SWMC/HBCS Contributor Biographies

34 remarkable authors—17 for He Bears the Cape of Stars, 17 for She Wears the Midnight Crown—have come together for this project. We’re delighted to share their work with you, and invite you to read more about each of them, in their own words!

Contributors to He Bears the Cape of Stars

Kit Alexander

Kit (she/they/he) has been creating stories since before they could even hold a pencil; they still have a time-worn copy of their debut short work, “Sally Plays Outside,” which they carefully dictated to their mom at the tender age of three.

Now, Kit—who’s all grown up, supposedly—lives with their partner, two dogs, and a cat, in the Appalachian Valley of East Tennessee. They still write just about every day, and have been published by TL;DR Press, Bandit Fiction, Lickerish Library, and others. They also volunteer with the Organization for Transformative Works, and have more fingers than can possibly be hygienic dipped in many fandom pies.

They simply have too many fandoms to name, but some of their most abiding obsessions include: Supernatural, Dragon Age, Hades, Voltron: Legendary Defender, Captive Prince, Black Sails, and Avatar: the Last Airbender. They mostly write fic, but they’ve also dabbled in creating fanvids and moderating events and fan spaces.

Outside of fandom, they deeply enjoy reading, creating art, playing the ukulele, knitting, and about a hundred other hobbies that don’t involve leaving the house. They’ve somehow managed to keep a veritable forest of houseplants alive over the last two years, and that in itself is probably the most impressive feat they’ve ever accomplished.

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Jessica Black

Jessie, pen name Jessica Black, fandom name alocalband, decided she wanted to be a writer at the age of seven and hasn’t looked back since. With a degree in screenwriting, she spent the majority of her career working on assorted projects in Hollywood, New York, and Puerto Rico. Lately, however, she’s settled down to a quieter life with her cat, her library, and a constantly filling notebook of new ideas. Hobbies include reading, hiking, gaming, knitting, and going to hockey games.

Links: Archive of Our Own | Discord: alocalband#6844 | Tumblr | Twitter

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Sanne Burg

I am a Dutch author (born in 1995), and my preferred pronouns are she/her. I’ve been weaving stories for most of my life, but so far they have mostly been fandom-related. This story is my first original (non-Patreon) publication, and I have previously written erotica stories for DPP’s Patreon.

I studied English language and culture, literary studies, and history, and decided early modern English magic is simply too intriguing to let go, but unfortunately the job market disagrees. I have a steady job but enjoy some hobbies outside of that. My hobbies include bouldering (and talking about bouldering), hiking, researching magic, discussing fandom (most notably Supernatural, The Witcher, and Our Flag Means Death), reading, and occasionally writing. I am also a massive fan of the Efteling and will try to get you to visit if you ever visit the Netherlands.

Links: Archive of Our Own | Instagram | Tumblr | Twitter

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Era J. M. Couts

I’ve been a writer for over 20 years.

Well, if I actually think about it carefully, it has probably been longer than that. I do remember writing a story on MS Paint when my age was still single digits. I could have used Word, but Paint was funnier, it let me draw my scenes there too.

So maybe I should rephrase it: I have been a fanfic writer for over 20 years. There, that looks a bit better. I wrote a few originals, too, but those never saw the light of day. They will, eventually.

I like to write about characters and their development. I like to write about feelings and struggles and how complicated life can be even when it looks so simple. I like to write epic love stories that don’t always have a happy ending. But most often they do.

I will, one day, write a dystopian series that I’ve been plotting for over a decade. One day, certainly one day.
Aside from being a writer, I’m a reader, an opinionated mind, an Aries, an immigrant, a coffee lover, and a night owl that has been forced to conform to the social norm of waking up early only to become a “Morgenmuffel.”

I am passionate, energetic, lazy, and sarcastic. I’m a CrazyCatLady in the making, a food lover that cannot cook, the Man™ my grandma wanted me to marry, and a happy soul in my own shoes.

And, above all, I am weird. I am queer. And so damn proud of it.

Links: Archive of Our Own | Tumblr

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A. L. Heard

Ashley, pen name A.L. Heard, fandom name jhoom, is a 35 year old teacher, writer, and mother of two little boys. She’s been writing fanworks since she discovered fanfiction.net back in her middle school days; the platform has changed and the writing’s improved, but Ashley ultimately still spends her free time writing about characters she adores in worlds she’d like to explore. Her first novel, Hockey Bois, was published in 2021. In between writing projects, she works as a language teacher in the Pittsburgh area, plays hockey, and plays trains with her sons.

