Rae Valtera
Rae Valtera grew up in the 90’s playing way too much ‘pretend’ with her friends or her stuffed animals. She wrote her first book in the 2nd grade about Santa Claus and the Easter bunny switching their sacks on vacation and the chaos that ensued. As a teenager, she wrote a lot of fanfiction, some of it decent, most of it embarrassing.
Rae lives in colorful Colorado with her partners, three cats, and an ever-growing TBR pile. If she’s not writing about brutal, beautiful fantasy worlds, she is reading about them. Rae will never pass up the offer to pet a dog, listen to a Taylor Swift album, or enjoy a glass of whiskey.
If you like author Rae Valtera here is the list of authors you may also like
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Rachel Phan
Rachel Phan was born and raised in a small town in Canada. Growing up, she always felt a little lost and a lot lonely. She sought escapism from her provincial life by writing the stories she desperately wanted to see, ones where a Chinese-Vietnamese girl like her was the main character.
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Rachel’s work often explores the impacts of racism, assimilation, fetishization, and forced displacement on one’s feelings of identity, belonging, and self-worth.
Her forthcoming debut book, Restaurant Kid: A Memoir of Family and Belonging, is set for publication in Spring 2025.
IG: @rachelmphan -
Amy DeBellis
Amy DeBellis's writing has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, has appeared in the Wigleaf Top 50 Longlist, and can be found in X-R-A-Y, Uncharted, Passages North, Write or Die, Trampset, Pithead Chapel, Monkeybicycle, The Pinch, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and elsewhere.
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She has served as the judge for two literary contests: The Feign Lit Fiction Prize and the Moonlit Getaway Fiction Prize.
Her literary inspirations include Donna Tartt (her favorite novel of all time is The Secret History), Chuck Palahniuk, R.F. Kuang, Mona Awad, Hanya Yanagihara, and Carmen Maria Machado. -
Libby Tanner
Libby Tanner grew up in a small town in Northern California that would be charming in a novel, but felt suffocating as a teenager. Yes, she left as fast as she could, and yes, she misses it very much.
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In college Libby earned a degree in Communications. She wishes she would have studied creative writing instead of playing it safe, but also remembers she had student loans to pay off.
She is the mother of four sweet hooligans and is married to the world’s sexiest accountant (the world’s only sexy accountant?).
Her dream date would be eating crab legs in a hot air balloon over a vineyard. -
Ria Parisi
Ria Parisi is a YA Fantasy author who found her footing in fanfiction and roleplaying before taking the jump into writing her own work. Her debut novel, OF WOLVES AND STAGS, comes out March 25th with Inked in Gray Press. It is very important to her to write stories with the representation she wished she had growing up. When not writing she can be found playing video games with her partner, being a parent, or costuming. She greatly enjoys cosplaying for a good cause and often will dress up for charity events with groups such as the Rebel Legion. You can find her on Instagram and Tik Tok @riathewolfwrites.
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Lemony Snicket
Lemony Snicket had an unusual education and a perplexing youth and now endures a despondent adulthood. His previous published works include the thirteen volumes in A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Composer is Dead, and 13 Words. His new series is All The Wrong Questions.
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For A Series of Unfortunate Events:
www.lemonysnicket.com
For All The Wrong Questions:
www.lemonysnicketlibrary.com -
Amy S. Kaufman
Amy S. Kaufman is an author and scholar whose debut novel, THE TRAITOR OF SHERWOOD FOREST, will be out with Penguin Books in April 2025.
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Antonia Hodgson
Antonia Hodgson was born and grew up in Derby. She studied English at the University of Leeds. Her first novel, The Devil in the Marshalsea, won the CWA Historical Dagger 2014 and was shortlisted for several other awards. Its sequel, The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins, was released to widespread acclaim in 2015. Her third novel, A Death at Fountains Abbey, comes out in August 2016.
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Erica Rose Eberhart
Erica Rose Eberhart is a neurodivergent, disabled writer of queer characters, dragons, girls who grow feathers, and boys who become trees. She resides in the Finger Lakes of New York with her partner and child, and has sampled landscape inspiration from her time living near mountain ranges of New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Having written stories since she could string a sentence together, she now focuses primarily on young adult and adult fantasy, as well as whimsical personal essays.
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Her work has been featured in Bella Grace Magazine. TARNISHED is her debut novel. -
Amy DeBellis
Amy DeBellis's writing has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, has appeared in the Wigleaf Top 50 Longlist, and can be found in X-R-A-Y, Uncharted, Passages North, Write or Die, Trampset, Pithead Chapel, Monkeybicycle, The Pinch, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and elsewhere.
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She has served as the judge for two literary contests: The Feign Lit Fiction Prize and the Moonlit Getaway Fiction Prize.
