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RAY NAYLER, PhD, is a Hugo and Locus Award winning author. Born in Quebec and raised in California, he lived and worked abroad for two decades in Russia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Vietnam, and Kosovo as a Foreign Service officer, a Peace Corps volunteer, and an international development worker. A Russian speaker, he has also learned Turkmen, Albanian, Azerbaijani, and Vietnamese, and Spanish. In Vietnam he was Environment, Science, Technology, and Health Officer at the U.S. consulate in Ho Chi Minh City. He was international advisor to the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and was most recently a visiting scholar at the George Washington University's Institute for International Science and Technology Policy. The Washington Post called Ray's Locus Award winning first novel the The Mountain in the Sea, "(a) poignant, mind-expanding debut." David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas, said: "I loved this novel’s brain and heart, its hidden traps, sheer propulsion, ingenious world-building and the purity of its commitment to luminous ideas." The Mountain in the Sea was a finalist for the Nebula Arthur C. Clarke, and the LA Times Ray Bradbury Awards, was named a London Times science fiction book of the year, and was listed as one of the best science fiction books of all time by Esquire. |
Ray's novella The Tusks of Extinction won the 2025 Hugo Award, and was a finalist for the Nebula and Locus Awards. Amal El-Mohtar of The New York Times called it " A compact novella that reads like a superb science fiction inversion of Ernest Hemingway’s 'The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.'" The Washington Post wrote that the book is "both breathtaking and heartbreaking"
Ray's third book, the cybernetic political thriller Where the Axe is Buried, was published in April 2025. Cory Doctorow said, "Where the Axe is Buried shows how the embers of hope smolder long after they should have been extinguished, and how they are always ready to be kindled into a roaring, system-consuming wildfire." The Washington Post said: "Where the Axe is Buried boldly imagines how we might escape authoritarianism . . . Deserves to be read and discussed for its futuristic, philosophical exploration of our era's problems. The questions Nayler asks could not be more timely or better formed."
Ray's fourth book, Palaces of the Crow, was published by FSG in May of 2026, and has already received broad critical acclaim. The Wall Street Journal called it "a story skillfully sown with dramatic surprises . . . The novel presents an extraordinary alien intelligence that happens to make its home here on Earth." In a starred review, Publisher's Weekly said of the book: "Nayler weaves a tapestry of resilience and resistance as intricate and well-constructed as the braided twigs of a crow’s nest . . . an impassioned paean to togetherness even in the midst of the chaotic isolation of war and to the power of storytelling to keep memory and hope alive." It has also received starred reviews from Kirkus, Library Journal, and Book Page.
Called "one of the up-and-coming masters of SF short fiction," by Locus magazine, and "[the] most routinely intriguing science fiction writer today" by the Chicago Tribune, Ray began publishing short science fiction in 2015 in the pages of Asimov’s with the story "Mutability". His stories have seen print in Clarkesworld, Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Lightspeed, Vice (Terraform), and Nightmare, as well as many “Best of the Year” anthologies. His short stories have won the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire, France's highest literary prize for science fiction, the Clarkesworld Readers' poll, the Asimov's Readers' Award, the Bifrost readers' award, and have been nominated for the Theodore Sturgeon Award. Ray's story "Winter Timeshare” from the January/February 2017 issue of Asimov's was collected by the late Gardner Dozois in The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction.
Ray holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Essex and a master's degree in Global Diplomacy from SOAS, University of London. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife Anna, their daughter Lydia, and two rescued cats. He is represented by Seth Fishman at the Gernert Company.
Ray's third book, the cybernetic political thriller Where the Axe is Buried, was published in April 2025. Cory Doctorow said, "Where the Axe is Buried shows how the embers of hope smolder long after they should have been extinguished, and how they are always ready to be kindled into a roaring, system-consuming wildfire." The Washington Post said: "Where the Axe is Buried boldly imagines how we might escape authoritarianism . . . Deserves to be read and discussed for its futuristic, philosophical exploration of our era's problems. The questions Nayler asks could not be more timely or better formed."
