Suzanne Vincent is the editor-in-chief of Flash Fiction Online. That’s what people think anyway. Actually, she’s really a pretty ordinary middle-aged woman packing a few extra pounds and a few more gray hairs than she’s comfortable with. As a writer, she leans toward the fantasy spectrum, though much of what she writes is difficult to classify. Slipstream? Isn’t that where we stick stories when we just can’t figure out where else they go? Suzanne’s first professional publication was right here at FFO, published before she joined the staff: “I Speak the Master’s Will,” — a story she’s still very proud of. While she doesn’t actually have time to blog anymore, she once did. You can still read her ancient posts on writing at The Slushpile Avalanche. Suzanne keeps a house full of kids (3), a husband (1), and pets (too many to number) in Utah, USA. Yes, she’s a Mormon. No, there isn’t another wife. Mormons haven’t actually practiced polygamy since the 1890s. Too bad. She’d love to have another woman around to wash dishes and do laundry.

Jason S. Ridler is a writer, historian, and actor. He is the author of The Brimstone Files, and his latest historical work Mavericks of War was called a “visceral read that is also an important piece of scholarship” by Pulitzer-Prize winner Richard Rhodes. He is a Teaching Fellow at Johns Hopkins University and teaches creative writing at Google, Youtube, and for private clients.

By day, Evan Dicken studies old Japanese maps and crunches data for all manner of fascinating medical research at the Ohio State University. By night, he does neither of these things. His fiction has most recently appeared in: Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, and Apex, and he has stories forthcoming from publishers such as: Tales to Terrify and The Black Library. Please feel free to visit him at evandicken.com.

Megan Lee Beals lives in Tacoma, Washington with her husband and an ancient one-eyed cat. She works in a bookstore and collects hobbies like they’re Pokémon. At the moment she is knitting a sweater, cutting stencils, and rebuilding a 1970’s camper van with her husband. Her fiction has appeared in Cast of Wonders, Intergalactic Medicine Show, and The Toasted Cake podcast. You can find her and a variety of illustrations for her stories on Instagram @meganbeees, or at www.meganleebeals.com.

Wes Smiderle has learned to fear ringing phones. He hates hospitals, but loves the people who work and volunteer in them. He knows good luck can be sifted from bad. He abhors waiting.

Smiderle is a writer. Some of his stories have been published in magazines, including On Spec and SubTerrain.

He’s a member of SF Canada, but has written in a variety of genres. His short story “Maisie’s Safehouse” was nominated for the Arthur Ellis Award for Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing, while his story “Alouette” was nominated for an Aurora Award, Canada’s award for national science fiction and fantasy literature.

His short story “Shriek Season,” published in the 2015 Spring edition of On Spec, is set in a world where families resort to living in hovering ‘mag-rez’ houses to avoid catastrophic weather. Tangent Online called it “a fascinating read.”

Smiderle is a former reporter and editor and has written for daily and weekly newspapers. His three-part feature on youth mental health earned an Ontario Community Newspaper Award.

He is currently working on a novelization of “Shriek Season.”

He lives and writes in Ottawa, Ontario with his wife, Amanda, and their three children, Gwendolyn, Samuel and Griffin.

“Safebuoys” is Smiderle’s first published work of flash fiction. An early draft was written in a hospital room in the middle of the night during a lengthy stay while Sam was receiving treatment for cancer.
Sam is back home, back in school and wants to be a nurse when he grows up.

Claire Humphrey’s first novel, Spells of Blood and Kin, was published by St Martin’s and won the 2017 Sunburst Award. Her short stories have appeared in many magazines, most recently Strange Horizons, Liminal, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, as well as anthologies including the Lambda Award-nominated Beyond Binary (Lethe Press), the Kickstarter sensation Long Hidden (Crossed Genres), and Aurora Award nominee The Sum of Us (Laksa).