About
Tara Campbell is an award-winning writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse, and graduate of American University's MFA in Creative Writing. Publication credits include Masters Review, Wigleaf, Electric Literature, CRAFT Literary, Uncharted Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, and Escape Pod/Artemis Rising. She's the author of the eco sci-fi novel TreeVolution, two hybrid collections of poetry and prose, and two short story collections from feminist sci-fi publisher Aqueduct Press. Her sixth book, City of Dancing Gargoyles (SFWP), is a finalist for the 2025 Philip K. Dick Award and was one of Reactor Magazine’s “Best Books of 2024.” She teaches creative writing at venues such as Johns Hopkins University, Clarion West, The Writer's Center, and Hugo House. Find her at www.taracampbell.com
Featured Work
City of Dancing Gargoyles
In the parched, post-apocalyptic Western U.S. of the 22nd Century, wolves float, bonfires sing, and devils gather to pray. Water and safety are elusive in this chaotic world of alchemical transformations, where history books bleed, dragons kiss, and gun-toting trees keep their own kind of peace.
Among this menagerie of strange beasts, two sentient stone gargoyles, known only as “E” and “M,” flee the rubble of their Southwestern church in search of water. Along the way, they meet climate refugees Dolores Baker and her mother Rose, who’ve escaped the ravaged West Coast in search of a safer home. This quartet forms an uneasy alliance when they hear of a new hope: a mysterious city of dancing gargoyles. Or is it something more sinister? In this strange, terrible new world, their arrival at this fabled city could spark the destruction of everything they know.
Tara Campbell summons fantastical magic in this kaleidoscopic new speculative climate fiction.
Other Works
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Cabinet of Wrath: A Doll Collection
2021
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Political AF: A Rage Clection
2020
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Midnight at the Organporium
2019
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Circes' Bicycle
2018
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TreeVolution
2016
Awards and Recognition
- Artist Fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, 2018 - 2022
- Kimbilio Fellow, 2017
- Larry Neal Writers' Award in Adult Fiction, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, 2016
- Mayor's Arts Award for Outstanding New Artist, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, 2016