Ray's fourth book, Palaces of the Crow, was published by FSG in May of 2026, and has already received broad critical acclaim. The Wall Street Journal called it "a story skillfully sown with dramatic surprises . . . The novel presents an extraordinary alien intelligence that happens to make its home here on Earth." In a starred review, Publisher's Weekly said of the book: "Nayler weaves a tapestry of resilience and resistance as intricate and well-constructed as the braided twigs of a crow’s nest . . . an impassioned paean to togetherness even in the midst of the chaotic isolation of war and to the power of storytelling to keep memory and hope alive." It has also received starred reviews from Kirkus, Library Journal, and Book Page.
Called "one of the up-and-coming masters of SF short fiction," by Locus magazine, and "[the] most routinely intriguing science fiction writer today" by the Chicago Tribune, Ray began publishing short science fiction in 2015 in the pages of Asimov’s with the story "Mutability". His stories have seen print in Clarkesworld, Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Lightspeed, Vice (Terraform), and Nightmare, as well as many “Best of the Year” anthologies. His short stories have won the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire, France's highest literary prize for science fiction, the Clarkesworld Readers' poll, the Asimov's Readers' Award, the Bifrost readers' award, and have been nominated for the Theodore Sturgeon Award. Ray's story "Winter Timeshare” from the January/February 2017 issue of Asimov's was collected by the late Gardner Dozois in The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction.
Ray holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Essex and a master's degree in Global Diplomacy from SOAS, University of London. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife Anna, their daughter Lydia, and two rescued cats. He is represented by Seth Fishman at the Gernert Company.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fiction
Palaces of the Crow (Novel) MCDxFSG / W&N May 2026
"Catch a Tiger in the Snow" (SF SS) Asimov's Nov/Dec 2025
"The Tin Man's Ghost" (SF Novelette) Asimov's May/June 2025
Where the Axe is Buried, (novel) MCDxFSG / W&N April 2025
"The Demon of Metrazol" (SF SS) Asimov's March/April 2025
"A Grey Magic" (SF SS) Asimov's September/October 2024
"Charon's Final Passenger" (SF SS) Asimov's, March/April 2024
The Tusks of Extinction, (SF Novella) Tordotcom, January 2024
"Berb by Berb" (SF SS) Asimov's, November/December 2023
"Hermetic Kingdom" The Digital Aesthete: Human Musings on the Intersection of Art and AI, November 2023
"The Job at the End of the World" (SF SS), Tordotcom August 2023
"The Case of the Blood Stained Tower" (SF Novelette) Asimov's March/April 2023
The Mountain in the Sea (SF Novel) MCDxFSG October 2022
"The Empty" (SF SS) Asimov's November/December 2022
"Fostering" (SF SS) Vice.com (Terraform) July 2022
"Mender of Sparrows (SF Novelette) Asimov's March/April 2022
"Rain of Days" (SF SS) Clarkesworld March 2022
"The Summer Castle" (Horror SS) Nightmare #113 February 2022
"Muallim" (SF SS) Asimov's November/December 2021
"Scissors" (Horror SS) by Anastasia Bookreyeva (as translator) Samovar October 2021
"Yesterday's Wolf" (SF SS) Clarkesworld September 2021
"Año Nuevo" (SF Novelette) Asimov's May/June 2021
"Sarcophagus" (SF SS) Clarkesworld April 2021
"The Shadow of His Wings" (SF SS) Analog March/April 2021
"Terra Rasa" (SF SS) by Anastasia Bookreyeva (as translator) Clarkesworld, February 2021
"A Rocket for Dimitrios" (SF Novella) Asimov's January/February 2021
"Evrim's Children" (SF SS) Dark Matter Magazine January/February 2021
"In the Petrified Forest" (Mainstream SS) Cobalt #61 December 2020
"Outside of Omaha" (Horror SS) Nightmare #96 September 2020
