Meagan Lucas is the author of the Anthony nominated collection Here in the Dark (Shotgun Honey, 2023) and the award-winning novel, Songbirds and Stray Dogs (Main Street Rag Press, 2019). Meagan has published over 40 short stories and essays. She has been nominated for the Pushcart, Best of the Net, Derringer, and Canadian Crime Writer’s Award of Excellence multiple times, and won the 2017 Scythe Prize for Fiction. Her short stories “The Monster Beneath” and “You Know What They Say About Karma” were listed as Distinguished in the 2023 and 2024 Best American Mystery and Suspense. Her novel Songbirds and Stray Dogs was chosen to represent North Carolina in the Library of Congress 2022 Route 1 Reads program, and won Best Debut at the 2020 Indie Book Awards. Meagan teaches Creative Writing at Robert Morris University and in the Great Smokies Writing Program at UNC Asheville. She is the Editor in Chief of Reckon Review. Born and raised on a small island in Northern Ontario, she now lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina.