Authors
These are the authors whose books I pre-order, whose work I read across genre, age range, and pseudonyms. They are my comfort reads, even in categories that give me nightmares.
Seanan McGuire has written multiple urban fantasy series, including my favorite, the Incryptid series, which I read over and over the summer after my mother died. She writes horror as Mira Grant, and middle-grade Oz-esque fantasy as A. Deborah Baker.
Ursula Vernon is a visual artist who got into writing with her web comic, Digger. She then wrote two middle-grade series, Danny Dragonbreath and Harriet the Hamster Princess. She started publishing fiction for adults as T. Kingfisher, where she is a master of banter and driving home the awfulness of the characters' current situation.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia jumps to a different genre with every book, and just keeps getting better and better. She's written horror, noir, urban fantasy, and historical fantasy.
Daniel Jose Older might be best known now for his Star Wars comics, short stories and novels, but it was his Bone Street Rumba adult urban fantasy and Shadowshaper YA fantasy that got me hooked.
Nedi Okorafor writes Africanfuturism. Reading her works makes clear how much English-language speculative fiction is based on the mid-20th century's "progress is America on top" myopia. Her Binti series starts with the trope of the unacknowledged gifted child escaping to an educational utopia, then quickly goes in a completely different and better direction.
Paul Cornell has written comics, TV scripts (Doctor Who and Elementary), and two urban fantasy series: The Witches of Lytchford, and the Shadow Police
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This is not my to be read pile (that's larger), but stacks of books from some of my favorite authors, that I have (mostly) already read.