J. R. Dawson (she/they) is the Golden Crown award-winning author of The First Bright Thing. Her shorter works can be found in places such as F&SF, Lightspeed and Rich Horton's Year's Best. Dawson currently lives in Minnesota with her loving wife. She teaches at Drexel University's MFA program for Creative Writing, and fills her free time with keeping her three chaotic dogs out of trouble.