"Architecture" (Mainstream SS) Queen's Quarterly Volume 127 #3 Fall 2020
"The Swallows of the Storm" (SF SS) Lightspeed #122 July 2020
"Father" (SF SS) Asimov's July/August 2020
"Albedo Season" (SF SS) Clarkesworld May 2020
"Eyes of the Forest" (SF SS) The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction May/June 2020
"Return to the Red Castle" (SF SS) Asimov's March/April 2020
"The Disintegration Loops" (SF SS) Asimov's November/December 2019
"If I Were You" (mainstream SS) Yemassee, webzine, November 2019
"The Death of Fire Station 10" (SF SS) Lightspeed #113 October 2019
"Beyond the High Altar" (Horror SS) Nightmare #84 September 2019
"The Ocean Between the Leaves" (SF novelette) Asimov's July/August 2019
"Fire in the Bone" (SF SS) Clarkesworld January 2019
"Incident at San Juan Bautista" (SF SS) Asimov's November/December 2018
"A Threnody for Hazan" (SF Novelette) Asimov's March/April 2018
"Winter Timeshare" (SF SS) Asimov's January / February 2017
"The Cigarette Machine" (Graphic SS) Pinball #5, webzine, 2016
"Do Not Forget Me" (SF SS) Asimov's March 2016
"Mutability" (SF SS) Asimov's June 2015
The Idiot Birds (Horror / Slipstream SS) nthposition.com, online, 2009
"Catch" (Noir SS) Crimewave #7: The Last Sunset, June 2003
"Because I Could Not Stop For Death" (Noir SS) Cemetery Dance #38, spring 2002
"The Bat House" (Noir SS) Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, April 2002
American Graveyards (Detective novella) TTA Press: Witcham, Ely, UK, October 2001
"Population Zero" (Noir SS) Blue Murder #20, webzine, 2001
"Sleepwalking" (Noir SS) Blue Murder #18, webzine, 2001
"How They Kill You at Thousand Palms" (Noir SS) Plots With Guns, webzine, May-June 2001.
"Saturday Night Special" (Noir SS) Ellery Queen, February 2001
"Hang on St. Christopher" (Noir SS) Plots With Guns, webzine, January-February 2001
"Cutting Wood, Carrying Water" (Noir SS) Crimewave #4: Mood Indigo, November 2000
"The Ride" (Noir SS) The Edge: Tales of Suspense #5, September 1999
"The Watchman" (mainstream SS) Berkeley Fiction Review #18, May 1998
"The Ropes of the Lasso Inn" (Horror SS) Deathrealm #30 Winter 1996/1997
"Waiting" (Mainstream SS) Lines in the Sand, 1996
Poetry
"Delinquencies: Five Poems from the Sonnet Cycle Subrevisions" in Poetry Pacific (webzine) May 2021
"After the Matinee" in The Briar Cliff Review #33 January 2021
"The Telling of a Dream" and "Past the Trains" in Modern Poetry Review #11 Fall / Winter 2020
"Analog" in California Quarterly Volume 46 #3 Fall 2020
"The Painted Room" in The Raintown Review #1 (new series) October 2020
"The Drought Cycle" and "El Niño" in Potomac Review #65 Fall 2019
"Aphrodisias" in Silk Road Review #20 Fall 2018
"Torques / Double Shifts at the KFC" in Atlanta Review Fall / Winter 2018
"I ran way but some, by choice, remain . . ." in Potomac Review #62, Spring 2018
"Photo Submitted as Evidence of Relationship" (graphic poem) in Driftwood Press #5.2, Spring 2018
"A Strange Feeling in a Parking Lot / The Tree" in Crab Creek Review #1 Spring 2018
"Kyzyl-Orda" in Badlands Literary Journal #7 January 2017
"August, Ashgabat" in Mud Season Review #2 Spring 2016
"Beehive, Birdbath, Gas Station Flowers" in Minetta Review Fall 2015
"Confluence," "Varangian," "The Wooden Sword," "My Uncle's Grand Tour," "Wakhan (Narasimha)" in Elohi Gadugi (webzine) 2014
"Two Suburban Sonnets" in The Collapsar (webzine) June 2014
"To the Savages" in Antiphon #12 (webzine) Summer 2014
"Casting" in Weave Magazine #11 Summer 2014
"Suburban Triptych" in Juked #11 Spring 2014
"Three Suburban Sonnets" in Clapboard House Journal (webzine) 2013
"Letters to Cities in the Fall" in Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics #10 December 2013
"Present in the Past" in Shadow Road Quarterly (webzine) Fall 2013
"Three Suburban Sonnets" in Able Muse #15 Summer 2013
"Old School" in Beloit Poetry Review Volume 63 #4 Summer 2013
