CO-EDITOR: Mur Lafferty (she/her)
An inaugural inductee of the Podcast Academy’s Hall of Fame, Mur Lafferty began podcasting in 2004 and later built her writing career from her work as a science fiction podcaster. 
As of 2026, Mur has written ten novels, eight novellas, and one nonfiction book. Her work has ranged from Star Wars to superhero fiction to afterlife fiction to paranormal fantasy to space murder–plus one book supporting writers based on her award winning podcast.
After winning the 2013 Astounding Award for Best New Writer, her work has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, Parsec, Philip K. Dick, Manly Wade Wellman, and Podcast Peer Awards. Her podcast Ditch Diggers, with Matt Wallace, won the 2018 Best Fancast Hugo Award.
As an editor, Mur was the first editor of Pseudopod and Mothership Zeta, and is currently the co-editor of Escape Pod (with Valerie Valdes), eight-time finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine.
Her nonfiction work has appeared in Knights of the Dinner Table, and on the podcast The Dragon Page. In 2014, she received an MFA in popular fiction from the Stonecoast program at the University of Southern Maine.
She lives in Durham, NC, with her husband. She likes video games, tabletop games, murder mysteries, and dogs.
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. When she isn’t co-editing Escape Pod, she enjoys crafting bespoke artisanal curses, playing video games, 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 her short fiction and poetry have been featured in Uncanny Magazine, Magic: the Gathering and numerous anthologies. Writing as Lia Amador, her first contemporary fantasy romance novel, Witch You Would, was published by Avon Books in September 2025.
Join her in opining about books, video games and parenting on Bluesky or find links to her work at http://candleinsunshine.com/.
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Phoebe Barton (she/her)
Phoebe 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.
ASSISTANT 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.
HOST: Tina Connolly (she/her)
Tina Connolly’s books include the Ironskin and Seriously Wicked series, the official Choose Your Own Adventure Glitterpony Farm, and the collection On the Eyeball Floor. She has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, 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 serves on the board of the Escape Artists Foundation and hosts their weekly horror fiction podcast, PseudoPod. Alasdair has been a Hugo and BFA finalist on several occasions, is an Audioverse Award winner for voice acting and has won the Karl Edward Wagner award twice. He writes the award-nominated free weekly pop culture newsletter THE FULL LID. Follow him on Bluesky for daily writing exercises, podcast and movie recommendations, and photos of his cat.
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 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 revising a dark urban fantasy novel with his writing partner, and a collection of weird fiction.
He is the current story director for the Kaleidocast, the fiction podcast of the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers Meetup group.
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: 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 On Spec, Metastellar, and many other places. His story the Personal Touch won award for Audio Fiction in 2024.
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: Abhijeet Sathe (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 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: Casey Lawrence (she/her/they/them)
Casey Lawrence (she/they) has a PhD in English literature from Trinity College Dublin. After taking a five-year hiatus from creative writing to pursue her doctorate, Casey published her third Young Adult novel with JMS Books in 2023. She is from Ontario, Canada, and currently lives in Sweden with her spouse, Rhys. An avid consumer of all things science fiction and fantasy, they write the stories they wish they had been able to read growing up: positive depictions of queer people in any world.
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Harriet Ward (she/her)
Harriet Ward is an international communications student at National Chengchi University in Taiwan, where she is studying for her master’s degree. She also has an Associate in Arts degree from Paradise Valley Community College, Associate in Applied Science degree from Mesa Community College, and a Bachelor’s in Journalism from Northern Arizona University. Her schedule is usually jam-packed between doing schoolwork, reading, working on getting her first novel published, and (soon!) learning Mandarin, but she likes to spend her free time hiking and learning about all the world has to offer. Her work has appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, Stolen: a Horror Anthology, Quills and Tales Magazine, and is upcoming in Mythaxis.co.uk.
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Diogo Silva Ramos (he/him)
Born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Diogo has finally learned what is to be taken seriously and laughs at the rest. Together with Jana Bianchi, he runs the Fantástico Guia, an initiative that supports Brazilian writers who are writing and submitting their work both in English and Portuguese. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tales and Feathers, F&SF, and other venues. More on: https://fantasticoguia.com.br/diogoramos/
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Erin Cullen (she/they)
Erin Cullen’s short fiction has appeared in magazines and anthologies including Quest, Nature, and F
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)
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Kevin Wabaunsee (2023-2026)
AUDIO PRODUCER: Mat Weller
COMMUNITY MANAGERS: Eytan Zweig (eytanz), Marshal Latham (Swamp)
ASSOCIATE EDITORS:
- Ewen Ma
- EA Crawley
- Phoenix Alexander
- 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
- Rachael K. Jones
- Hillary Brannon
- Shane Halbach
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!