Her literary inspirations include Donna Tartt (her favorite novel of all time is The Secret History), Chuck Palahniuk, R.F. Kuang, Mona Awad, Hanya Yanagihara, and Carmen Maria Machado. -
Piper L. White
Piper L. White (she/her) is an author from North Carolina. She holds her BFA in creative writing from UNC Wilmington, where she also got her certificate in publishing. Her debut novel, All (Dead) Girls Lie, a sapphic YA thriller was published by Row House Publishing on May 20, 2025. For more insight on her publishing journey and books to come, visit her website https://piperwhitewrites.com and follow her on Instagram @piperlwhite.
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L.L. Madrid
As a child, L.L. Madrid wasn’t allowed to watch R-rated movies. However, her library visits
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were unsupervised, so she spent her summers reading Anne Rice and Stephen King.
Nowadays, she lives in Tucson with her family. When she’s not pretending to be a mild-mannered office worker, she writes dark, moody stories about misfits.
L.L. is the 2021 recipient of the Horror Writers Association’s Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Scholarship. She is a proud member of the Bi+ Book Gang, a Pitch Wars alum, and is in
Odyssey’s class of 2024. Her short stories are scattered across the internet.
She is represented by HG Literary.
MY LIPS, HER VOICE (Creature Publishing, Fall 2025) -
Kristina W. Kelly
Since childhood, writing stories on her mother's typewriter or trying to catalog her own books like a library, Kristina has been in love with storytelling. Her undergraduate pursuits focused on Psychology, Music, and Computer Science. With trumpet as her main instrument and a connection to nature, Kristina often works music and visual landscapes into her writings.
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Several of Kristina's recent short stories received honorable mentions from the Writers of the Future contest, including 2023 2nd Quarter Semi-Finalist and 2023 3rd Quarter Silver Honorable Mention. Her poem "City Story" received third place in the Poetry Society of Indiana's 2022 Hoosier Heritage Award.
Kristina currently resides in Indiana with her husband and sons. In her spare -
Saratoga Schaefer
Saratoga Schaefer (they/them) is a thriller and horror author. They have a background in marketing, PR, film, and wellness, and spends a great deal of time hiking mountains and climbing rocks. Originally from Brooklyn, Saratoga now lives upstate with several needy animals and a haunted clown table.
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S.A. MacLean
S. A. MacLean is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Phoenix Keeper, and holds a PhD in environmental science. After over a decade of battling seagulls and wading through mud on the arctic tundra, she now writes fantasy books filled with strange creatures and plenty of kisses.
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M.C. Benner Dixon
M. C. (Christine) Benner Dixon lives, writes, and grows things in Pittsburgh, PA. She is quick to make a pun and slow to cut her grass. Her debut novel, The Height of Land, won the Orison Fiction Prize and is available from Orison Books. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Reckoning, Flash Fiction Online, Funicular, Fusion Fragment, Appalachian Review, and elsewhere. Her writing includes a collection of craft essays, co-authored with Sharon Fagan McDermott, was published by the University of Michigan Press as part of the Writers on Writing Series.
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Michelle J.
Michelle J (she/her) is a fantasy author from upstate New York with a faulty social battery.
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Her writing journey started when she received her first video game, Kingdom Hearts on her 8th birthday. As she learned about storytelling through video games, she explored gameplay and writing as ways to express herself and make sense of the world.
Some of Michelle’s hobbies consist of spamming her husband with funny videos, drinking tea, hiking, and learning Korean. -
Courtney Collins
Courtney grew up two doors down from the local library and crushed every summer reading challenge. She's worked in libraries and bookstores before deviating into a higher education career by day and a burlesque dancer by night. She's published extensively in her local town newspaper. Her own queerness and mother-loss influence the fantasy world created alongside her husband and co-author, Clarke Collins. They live in Vermont with their children and an abundance of forests, her happy place.
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Ria Parisi
Ria Parisi is a YA Fantasy author who found her footing in fanfiction and roleplaying before taking the jump into writing her own work. Her debut novel, OF WOLVES AND STAGS, comes out March 25th with Inked in Gray Press. It is very important to her to write stories with the representation she wished she had growing up. When not writing she can be found playing video games with her partner, being a parent, or costuming. She greatly enjoys cosplaying for a good cause and often will dress up for charity events with groups such as the Rebel Legion. You can find her on Instagram and Tik Tok @riathewolfwrites.
Buy books on Amazon -
Rachel Phan
Rachel Phan was born and raised in a small town in Canada. Growing up, she always felt a little lost and a lot lonely. She sought escapism from her provincial life by writing the stories she desperately wanted to see, ones where a Chinese-Vietnamese girl like her was the main character.
Buy books on Amazon
Rachel’s work often explores the impacts of racism, assimilation, fetishization, and forced displacement on one’s feelings of identity, belonging, and self-worth.
Her forthcoming debut book, Restaurant Kid: A Memoir of Family and Belonging, is set for publication in Spring 2025.
