Fantastic Fiction at KGB

Matthew Kressel
  • 5.0 (2)
  • Books
  • Updated Monthly

Fantastic Fiction at KGB is a monthly speculative fiction reading series held at the famous KGB bar in NYC, and hosted by Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel. Some of our past readers include N.K. Jemisin, Joe Hill, Jeffrey Ford, Scott Westerfeld, Kelly Link, China Miéville, Nancy Kress, Paul Tremblay, Joyce Carol Oates, Samuel R. Delany, Holly Black, Michael Swanwick, Kit Reed, Peter Straub, Catherynne M. Valente, Jeff VanderMeer, Scott Lynch, Elizabeth Bear and many other talented authors.

  1. 4d ago

    Audio from May 13th, with Siobhan Carroll & Micaiah Johnson

    Here’s the audio from the May 13th, 2026 Fantastic Fiction at KGB, with guests Siobhan Carroll & Micaiah Johnson, who read live at the KGB Bar. Support the Fantastic Fiction at KGB series by clicking here!​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​   Siobhan Carroll Siobhan Carroll is a Philadelphia-based writer of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Her award-winning short stories are defined by rich historical settings and a mixture of tragedy and comedy. They have been translated into multiple languages and adapted to television by Netflix’s Love, Death + Robots and Amazon Prime’s Secret Level. Carroll teaches creative writing, 19th Century British Literature and the history of exploration at the University of Delaware & Micaiah Johnson Micaiah Johnson is the Compton Crook and Carl Brandon Award-winning author of The Space Between Worlds. Her debut novel was a Sunday Times Bestseller, an Editors’ Choice at The New York Times and was named one of the best books of 2020 and one of the best science fiction books of the last decade by NPR. Her second novel, Those Beyond the Wall, has been named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2024 and a finalist for the Ursula Le Guin Prize. In her academic life she studies race, the unhuman, and death, themes featured in her upcoming work The Unhaunted.

    48 min

  2. Apr 15

    Audio from April 8th, with Michael Swanwick & Mike Allen

    Here’s the audio from the April 8, 2026 Fantastic Fiction at KGB, with guests Michael Swanwick & Mike Allen. Both read from their works to wow the audience. Support the Fantastic Fiction at KGB series by clicking here!​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​   Michael Swanwick Michael Swanwick has been writing fantasy and science fiction at every length from flash fiction to novel trilogy for over forty years, during which time he has received the Nebula, Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy Awards, as well as five Hugo Awards. As a hobby, he writes critical non-fiction and the occasional interview. & Mike Allen Mike Allen’s most recent novel is Trail of Shadows, published in 2025. Two of his collections of horror tales, Unseaming and Aftermath of an Industrial Accident, were finalists for the Shirley Jackson Award, and as an editor, he’s a two-time World Fantasy Award nominee. His short fiction has appeared in Apex Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Cosmic Horror Monthly, Interzone, Weird Tales, and Storyteller: A Tanith Lee Tribute Anthology. With his wife and creative partner, Anita, he runs Mythic Delirium Books in Roanoke, Virginia.

    59 min

  3. Mar 21

    Audio from March 11th, with C.S.E. Cooney & Kristina Ten

    Here’s the audio from the March 11th, 2026 Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading with guests C. S. E. Cooney & Kristina Ten. Support the Fantastic Fiction at KGB series by clicking here!​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​   C. S. E. Cooney C. S. E. Cooney is a two-time World Fantasy Award-winning author: for her novel Saint Death’s Daughter, and her collection Bone Swans, Stories. Other work includes Saint Death’s Herald, The Twice-Drowned Saint, Dark Breakers, and Desdemona and the Deep. She’s a Rhysling Award-winning poet and a SAG-AFTRA voice actor, having narrated over 130 audiobooks. As singer-songwriter “Brimstone Rhine,” Cooney has produced two EPs, an album, and an SF musical. With her husband Carlos Hernandez, she co-designed the collaborative tabletop roleplaying game Negocios Infernales, out now from Outland Entertainment. Find out more at C. S. E. Cooney’s  website, her Substack newsletter, and elsewhere on social media. & Kristina Ten Kristina Ten is the author of Tell Me Yours, I’ll Tell You Mine, a collection of dark, strange stories released in October from Stillhouse Press. Her writing appears in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction, The Best Weird Fiction of the Year, and elsewhere. Along with winning the McSweeney’s Stephen Dixon Award, she has been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award and the Locus Award. Ten is a graduate of Clarion West Writers Workshop and the University of Colorado Boulder’s MFA program in fiction, and has received fellowships from the Ragdale Foundation and the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing.

