Trouble the Waters

Sheree Renee Thomas is an award-winning fiction writer, poet, and editor. Her work is inspired by myth and folklore, natural science, and the genius of the Mississippi Delta. Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future (Third Man Books 2020) is her debut fiction collection. She is also the author of the hybrid collections, Sleeping Under the Tree of Life (Aqueduct Press 2016), longlisted for the 2016 Otherwise Award and honored with a PW Starred Review and Shotgun Lullabies (2011). She edited the two-time World Fantasy Award-winning groundbreaking anthologies, Dark Matter (2000, 2004) and is the first to introduce W.E.B. Du Bois's science fiction short stories.

Her work is widely anthologized and appears in Marvel's Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda edited by Jesse J. Holland, The New York Times, and The Big Book of Modern Fantasy (1945 - 2010) edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer (Vintage 2020). She was honored as a 2020 World Fantasy Award Finalist in the Special Award - Professional category for contributions to the genre and is the Editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, founded in 1949 and Associate Editor of Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, founded in 1975. She also reviews new books for Asimov's. She is a Special Guest and a co-host of the 2021 Hugo Awards Ceremony in Washington, DC. Sheree lives in Memphis, Tennessee, near a mighty river and a pyramid. Visit www.shereereneethomas.com

Pan Morigan is a Canadian/American author of poetry and surrealist fiction and a singer/composer. Her poetry collection, 5 Spirits in my Mouth was released with Querencia Press in May 2023. She has a short-story collection titled I, Musicbox, forthcoming with Querencia Press. Her short story, Severed Fruit was recently published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Her anti-real play with original music, titled I Sing Earth debuted at Hallie Flanagan Theater, Smith College. As a vocalist/songwriter, she has toured globally with author Andrea Hairston, composer Adele O'Dwyer, and vocalist Bobby McFerrin, among others. In collaboration with Andrea Hairston, (as music director of Chrysalis Theater,) she created and performed music and lyrics for over 30 original plays. She also worked as a composer and musician with directors, Wang Dao and Helen Suh, among others. Pan wrote and produced a recording of original songs titled, Wild Blue. (Hear at panmorigan.com) She produced a song collection/radio program for Public Radio International, Castles of Gold, Songs and Stories of Irish Immigration. She's a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in music composition, a New England Foundation for the Arts Meet the Composer Grant, three composer residencies at Blue Mountain Center, and grants with Chrysalis Theater from the Ford Foundation and the NEA to produce Chrysalis Theater's inter-cultural, multi-disciplinary theater works. .

Troy L. Wiggins is an award-winning writer and editor of Black Speculative Fiction from Memphis, Tennessee. His stories have appeared in several online venues, including Strange Horizons, Uncanny, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Fireside, and in print anthologies including Long Hidden, Memphis Noir, Tiny Nightmares, and the forthcoming Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda (Titan Books).

Troy is a founding member and former editor of the Hugo Award nominated, World Fantasy Award winning FIYAH Literary Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, and is the 2018 inductee to the Dal Coger Memorial Hall of Fame for his contributions to Speculative Fiction in Memphis. His published essays cover a range of topics, and he has been a panelist and lecturer at several genre and academic events.

When not writing fiction, Troy works in higher education communications. He examines the intersections of speculative fiction, blackness, and nerd culture at his blog, Afrofantasy. Learn more about him on Twitter at @TroyLWiggins.