IG: @rachelmphan -
Sophia Vahdati
Sophia Vahdati writes stories for those still searching for the magic hidden inside them. She holds a First-Class degree in Modern and Medieval Languages from the University of Cambridge and a Master’s in International Journalism from Cardiff University.
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After travelling the world to escape the sleepy Somerset town where she grew up, she somehow ended up right back where she started—only to realise it had been home all along. When she’s not writing, she’s wrangling one of her mischievous cats, pestering her husband to help her solve plot holes, or crying at Disney movies.
Her debut novel, The Girl with the Fierce Eyes, is out in July 2025.
Follow her for book updates, behind-the-scenes content, and a healthy dose of cat chaos:
https://linktr. -
Shalini Abeysekara
Shalini Abeysekara (she/her/hers) is the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of This Monster of Mine. As a former corporate lawyer, she enjoys using fantasy to interrogate reality, exploring monstrosity—perceived and real—and centering neurodivergent women of colour reckoning with themselves and their place in a world that tells them they’re too much and not enough. She is passionate about demystifying traditional publishing for all writers. When not writing, she games her life away and tries to make the perfect entremet. Most days though, she can’t believe she's an adult, and hope you don’t either.
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Her debut dark fantasy romance, This Monster of Mine, is an Ancient Rome-inspired bloodbath of manipulation, deception, and forbidden love. A sec -
S.E. Berkeley
S. E. Berkeley resides in California with her loving partner, feral children, and psychic cat. When she's not endlessly fetching snacks for small children, she enjoys hiking through her beloved state's wilderness and daydreaming of her next heart-pounding romantasy.
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Linny Mack
Linny Mack grew up a voracious reader and writer. She spent her days of adolescence up in her room writing her own stories, cutting her characters out of the Delia’s catalog, and then forcing her family to listen to her read them aloud. Now, Linny is a debut author of contemporary romance. When she isn’t writing your next book boyfriend, she is spending time with her real-life romantic hero and their three children in New Jersey.
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Libby Tanner
Libby Tanner grew up in a small town in Northern California that would be charming in a novel, but felt suffocating as a teenager. Yes, she left as fast as she could, and yes, she misses it very much.
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In college Libby earned a degree in Communications. She wishes she would have studied creative writing instead of playing it safe, but also remembers she had student loans to pay off.
She is the mother of four sweet hooligans and is married to the world’s sexiest accountant (the world’s only sexy accountant?).
Her dream date would be eating crab legs in a hot air balloon over a vineyard. -
K. Valentin
K. Valentin hails from England and Las Vegas and presently calls rainy Washington her home. This far-ranging combination of formative locations makes her very proper, occasionally scandalous, and extremely emo. When not writing about demons, she's writing about hackers or elves.
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She has been published in the Bag of Bones Horror Anthology, Cosmos: An Anthology of Dark Microfiction and the Latino Book Review Magazine, and has an adult fantasy novel, An Amateur Witch's Guide to Murder, coming out with Alcove Press Fall of 2025. -
A.L. Sterling
A.L. Sterling (she/her) writes dark tales for bright minds. She is the author of Foresyth Conservatory, a gothic mystery set in a 20th century occult graduate school, releasing October 2025. An award-winning scientist, she holds a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering and writes dark and sparkling takes where intellect meets intuition. Follow her on Instagram @a.l.sterling.
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Michelle J.
Michelle J (she/her) is a fantasy author from upstate New York with a faulty social battery.
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Her writing journey started when she received her first video game, Kingdom Hearts on her 8th birthday. As she learned about storytelling through video games, she explored gameplay and writing as ways to express herself and make sense of the world.
Some of Michelle’s hobbies consist of spamming her husband with funny videos, drinking tea, hiking, and learning Korean. -
M.C. Benner Dixon
M. C. (Christine) Benner Dixon lives, writes, and grows things in Pittsburgh, PA. She is quick to make a pun and slow to cut her grass. Her debut novel, The Height of Land, won the Orison Fiction Prize and is available from Orison Books. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Reckoning, Flash Fiction Online, Funicular, Fusion Fragment, Appalachian Review, and elsewhere. Her writing includes a collection of craft essays, co-authored with Sharon Fagan McDermott, was published by the University of Michigan Press as part of the Writers on Writing Series.
Buy books on Amazon -
Kristina W. Kelly
Since childhood, writing stories on her mother's typewriter or trying to catalog her own books like a library, Kristina has been in love with storytelling. Her undergraduate pursuits focused on Psychology, Music, and Computer Science. With trumpet as her main instrument and a connection to nature, Kristina often works music and visual landscapes into her writings.
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Several of Kristina's recent short stories received honorable mentions from the Writers of the Future contest, including 2023 2nd Quarter Semi-Finalist and 2023 3rd Quarter Silver Honorable Mention. Her poem "City Story" received third place in the Poetry Society of Indiana's 2022 Hoosier Heritage Award.
Kristina currently resides in Indiana with her husband and sons. In her spare