    55 min

  4. Jan 18

    Audio from Jan 14th, with Rachel Harrison & Robert P. Ottone

    The following audio was recorded live at the KGB Bar on Jan 14th, with guests Rachel Harrison & Robert P. Ottone. Support the Fantastic Fiction at KGB series by clicking here!​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​   Rachel Harrison Rachel Harrison is the New York Times bestselling author of seven horror novels, most recently Play Nice and the forthcoming Kiss Slay Replay. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and in her collection, Bad Dolls. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and their cat / overlord. You can find her stuck on NJTransit or at rachel-harrison.com & Robert P. Ottone Robert P. Ottone is the two-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Triangle and There’s Something Sinister in Centerfield. He is also the author of The Vile Thing We Created as well as the collections Her Infernal Name and Tear Me Open: Fears Unwrapped. His next novel, Amityville Awakens, is coming from CLASH BOOKS October 6, 2026. A bagel-loving fabulist of spooky absurdity, Ottone enjoys cigars and time with his wife at their home in upstate New York.

    48 min

  5. 12/12/2025

    Audio from Dec 10th, with Daniel Braum & Martin Cahill

    Here’s the audio from the Dec 10th Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading, with guests Daniel Braum & Martin Cahill. Both read from their work on a rainy evening to a packed enthusiastic house. Support the Fantastic Fiction at KGB series by clicking here!​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​   Daniel Braum Daniel Braum writes short stories that explore the tension between the supernatural and the psychological. He intentionally adopts the term “strange tales” for his “Twilight Zone-like” stories in homage to author Robert Aickman and the intentional ambiguities in his work. His most recent books are the illustrated short story collections Creatures of Liminal Space (Jackanapes Press) and Phantom Constellations: Strange Tales and Ghost Stories (Cemetery Dance). His stories also appear in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Shivers 8, and the Best Horror of the Year Volume 12. Braum is also the host of the Night Time Logic Series which has entered its tenth year of interviews and spotlighting dark fiction. & Martin Cahill Martin Cahill is the author of the USA Today bestselling book, Audition For The Fox, released in September from Tachyon Publications. He is also the writer of Critical Role: Armory of Heroes, and contributed to Critical Role: Vox Machina – Stories Untold. Martin was a 2022 Ignyte Award nominee for Best Short Story and a graduate of the 2014 Clarion Writers’ Workshop. He has published fiction with Reactor, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed Magazine, appeared in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019, and much more. Martin also writes, and has written, book reviews, articles, and essays for Reactor, Writer’s Digest, Catapult, and others.

    53 min

  6. 11/28/2025

    Audio from Nov 12th, with Lara Elena Donnelly & Sam J. Miller

    Here’s the audio from the Nov 12th Fantastic Fiction at KGB, with guests Lara Elena Donnelly & Sam. J. Miller, Nov 12th, 7pm ET (Note: we continue to troubleshoot an audio issue that caused the author intros to be overmodulated; please pardon our mistake as we work to isolate the issue.) Support the Fantastic Fiction at KGB series by clicking here!​​​​​​​​​​​​   Lara Elena Donnelly Lara Elena Donnelly is the author of the Nebula nominated Amberlough Dossier, the contemporary thriller Base Notes, and short fiction in Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, Nightmare, and Uncanny. She has taught in the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College, as well as the Catapult Workshop. She is a graduate of the Clarion and Alpha writers’ workshops, and has served as on-site staff at the latter, mentoring amazing teens who will someday take over the world of SFF. You can also find her at Homeward Books, where she’s one of four co-founders working to bring genre-defying literature into being. & Sam J. Miller Sam J. Miller’s books have been called “must-reads” and “bests of the year” by NPR, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, and O: The Oprah Magazine, among others. They’ve also been banned in Florida, and stolen by AI. He’s received the Nebula, Locus, and Shirley Jackson Awards. He’s also the last in a long line of butchers. Sam lives in New York City, and at samjmiller.com

