Christopher Barzak is the author of the Crawford Fantasy Award winning novel, One for Sorrow, which has been made into the Sundance feature film Jamie Marks is Dead. He is also the author of two short story collections: Birds and Birthdays, a collection of surrealist fantasy stories, and Before and Afterlives, a collection of supernatural fantasies which won Best Collection in the 2013 Shirley Jackson Awards.

Christopher grew up in rural Kinsman, Ohio, has lived in the southern California beach town of Carlsbad, the capital of Michigan, and has taught English outside of Tokyo, Japan, where he lived for two years. He teaches creative writing at Youngstown State University, in Youngstown, Ohio.