"Never have a town named after you in Phantom Limb (webzine) Summer 2013
"Three Suburban Sonnets" in Eclectica Magazine Volume 17 #2 (webzine) April/May 2013
"Streptomyces" in PiF Magazine #187 (webzine) December 2012
"A Fat Girl in Paris" in PiF Magazine #187 (webzine) December 2012
"Custer Shoots His Horse" in PiF Magazine #186 (webzine) November 2012
Fiction
Palaces of the Crow (Novel) MCDxFSG / W&N May 2026
"Catch a Tiger in the Snow" (SF SS) Asimov's Nov/Dec 2025
"The Tin Man's Ghost" (SF Novelette) Asimov's May/June 2025
Where the Axe is Buried, (novel) MCDxFSG / W&N April 2025
"The Demon of Metrazol" (SF SS) Asimov's March/April 2025
"A Grey Magic" (SF SS) Asimov's September/October 2024
"Charon's Final Passenger" (SF SS) Asimov's, March/April 2024
The Tusks of Extinction, (SF Novella) Tordotcom, January 2024
"Berb by Berb" (SF SS) Asimov's, November/December 2023
"Hermetic Kingdom" The Digital Aesthete: Human Musings on the Intersection of Art and AI, November 2023
"The Job at the End of the World" (SF SS), Tordotcom August 2023
"The Case of the Blood Stained Tower" (SF Novelette) Asimov's March/April 2023
The Mountain in the Sea (SF Novel) MCDxFSG October 2022
"The Empty" (SF SS) Asimov's November/December 2022
"Fostering" (SF SS) Vice.com (Terraform) July 2022
"Mender of Sparrows (SF Novelette) Asimov's March/April 2022
"Rain of Days" (SF SS) Clarkesworld March 2022
"The Summer Castle" (Horror SS) Nightmare #113 February 2022
"Muallim" (SF SS) Asimov's November/December 2021
"Scissors" (Horror SS) by Anastasia Bookreyeva (as translator) Samovar October 2021
"Yesterday's Wolf" (SF SS) Clarkesworld September 2021
"Año Nuevo" (SF Novelette) Asimov's May/June 2021
"Sarcophagus" (SF SS) Clarkesworld April 2021
"The Shadow of His Wings" (SF SS) Analog March/April 2021
"Terra Rasa" (SF SS) by Anastasia Bookreyeva (as translator) Clarkesworld, February 2021
"A Rocket for Dimitrios" (SF Novella) Asimov's January/February 2021
"Evrim's Children" (SF SS) Dark Matter Magazine January/February 2021
"In the Petrified Forest" (Mainstream SS) Cobalt #61 December 2020
"Outside of Omaha" (Horror SS) Nightmare #96 September 2020
"Architecture" (Mainstream SS) Queen's Quarterly Volume 127 #3 Fall 2020
"The Swallows of the Storm" (SF SS) Lightspeed #122 July 2020
"Father" (SF SS) Asimov's July/August 2020
"Albedo Season" (SF SS) Clarkesworld May 2020
"Eyes of the Forest" (SF SS) The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction May/June 2020
"Return to the Red Castle" (SF SS) Asimov's March/April 2020
"The Disintegration Loops" (SF SS) Asimov's November/December 2019
"If I Were You" (mainstream SS) Yemassee, webzine, November 2019
"The Death of Fire Station 10" (SF SS) Lightspeed #113 October 2019
"Beyond the High Altar" (Horror SS) Nightmare #84 September 2019
"The Ocean Between the Leaves" (SF novelette) Asimov's July/August 2019
"Fire in the Bone" (SF SS) Clarkesworld January 2019
"Incident at San Juan Bautista" (SF SS) Asimov's November/December 2018
"A Threnody for Hazan" (SF Novelette) Asimov's March/April 2018
"Winter Timeshare" (SF SS) Asimov's January / February 2017
"The Cigarette Machine" (Graphic SS) Pinball #5, webzine, 2016
"Do Not Forget Me" (SF SS) Asimov's March 2016
"Mutability" (SF SS) Asimov's June 2015
The Idiot Birds (Horror / Slipstream SS) nthposition.com, online, 2009
"Catch" (Noir SS) Crimewave #7: The Last Sunset, June 2003
"Because I Could Not Stop For Death" (Noir SS) Cemetery Dance #38, spring 2002
"The Bat House" (Noir SS) Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, April 2002
American Graveyards (Detective novella) TTA Press: Witcham, Ely, UK, October 2001
"Population Zero" (Noir SS) Blue Murder #20, webzine, 2001
"Sleepwalking" (Noir SS) Blue Murder #18, webzine, 2001
"How They Kill You at Thousand Palms" (Noir SS) Plots With Guns, webzine, May-June 2001.
