Our Crew

CO-EDITOR: Mur Lafferty (she/her)

Mur Lafferty is an author and pioneer podcaster who has been involved with Escape Artists since nearly the beginning (after Serah Eley Fed-Ex’d brownies to her as a bribe Mur Lafferty phototo spread the word about this new podcast magazine format). She was one of the founding editors of Pseudopod, editor of Escape Pod for a time, and then founder and editor of Mothership Zeta, the quarterly ezine for Escape Artists. She (along with SB Divya) has been nominated twice for the Hugo Award for Best Editor (short form) (’21, ’22).

She is currently the co-host (with Matt Wallace) of Ditch Diggers, a Hugo Award winner for Best Fancast, and the author of the Hugo and Nebula nominated science fiction murder mystery Six Wakes, out from Orbit. Her newest book, Station Eternity, came out in October 2022.

CO-EDITOR: Valerie Valdes (she/her)

Valerie Valdes lives in an elaborate meme palace with her husband and kids, where she writes, edits and moonlights as a muse. She enjoys crafting bespoke artisanal curses, playing with swords, and admiring the outdoors from the safety of her living room. Her debut novel Chilling Effect was shortlisted for the 2021 Arthur C. Clarke Award, and was also named one of Library Journal’s best SF/fantasy novels of 2019. Her short fiction and poetry have been featured in Uncanny Magazine, Time Travel Short Stories and Nightmare Magazine.

Join her in opining about books, video games and parenting on Twitter @valerievaldes or find links to her work at http://candleinsunshine.com/.

 

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Kevin Wabaunsee (he/him)

Kevin Wabaunsee is speculative fiction writer and a former newspaper reporter on the health and medical beat. He is currently an editor and communications director at a university medical school, and is the former managing editor for Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). He is a Prairie Band Potawatomi.

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Phoebe Barton (she/her)

Phoebe BartonPhoebe Barton is a queer trans science fiction writer who has been an associate editor at Escape Pod for years. Her short fiction has appeared in venues such as Analog, Lightspeed, and F&SF, and she is a Nebula Award finalist and Aurora Award winner. She lives with her family, a robot, and many books under a mountain in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Find her at www.phoebebartonsf.com.

 

HOST: Tina Connolly (she/her)

Tina Connolly’s books include the Ironskin and Seriously Wicked series, and the collection On the Eyeball Floor. She has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. She co-hosts Escape Pod, runs the Toasted Cake podcast, and is at tinaconnolly.com.

 

HOST: Alasdair Stuart (he/him)

Alasdair Stuart is a professional enthusiast, pop culture analyst, writer and voice actor. He co-owns the Escape Artists podcasts and co-hosts both Escape Pod and PseudoPod.

Alasdair is an Audioverse Award winner, a multiple award finalist including the Hugo, the Ignyte, and the BFA, and has won the Karl Edward Wagner award twice. He writes the multiple-award nominated weekly pop culture newsletter THE FULL LID.

Alasdair’s latest non-fiction is Through the Valley of Shadows, a deep-dive into the origins of Star Trek’s Captain Pike from Obverse Books. His game writing includes ENie-nominated work on the Doctor Who RPG and After The War from Genesis of Legend.

A frequent podcast guest, Alasdair also co-hosts Caring Into the Void with Brock Wilbur and Jordan Shiveley. His voice acting credits include the multiple-award winning The Magnus Archives, The Secret of St. Kilda, and many more.

Visit alasdairstuart.com for all the places he blogs, writes, streams, acts, and tweets.

AUDIO PRODUCER: Adam Pracht (he/him)

Adam Pracht lives in Kansas, but asks that you not hold that against him. He was the 2002 college recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy award for writing about the disadvantaged and has published a disappointingly slim volume of short stories called “Frame Story: Seven Stories of Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Horror & Humor” which is available from Amazon as an e-Book or in paperback.

He’s been working on his second volume – “Schrödinger’s Zombie: Seven Weird and Wonderful Tales of the Undead” – since 2012 and successfully finished the first story. He hopes to complete it before he’s cremated and takes up permanent residence in an urn.

AUDIO PRODUCER: Summer Brooks (she/her)

Summer BrooksSummer Brooks is a story addict who watches way too much television. She enjoys putting her encyclopedic knowledge to the test during discussions and interviews about scifi, horror and comics, and does so as the longtime host and producer of Slice of SciFi, and as co-host of The Babylon Podcast.

Summer also does voiceovers & narrations for Tales to Terrify, StarShipSofa and Escape Pod, among others, and is an avid reader and writer of science fiction, fantasy and thrillers, with a handful of publishing credits to her name. Next on her agenda is writing an urban fantasy tale, and a monster movie creature feature or two.

 

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Marcus Tsong (he/him)

Marcus Tsong is a longtime Dungeon Master and faithful servant of the Fantasy and Horror Genre Gods. He has lived in Seattle, Boise, San Francisco, Madison, Portland OR, Shanghai, Brooklyn, and is aware this sounds like a Huey Lewis song. Currently he is working on a doorstop sized fantasy novel, and a collection of weird fiction.

He also moderates a novel writing workshop for the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers Meetup group, and his story “Knowing You, Knowing Me” is available in Season One of BSFW’s podcast, the Kaleidocast.

