information about his writing and music can be found at <zackbe.com>, and he can be found anywhere @bezackbe. In the following tale, a disgraced terraformer seeks out a dangerous ritual on a forgotten highway.
Bill Johnson won the Hugo Award in 1988 for his novelette “We Will Drink a Fish Together” (May, 1997). He was working on this collaborative tale with Gregory Frost when he passed away in 2022. It is his and Greg’s second collaboration for Asimov’s. The first, “Three Can Keep a Secret . . .” appeared in our March/April 2017 issue.
Gregory Frost has won an Asimov Readers Award and been a finalist for Best Novel and/or Best Short Story for the World Fantasy, Stoker, Nebula, Hugo, James Tiptree, International Horror Guild, and Theodore Sturgeon awards. His short fiction has also appeared in Weird Tales, F&SF, and in many anthologies. His latest novel, Rhymer, is due out in June 2023 from Baen Books. He’s online at gregoryfrost.com, on Instagram at gregory_frost1, and Facebook at gregory.frost1. His second Asimov’s collaboration with Bill Johnson began as a conversation about the coldest spot in the Universe, which led the authors (and their team of researchers) to the beautiful, and dangerous, nebula.
Lavie Tidhar is the author of the World Fantasy Award winning Osama and the Campbell Award winning Central Station, along with many other recent novels. His latest, Neom, began as a short story in Asimov’s. “Zoo Station,” he tells us, was inspired by reading about the challenges of raising livestock in space, which combined improbably with discovering Fredric Brown’s classic story “The Last Train.” Somehow, the two fused together, and this was the result.
Chris Willrich’s stories have appeared in such places as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Clarkesworld, F&SF, Lightspeed, and Tales from the Magician’s Skull. His books include The Scroll of Years and its sequels. You can find him on the web at chriswillrich.com or on Twitter as @LibrarianGoblin. The author’s latest tale for Asimov’s is about a young woman defying the forces seeking to dominate her.