Seanan McGuire

Seanan McGuire, born January 5, 1978, in Martinez, California, is an American author and filker whose work sits mainly in speculative fiction. She is best known for urban fantasy novels under her own name, while she uses the name Mira Grant for science fiction and horror and A. Deborah Baker for the “Up-and-Under” children’s portal fantasy series. Across those names, she has built a body of work that includes fantasy, science fiction, horror, poetry, essays, short fiction, novels, comics, and filk music.

McGuire’s early life was marked by sharp contrasts. She has said that her mother, Micki McGuire, had “primary custody, two other children, no money, and an abusive husband who targeted [Seanan].” During summers, she traveled with her father, a carnival worker of Romani origin, and later described that time as “Bradbury-esque running wild and unfettered through farmers' fields, building Ferris wheels and living on funnel cake.” At age nine, she was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder. She later attended the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied folklore and herpetology.

Before writing full time, McGuire worked at a reptile rescue organization. Her first publication was a contribution to the June 2002 poetry anthology Speculon. She released the musical album Pretty Little Dead Girl in 2006 and published her first short story in The Edge of Propinquity in 2008. In 2009, she published her first novel, Rosemary and Rue, which began the October Daye series. That series became her longest-running one, with its nineteenth book, Silver and Lead, published in 2025.

In 2010, McGuire published Feed under the Mira Grant name, helping define a split in her public career: Seanan McGuire as an urban fantasy writer, and Mira Grant as a writer of horror and science fiction. Feed was recognized by NPR as number 74 on its list of the 100 top thriller novels of all time and was also named one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2010. Her major series include October Daye, InCryptid, Wayward Children, Alchemical Journeys, Indexing, Ghost Roads, Newsflesh, Parasitology, and Up-and-Under.

Her work also extends into shared worlds and comics. In 2018, she began writing for Marvel Comics, including Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider and Ghost-Spider/Spider-Gwen: Into the Unknown, along with work connected to X-Men, King in Black, and other franchises. Her short fiction has appeared in magazines such as Apex Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, and Lightspeed Magazine, and in anthologies edited by Charlaine Harris, Jim Butcher, and John Joseph Adams. She has also self-published hundreds of short stories, posted the Velveteen series on LiveJournal from 2008 to 2017 with fan sponsorship support, and launched a Patreon account in 2016 for monthly short fiction.

McGuire’s career has been widely recognized. In 2010, she received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and her works have received awards including the Alex Award, Hugo Award, Locus Award, and Nebula Award. She holds the record for the most Hugo Award nominations in a single year, with five in 2013, and was the first author to win the American Library Association’s Alex Awards in two consecutive years. Diagnosed as autistic in 2020 and also diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, McGuire identifies as pansexual, bisexual, and demisexual. She lives in Washington state, continuing to write across forms, names, and genres that keep readers returning for strange doors, sharp ideas, and stories with teeth.