"Saturday Night Special" (Noir SS) Ellery Queen, February 2001
"Hang on St. Christopher" (Noir SS) Plots With Guns, webzine, January-February 2001
"Cutting Wood, Carrying Water" (Noir SS) Crimewave #4: Mood Indigo, November 2000
"The Ride" (Noir SS) The Edge: Tales of Suspense #5, September 1999
"The Watchman" (mainstream SS) Berkeley Fiction Review #18, May 1998
"The Ropes of the Lasso Inn" (Horror SS) Deathrealm #30 Winter 1996/1997
"Waiting" (Mainstream SS) Lines in the Sand, 1996
Poetry
"Delinquencies: Five Poems from the Sonnet Cycle Subrevisions" in Poetry Pacific (webzine) May 2021
"After the Matinee" in The Briar Cliff Review #33 January 2021
"The Telling of a Dream" and "Past the Trains" in Modern Poetry Review #11 Fall / Winter 2020
"Analog" in California Quarterly Volume 46 #3 Fall 2020
"The Painted Room" in The Raintown Review #1 (new series) October 2020
"The Drought Cycle" and "El Niño" in Potomac Review #65 Fall 2019
"Aphrodisias" in Silk Road Review #20 Fall 2018
"Torques / Double Shifts at the KFC" in Atlanta Review Fall / Winter 2018
"I ran way but some, by choice, remain . . ." in Potomac Review #62, Spring 2018
"Photo Submitted as Evidence of Relationship" (graphic poem) in Driftwood Press #5.2, Spring 2018
"A Strange Feeling in a Parking Lot / The Tree" in Crab Creek Review #1 Spring 2018
"Kyzyl-Orda" in Badlands Literary Journal #7 January 2017
"August, Ashgabat" in Mud Season Review #2 Spring 2016
"Beehive, Birdbath, Gas Station Flowers" in Minetta Review Fall 2015
"Confluence," "Varangian," "The Wooden Sword," "My Uncle's Grand Tour," "Wakhan (Narasimha)" in Elohi Gadugi (webzine) 2014
"Two Suburban Sonnets" in The Collapsar (webzine) June 2014
"To the Savages" in Antiphon #12 (webzine) Summer 2014
"Casting" in Weave Magazine #11 Summer 2014
"Suburban Triptych" in Juked #11 Spring 2014
"Three Suburban Sonnets" in Clapboard House Journal (webzine) 2013
"Letters to Cities in the Fall" in Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics #10 December 2013
"Present in the Past" in Shadow Road Quarterly (webzine) Fall 2013
"Three Suburban Sonnets" in Able Muse #15 Summer 2013
"Old School" in Beloit Poetry Review Volume 63 #4 Summer 2013
"Never have a town named after you in Phantom Limb (webzine) Summer 2013
"Three Suburban Sonnets" in Eclectica Magazine Volume 17 #2 (webzine) April/May 2013
"Streptomyces" in PiF Magazine #187 (webzine) December 2012
"A Fat Girl in Paris" in PiF Magazine #187 (webzine) December 2012
"Custer Shoots His Horse" in PiF Magazine #186 (webzine) November 2012