    42 min

  7. 10/22/2025

    Audio from Oct 8th, with Leanna Renee Hieber & Shveta Thakrar

    Here’s the audio from the October 8th, 2025 Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading with guests Leanna Renee Hieber & Shveta Thakrar. (Due to a technical glitch, the audio in this recording is overmodulated in some spots; we apologize for this and we’ll make sure it doesn’t happen next time!) We need your help to stay funded! Support the reading series by clicking here!​​​​​​​​​​​​   Leanna Renee Hieber Leanna Renee Hieber is a professional actress, playwright, tour guide, and award-winning author of fiction and non-fiction for Tor, Kensington and more. A Haunted History of Invisible Women was a Stoker Award Non-Fiction Finalist and America’s Most Gothic: Haunted History Stranger than Fiction was just released. A 3-time Prism award winner for her Gothic Strangely Beautiful saga and a Daphne du Maurier finalist for Darker Still, Leanna’s stories and essays have been featured in notable anthologies and magazines. Featured on TV shows like Mysteries at the Museum discussing Victorian Spiritualism, she works for NYC’s Boroughs of the Dead and tells ghost stories nationwide. &   Shveta Thakrar Shveta Thakrar is a part-time nagini and full-time believer in magic. Her work has appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies, including Enchanted Living, Uncanny Magazine, A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, and Toil & Trouble. Her debut young adult fantasy novel, Star Daughter, was a finalist for the 2021 Andre Norton Nebula Award, and her second and third novels, The Dream Runners and Divining the Leaves, take place in the same universe. Her adult fantasy novella, Into the Moon Garden, is available as an Audible Original audiobook. When not writing, Shveta crafts, reads, daydreams, travels, bakes, and occasionally plays her harp.

    1h 6m

  8. 09/25/2025

    Audio from Sept 10th, with Fran Wilde & Shiva Kumar

    Here’s the audio from the September 10th, 2025 Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series with guests Fran Wilde & Shiva Kumar. Both read from their work to a full house. We need your help to stay funded! Support the reading series by clicking here!​​​​​​​​​​​​   Fran Wilde Fran Wilde is a two-time Nebula Award-winner, a Best of NPR author, and finalist for multiple Nebula, Hugo, World Fantasy, and Locus awards. Her most recent books include A Catalog of Storms, collected short fiction (Fairwood Press, August 2025) and the speculative heist novel A Philosophy of Thieves (Erewhon Books, October 2025). Her short stories appear in Asimov’s, Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Uncanny Magazine, and multiple years’ best anthologies. Fran is also Co-Editor in Chief for The Sunday Morning Transport with Julian Yap and writes nonfiction for publications including The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR, and Tor.com. &   Shiva Kumar Shiva Kumar is the author of the South Asian mythology inspired science fiction fantasy trilogy, The Lanka Chronicles, comprised of An Awakening, A New Reality, and Path of Destiny. As a screenwriter, Kumar has won numerous awards and best screenplay at the Long Island Film Festival for Journey to Babylon. Kumar is also an award-winning documentary filmmaker with several films on PBS, BBC, and Amazon Prime. As an actor he has appeared in several network shows such as Madam Secretary, Law & Order SVU, FBI-Most Wanted, and Quantico.

    57 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Fantastic Fiction at KGB is a monthly speculative fiction reading series held at the famous KGB bar in NYC, and hosted by Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel. Some of our past readers include N.K. Jemisin, Joe Hill, Jeffrey Ford, Scott Westerfeld, Kelly Link, China Miéville, Nancy Kress, Paul Tremblay, Joyce Carol Oates, Samuel R. Delany, Holly Black, Michael Swanwick, Kit Reed, Peter Straub, Catherynne M. Valente, Jeff VanderMeer, Scott Lynch, Elizabeth Bear and many other talented authors.

Information

  • Creator
    Matthew Kressel
  • Years Active
    2016 - 2026
  • Episodes
    144
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Content copyright the authors unless noted. Reproduction without permission prohibited.
  • Show Website
    Fantastic Fiction at KGB