Links: Archive of Our Own | Discord: jhoom#6351 | Tumblr | Twitter

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Stephen G. Krueger

Stephen G. Krueger (he/him/his), fandom name WithBroomBefore, is queer, trans, and aroace; he is an academic librarian in the northeast United States. His other writing includes the book Supporting Trans People in Libraries, a handful of professional chapters and articles, and The Trans Advice Column (a co-authored blog that is exactly what it sounds like). Stephen holds a B.A. in English from Warren Wilson College and an M.S. in Library Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; he is currently making leisurely progress towards an M.A. in Arctic and Northern Studies from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He knits and sells hats, some with pride flag colors on them, and enjoys watching figure skating while his three cats take turns claiming lap space.

Links: Archive of Our Own | Etsy | Personal Website

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Tris Lawrence

Tris Lawrence has been writing since she was a child, filling notebooks with the worlds, dreams, and voices from inside her head. She declared in sixth grade that she wanted to be a writer, promptly started drafting her first novel in seventh grade, and never looked back.

Tris published a short story in the anthology Add Magic to Taste, and Commit to the Kick, the first book of her online serial Welcome to PHU, was published by Duck Prints Press in 2021. She loves writing books centered on queer characters and coming-of-age stories, creating the worlds she wishes she could have read growing up. She hopes that these stories will touch the lives and hearts of those who read them.

When not writing, Tris is a wife, a mother (to two children, a cat, and a dog), a knitter, a system administrator, a black belt in taekwondo, an avid reader, and a music aficionado. Sleep, she claims, is optional.

Links: Facebook | Pillowfort | Tumblr | Twitter

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J. S. Lenore

From an early age, J.S. Lenore has always been passionate about books and storytelling, but it wasn’t until high school that she started writing her own stories. Starting with fanfiction, she shifted to original stories in 2013. She recently completed her first published series of books in early 2022. When she isn’t writing, J. S. spends her time making art, knitting, reading, and hanging out with her husband and two kids.

Links: Archive of Our Own | Facebook | Tumblr | Twitter

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Louise Long

Louise Long (she/they) lives in Cardiff and writes contemporary and urban fantasy. She also writes speculative fiction as J. L. George, and her first novel, The Word, is published by New Welsh Rarebyte. In her other lives, she’s a library monkey and an academic interested in literature and science and the Gothic.

Links: Personal Website | Twitter

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M. K. Mads

M. K. Mads has been writing stories since she was seven years old. While she is most prolific in fanfiction and has works scattered among more than a dozen fandoms, she has been making strides into original fiction. Her favorite genre to read is romance. When she isn’t reading, writing, or falling headfirst into a new fandom, she can be found baking, walking, doting on her niblings, or playing Pokemon Go.

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Maggie Page

Maggie Page lives in Texas with family, including her incorrigibly clumsy mom with a green thumb, two silly dogs who are also mother and daughter, and a fierce feline hunter. Her most recent publication, Herald of Love, features in the first Duck Prints Press short story anthology, Add Magic to Taste. Previously, Maggie has published several poems and a piece of flash fiction with collegiate and independent journals.

Aside from writing, Maggie enjoys music, traveling, camping, dabbling in various art forms, principally watercolor and graphic making, and torturing her loved ones with her ruthless board game victories. She will also painstakingly analyze various forms of media for pleasure, spite, and profit (if only someone would hire her to do it). Seriously, don’t mention Castiel, Merlin, Sherlock Holmes, or the word t’hy’la in her presence unless you’re prepared for a dissertation.

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Julia Perroni

Julia Perroni (she/her) is a lifelong writer of fiction who was born and raised in not-so-sunny Vancouver, BC. She has been previously published in Geist Magazine and in several student writing contest anthologies, and writes on Archive of Our Own in various fandoms in her free time. Some of her favourite fic tropes include hurt/comfort, arranged marriage, and truth serum, but she’ll read (or write!) just about anything.

When she’s not writing creatively, she can be found in the library studying Ancient Greek for her ongoing graduate degree in Classics, working on her podcast, or out on the cliffs with chalk under her fingernails.

Link: Twitter

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Alex Ransom

Alex Ransom is a longtime fan writer and translator whose first original story was published in Add Magic to Taste. Her favorite trope, as both reader and writer, is “Earn Your Happy Ending,” in which characters fight through inordinate amounts of difficulty to come out happier and more content on the other side. She is especially interested in the intersection between social circumstances, personal history, and the formation and maintenance of identity.

When Alex isn’t writing or doomscrolling on the internet, she likes to travel, hike, and build marginally functional furniture. She lives outside Boston, Massachusetts, with her spouse and adult daughter.

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J. D. Rivers

J. D. writes speculative fiction where they fall deeply and madly in love and find a dead body, not necessarily in that order.

She collects hobbies as others collect books and has an unhealthy addiction to watching competitive cooking shows.

