About

Vanessa MacLaren-Wray (she/her) creates worlds where people—human or otherwise—matter. She’s the author of All That Was Asked, Shadows of Insurrection, and Flames of Attrition, plus the middle-grade space-opera novel The Smugglers. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared with Dragon Gems and in award-winning anthologies. She served as editor-in-chief of the 2025 edition of the literary anthology Fault Zone, Faultless? She guest-hosts for the podcast Small Publishing in a Big Universe and is an active member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association and the Women’s National Book Association. In her alternate life as a Ph.D. engineer, she has been an analytical consultant in the electric power industry and currently serves as a specialized technical writer, preparing white papers and academic reports for researchers in the power industry. When not arguing with her cats, she edits fellow writers’ fiction and poetry, revises her own works-in-progress, and manages her website, cometarytales.com.

Other Works

  • Fault Zone: Faultless?

    2025
  • Flames of Attrition

    2023
  • The True Son

    2023
  • Cold Trap

    2023
  • My Mother Is Not, and Never Has Been, a Pine Cone

    2023
  • The Smugglers

    2022
  • Coke Machine

    2022
  • Parrish Blue

    2021
  • Heart's Delight

    2021
  • Reunion

    2021
  • All That Was Asked

    2020
  • Economic Analysis of Industrial Cogeneration in California

    1984