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Sheree Renée Thomas is a New York Times bestselling, award-winning short story writer, poet, and editor. Her work is inspired by myth and folklore, natural science, and Mississippi Delta conjure. Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future (Third Man Books, May 2020) is her first all prose fiction debut. She is the author of the Marvel novel, Black Panther: Panther's Rage (Titan Books, October 2022) and of two hybrid collections, Sleeping Under the Tree of Life and Shotgun Lullabies (Aqueduct Press, 2016, 2011). She is a collaborator with artist Janelle Monáe on the story, "Timebox Altar(ed)" in her debut fiction collection, The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer (HarperVoyager, April 2022). Her writing has been supported with fellowships and residencies from the Millay Colony of Arts, Bread Loaf Environmental, VCCA, Ledig House / Art Omi, Blue Mountain Center, Cave Canem Foundation, NYFA, Tennessee Arts Commission, MemphisArts, The Wallace Foundation, and Smith College where she served as the Lucille Geier-Lakes Writer-in-Residence. The Studio Museum in Harlem commissioned her to create original poems for the William Edmondson, Bill Traylor, Chris Ofili exhibition and her writing has been translated in Spanish, French, and Urdu.
 
Sheree’s work is widely anthologized and has appeared in numerous literary publications, including The Big Book of Modern Fantasy, Sycorax’s Daughters, Afrofuturo(s), Jalada, Do Not Go Quietly, Memphis Noir, Stories for Chip: A Tribute To Samuel R. Delany, So Long Been Dreaming: Post-colonial Science Fiction & Fantasy, Revise the Psalm: A Celebration of Gwendolyn Brooks, Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler, Mojo: Conjure Stories, Revenge, Curating the End of the World, Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology, Lightspeed, The Ringing Ear, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Apex Magazine, An Alphabet of Embers: An Anthology of Unclassifiables, The Moment of Change: Feminist Speculative Poetry, Memories & Reflections On Ursula K. Le Guin, StorySouth, Hurricane Blues, African Voices, Meridian, Harpur Palate, Eleven Eleven, Drumvoices Revue, Fiyah, Fireside Fiction, Strange Horizons, Obsidian, Renaissance Noire, Harvard’s Transition, Callaloo, Essence, Vibe, The Washington Post Book World, and The New York Times.
 
A Pushcart-nominated author honorably mentioned in The Year’s Best annuals, her work appears in The Big Book of Modern Fantasy (1945 – 2010) edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer (Vintage Anchor July 2020). She edited the groundbreaking anthologies, Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora (2000, 2001) and Dark Matter: Reading the Bones (2004, 2005, Grand Central Publishing / Warner Aspect) that won two World Fantasy Awards and first introduced W.E.B. Du Bois’s work as science fiction and exciting new voices in the genre. At the time, Sheree was the first black author to be honored with a World Fantasy Award since its inception in 1975. Sheree served as a 2019 Guest of Honor at the World Fantasy Awards held in Los Angeles, CA and was recently honored as 2020 World Fantasy Award Finalist in the Special Award – Professional category for her contributions to the field. She is a 2021 Writer Guest of Honor of Worldcon (DisCon III) to be held in Washington, DC in August where she will have the honor of co-hosting the 2021 Hugo Awards Ceremony with fellow Writer Guest of Honor, author Andrea Hairston. Sheree was a 2021 Guest of Honor of WisCon 45, the world’s largest feminist science fiction convention held annually in Madison, WI and was a Special Guest of Boskone 58 in Boston, MA and Multiverse 2022 in Atlanta, GA. She is a 2022 Hugo Award Finalist, 2022 Ember Award Finalist, A 2022 Locus Award Finalist, and a 2022 World Fantasy Award Finalist.

She was the inaugural recipient of the LA (Leslie) Banks Award for outstanding achievement in the speculative fiction field. Her hybrid, multigenre collection, Sleeping Under the Tree of Life (Aqueduct Press) was longlisted for the 2016 Otherwise Award and honored with a Publishers’ Weekly Starred Review. Shotgun Lullabies (Aqueduct 2011), was described as a “revelatory work like Jean Toomer’s Cane.” She serves as the Associate Editor of the historic award-winning peer-reviewed Black Arts literary journal, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora (Illinois State University, Normal).  founded in 1975 and is the Editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, founded in 1949. She is a Marvel writer and contributor to the groundbreaking anthology, Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda edited by Jesse J. Holland and wrote the novel adaptation of the comics, Black Panther: Panther's Rage. Look for her forthcoming anthology, Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction co-edited with Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and Zelda Knight (Tordotcom, November 2022).
 
Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future (Third Man Books, 2020) is her first fiction collection. She lives in her hometown, Memphis, Tennessee near a mighty river and a pyramid.