Note: Alaya Dawn Johnson will schedule the virtual critique with the winning bidder.

Alaya Dawn Johnson will take part in a virtual manuscript critique session with the winning bidder. The critique can be for any story or excerpt up to 5000 words.

Johnson was born in Washington, DC in 1982, the first of three children. In 2007 she published her first novel, Racing the Dark, with the Chicago-based small press Agate Books. She then sold a pair of urban fantasy novels set in roaring twenties New York City to a major house and dedicated herself full-time to writing.

A turning point in her career came with the publication of her debut YA novel, The Summer Prince, which was long listed for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature. Her most recent YA, Love Is the Drug, brought her deep speculative imagination and social commentary to the world of modern Washington, DC. The first was nominated for and the second won the prestigious Nebula (Andre Norton) Award for YA Science Fiction and Fantasy, awarded by SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America). In the past decade, her award-winning short stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015, Feral Youth, Three Sides of a Heart and Zombies vs. Unicorns.