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko (he/him)

Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko is a Slovenian-born writer and translator. He grew up in Slovenia, Ireland, Australia, and the UK, and currently resides just outside Portland, Maine. He understands that his name is a bit confusing and would like you to know that “Drnovšek Zorko” is the surname. He attended Clarion West in 2019, and his work has appeared in venues like Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Strange Horizons. In his spare time he is a keen quizzer—British readers may recognise him from that one time he was on University Challenge. Follow him on Twitter @filiphdz.

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Ewen Ma (they/he)

Ewen Ma was made in Hong Kong but now lives in London, where they write speculative fiction and poetry, devise theatre, and haunt cemetery parks. Their work can be found in Uncanny, The Deadlands, Fusion Fragment, Anathema, and Apparition Lit (among other places), and has been shortlisted for the inaugural Future Worlds Prize in 2020. Ewen is also a 2018 Clarion West graduate and a lapsed Film & Visual Culture research student. Catch Ewen online at http://ewenma.com or on Twitter at @awenigma.

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Christine Amsden (she/her)

Christine Amsden is the author of nine award-winning fantasy and science fiction novels, including the Cassie Scot Series. In addition to writing, she is a freelance editor and political activist. Disability advocacy is of particular interest to her; she has a rare genetic eye condition called Stargardt Macular Degeneration and has been legally blind since the age of eighteen. In her free time, she enjoys role playing, board games, and a good cup of tea. She lives in the Kansas City area with her husband and two kids.

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Rick Danforth (he/him)

Rick Danforth is an author from Yorkshire, England, where he works as a Systems Architect to fund his writing habit. His short fiction can be found in Hexagon, Translunar Traveller’s Lounge, and many other places. Two of his stories have been shortlisted for BSFA awards. He one day hopes to introduce himself as an author without feeling awkward about it.

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Michael A. Pepin (he/him)

Michael is a SciFi/Fantasy writer living in Austin, TX with four snakes, two cats, and a wife. There are thirty-seven unused leather-bound journals of various sizes cluttering his desk. He is a former English literature teacher and SPED Life Skills assistant, and brings this perspective to his speculative fiction. Apart from writing, he is a huge fan of indie video games ranging from Stardew Valley to The Binding of Isaac. You can find him at the nearest renaissance festival or his website at www.mpepinwriter.com.

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: EA Crawley (they/them)

EA Crawley is nonbinary/transmasc writer, editor, and writing coach with an interest in all things SFF as well as interdisciplinary, social justice-oriented humanities texts. They have a Ph.D. in anti-colonial British history and science and technology studies and attended Clarion West 2019. In their spare time, they are an avid forest walker, pretty damn good vegetarian chef, and enthusiastic but floppy runner. Originally from the Midwest, they now live on Duwamish ancestral lands near Seattle. You can find them online at www.lodestareac.com.

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Abhijeet (he/him)

Abhijeet is a writer and only technically an engineer. His work has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Translunar Travelers Lounge, The Bombay Literary Magazine and more. He is part of the Viable Paradise 2025 cohort. You can find him at the eternally WIP abhijeetmakesthings.com or posting unsolicited book review livethreads at @bingingout.bsky.social

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Sarah Loch (she/her)

Sarah Loch headshotSarah Loch is a queer writer, editor, and recovering librarian who has been in love with genre fiction since reading Madeleine L’Engle in the book aisle while waiting for her parents to finish shopping. She is the author of 8 indie-published books under various pseudonyms, and her shorter work has appeared in Nerdist, Decoded Pride, and VOIDJUNK. She lives in Arkansas with her partner, a passel of children, and an extremely fluffy bunny.

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Phoenix Alexander (he/him)

Phoenix Alexander headshotPhoenix Alexander (he/him) is a queer, Greek-Cypriot writer, scholar, and curator of SF/F. In his day job he stewards the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy at UC Riverside – one of the world’s largest repositories of genre materials – and serves as Editor-in-Chief of Vector: the Journal of the British Science Fiction Association. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Lightspeed, F&SF, The Dark, The Deadlands, and other places. He lives with his partner and their assorted furbabies in Southern California.

 

 

 

 


ALUMNI

EDITOR: Serah Eley (2005-2010)
EDITOR: Jeremiah Tolbert (2009-2010)
EDITOR: Norm Sherman (2013-2017)
EDITOR: S.B. Divya (2017-2022)

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Nathaniel Lee
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Benjamin C. Kinney (2017-2023)
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Premee Mohamed (2021-2025)

AUDIO PRODUCER: Mat Weller

COMMUNITY MANAGERS: Eytan Zweig (eytanz), Marshal Latham (Swamp)

ASSOCIATE EDITORS:

Rachael K. Jones
Hillary Brannon
Shane Halbach
Sarah Gailey
Erin Roberts
Darcie Little Badger
Santiago Bellucco
Peter Behravesh
Remy Nakamura
Zin Rocklyn
Laura Pearlman
Anya Khongthavornpipat
S. Kay Nash
J.R. Dawson
Lillian Boyd
Izzy Wasserstein
James Beamon
LP Kindred
Sandy Parsons
Shiv Ramdas
Karlo Yeager Rodriguez
Justin C. Key
Darusha Wehm
J.B. Manipal
Langley Hyde
Wil Ralston
Sidd Krishnan
Alan Mark Tong
J.M. Coster
Bria Strothers
Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe
Ethan Mills
Markus Wessel
Sarah Kumari
Emile Lin
Macky Cruz
Yoon Ha Lee
Nika Murphy
Vivian Chou
AJ Knights

 

Please note: this is an incomplete list. If you’re part of the Escape Pod alumni and wish to be included please let us know!