J. D. lives close to the woods with her husband and the cutest dog in the world.

Links: Personal Website | Twitter

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Tevye J. Schmidt

Tevye has been published as an undergrad while interning at the Linden Gold at Lindenwood University, and also had a fiction piece accepted into the Arrow Rock Literary Journal at the same school. While at Lindenwood he was also invited to present the novella he wrote as his Senior Capstone at the Student Academic Showcase. He hails from northeast Missouri and spent much of his childhood pestering his parents into visiting Six Flags St. Louis, the Arch, and the St. Louis Science Center. He’s passionate about learning and creating, and is currently branching out into writing fiction in his second language, Spanish. Tevye is Jewish, and his works all contain themes inherent to the tenets of his identity and his faith. His goal in future publications is to create science fiction and fantasy that are welcoming to those who exist outside of the dominant culture of Christianity.

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Veronica Sloane

Veronica Sloane has authored a novel, several short stories, some poetry, and twenty-two years worth of fanfic. She lives with one lovely spouse, one rambunctious clever child, and one sleepy cat.

Links: Archive of Our Own | Tumblr

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K. B. Vimes

K.B. Vimes lives in West Virginia with his fiance and their six cats, four frogs, three lizards, and a number of fish. In his spare time he makes paper craft, takes long walks with his fiance, and visits state parks. He’s been writing since he was old enough to hold a pencil, and for years has told stories to anyone willing to hold still long enough to listen.

Contributors to She Wears the Midnight Crown

Willa Blythe

Willa Blythe made her storytelling debut at age 4 with indie smash “Sam the Stinky Skunk,” and she hasn’t stopped writing since. Her first audience—her grandparents—shared a love of art and craft with her that remains central to Willa’s writing practice over thirty years later. Today, she lives in New York with her family and primarily writes queer romance and speculative fiction.

Willa’s stories have been published previously in Duck Prints Press’s Add Magic to Taste, and Zombies Need Brains’ Brave New Worlds.

Links: Personal Website | Twitter

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boneturtle

(They/Them)

Kevin lives in Maine with his two dogs and his lovely wife. When he’s not writing, he enjoys birdwatching and foraging for mushrooms.

Like Kevin, this author also has two dogs.

Links: Twitter

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N. C. Farrell

N. C. Farrell (they/he) grew up in California’s Silicon Valley, where they spent long days hiking the coastal mountains, reading an impressive number of books about dragons (and cats, and spaceships, and magic, etc.), and creating stories with their friends. He moved to Massachusetts for college, where he studied psychology while reading more books (some of which were even for classes!), participating in LARPs, and ensuring that the SF/F club’s student-run convention had a solid schedule. Since graduating, N. C. Farrell has worked in various education-related roles. They currently spend much of their free time reading (more translated webnovels than paper books right now), writing (a lot of fanfic), practicing aikido, playing TTRPGs, and being supervised by a small shadow in the shape of a cat.

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Rhosyn Goodfellow

Rhosyn Goodfellow is an author of queer romance and speculative fiction living in the Pacific Northwest with her spouse and two dogs. She is sad to report that she has not yet mysteriously disappeared nor encountered any cryptids. Her hobbies include spoiling the aforementioned dogs, drinking inadvisable amounts of coffee, and running unreasonably long distances very slowly. She’s secretly just a collection of loosely related stories dressed up in a meat suit.

Links: Personal Website | Tumblr | Twitter

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Mare Griffen

Mare is a writer and wannabe academic from the US. She’s interested in storytelling and systems of communication and, for better or worse, has a degree in Media Studies to prove it. Creatively, she likes to write about magical realism, mental health, and people figuring out how to navigate a poorly fitting world. She’s also the wrangler of a cat/gremlin, and unapologetically a Horse Girl™.

Mare writes lots of Shadowhunters fanfic, usually when she’s supposed to be doing something else. She used to write screenplays, occasional poetry, and (unfinished) novels, but this is her first foray back into original fiction in a long time. She can often be found avoiding reality, overthinking, or stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to look at lizards on the ground.

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Adrian Harley

Adrian Harley is an almost-lifelong North Carolinian and a fantasy fiction aficionado who didn’t start delving deep into fandom until adulthood. They are an editor of research by day and an aspiring novelist, also by day. They go to bed early. They have short stories forthcoming in OFIC Magazine and future Duck Prints Press anthologies. They live with their husband and a perfectly reasonable number of cats.

Link: Twitter

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Rascal Hartley

Rascal Hartley is from the southern United States, and when they aren’t busy hiking or collecting various bones, you can find them curled up in their favorite chair, writing. Their favorite author is a tie Jack Kerouac and Kurt Vonnegut, but the book they re-read every year is The Last Unicorn.

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D. A. Hernández

Mexican. In love with the world. Teacher. Daydreamer. Collector of fascinating facts and stories. I will tell my dreams to anyone who listens. Voracious reader (and occasional writer) of fanfiction since I was a teenager. My artistic credentials include juggling, match improv, stand-up comedy, and making silly poems and songs I can’t sing. Through my writing I wish to transmit hope, joy, and the courage to come to terms with tragedy and imagine a better future.

