Sharma Shields is the author of a short story collection, Favorite Monster, and two novels, The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac and The Cassandra. Sharma’s short stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Electric Lit, Catapult, Slice, Slate, Fairy Tale Review, Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, Fugue, and elsewhere and have garnered such prizes as the 2020 PNBA Award, a 2020 Artist Trust Fellowship, 2016 Washington State Book Award, the Autumn House Fiction Prize, the Tim McGinnis Award for Humor, and the A.B. Guthrie Award for Outstanding Prose. She received her B.A. in English Literature from the University of Washington (2000) and her MFA from the University of Montana (2004). Sharma runs a small press, Scablands Books, and is a contributing editor for Moss. Sharma has worked in independent bookstores and public libraries throughout Washington State and is currently the Writing Education Specialist for Spokane Public Library. She lives with her husband (writer and graphic novelist Simeon Mills) and their two children.