Alex Shvartsman is a writer, editor, and translator from Brooklyn, NY. He's the author of The Middling Affliction (2022) and Eridani's Crown (2019) fantasy novels. Kakistocracy, a sequel to The Middling Affliction, is forthcoming in 2023. Over 120 of his stories have been published in Analog, Nature, Strange Horizons, and many other venues. He won the 2014 WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction and was a two-time finalist (2015 and 2017) for the Canopus Award for Excellence in Interstellar Fiction. His collection, Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma and Other Stories and his steampunk humor novella H. G. Wells, Secret Agent were published in 2015. His second collection, The Golem of Deneb Seven and Other Stories followed in 2018. Alex is the editor of over a dozen anthologies, including the Unidentified Funny Objects annual anthology series of humorous SF/F.