One of my horror stories, “Maneki Neko”, was published in Penumbria Magazine #54 Oct 2021 (in Spanish). This will be my first published story in English.

Link: Twitter

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Lucy K. R.

Exhibit Depicting: Lucy K.R.
Born: North Georgia (United States), Summer of 19XX
Died: Nova Scotia (Canada), Winter of Not Yet
Role: Author, waitress, enthusiast

Eager for a change after a decade of waitressing, Lucy K.R. took the chance in March of 2021 to make her first steps into the world of published work. Prior to the success of Nicht Deine Götter, the largelycfabricated German translation of the short-story found in this collection, she was best known for her work on Mageling: Rise of the Ancient Ones and in the second anthology of Duck Prints Press: And Seek (Not) to Alter Me.

She was often seen in the company of what ancient texts describe as “weirdos,” and had a particularly deep connection with an entity known as Tomo, which she appeared to worship. While some historians theorize that Tomo was a type of deity known as a GalPal, newly unearthed records have identified them simply as wives.

Though largely described as a gentle and quiet person in her daily interactions, there can be no doubt that Lucy K. R.’s true legacy lives on in her stories: a legacy of terror, bewilderment, and an enduring love of humanity.

Links: Archive of Our Own | Twitter

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Lex T. Lindsay

Lex T. Lindsay likes cats, tats, and cool hats. When she isn’t shaking words loose or yelling about Captain America, she can often be found lurking in the woods. Find other sapphic love stories in ADD MAGIC TO TASTE (also from Duck Prints Press); UPON A TWICE TIME (Air and Nothingness Press); and CLOCKWORK, CURSES AND COAL (World Weaver Press). Occasional Tweets @LexTLindsay.

Links: Goodreads | Linktree | Twitter

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Annabeth Lynch

Annabeth Lynch is a genderfae (she/they), bisexual author who writes mostly queer stories, preferring to write marginalized characters finding love. She lives in North Carolina with her husband, daughter, and two very overweight cats.

Links: Facebook | Instagram

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Sebastian Marie

Sebastian Marie (he/him) is an engineering student with a penchant for writing off-the-wall fantasy, darkly comedic prose, and sickeningly indulgent short stories. He has a lot of opinions about dragons, pirates, and swordfighting that he explores through fanfiction for various fandoms. His original works often combine fantasy and dystopia into what he calls “queer fantasy hopepunk,” something that he will be explored in his future novels. He loves to write conflicting traditional and non-traditional family dynamics, especially where they intersect with queer relationships. And if he can throw werewolves and brujas into the mix? So much the better.
When not writing, frantically completing homework, or reading, he can be found boxing, sewing, playing Dungeons and Dragons, or going on long rambling walks while plotting stories (and occasionally falling into rivers).

Links: Archive of Our Own

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Alec J. Marsh

Alec lives in the Pacific Northwest, where they write romantic adult fantasy and self-indulgent fanfiction. They make candles inspired by their favorite characters.

Links: Etsy | Instagram | Twitter

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S. Z. Meriläinen

Satu Meriläinen grew up exploring the Great Barrier Reef off Queensland, Australia, and foraging through pine forests in rural Finland. Now she lives with her wife and two dogs in Melbourne. She adores fantasy and science fiction with sprinklings of magical realism. In her spare time, she sings along loudly to any song she knows, cross stitches, bangs out a few sentences at a time, and plays video games badly.

Links: Personal Website | Twitter

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Bunny K. Solomon

Bunny is most often found dreaming of autumn and duvet days.

She’s been creating since she was old enough to speak. Early works include 2-person productions of Titanic with her twin partner-in-crime, featuring a broad cast of stuffed animals (“is anyone alive out there?”), and the night-time serial ‘cowboy babies’, which received mixed reviews from the neighbours on the other side of the connecting wall…

She was born in the USA but lives in the UK, and has grown up between the two countries.

She has recently completed an MA in Creative Writing in London, her second master’s degree. Previously, she studied History.

Link: Personal Website

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Emma Victoria

Emma Victoria was born an old soul, because you’re destined to be one when you’re given two old-fashioned names like that. She grew up with a taste for folklore and history and a penchant for going into the woods to have conversations with trees. As an adult, she’s dedicated herself to the study of photography and art criticism, but writing fantasy is a bedfellow she just can’t give up. After all, it’s the only way to meet dragons.

Link: Twitter

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Lyn Weaver

Lyn Weaver has been writing fanfiction for over a decade and original fiction for even longer. Her preferred genres are fantasy and horror, and her preferred tropes are ‘enemies to lovers’ and anything to do with identity issues. She won’t read a story if something bad happens to the cat.