Jake Casella Brookins is an SF critic and scholar. He is the publishing editor for the Ancillary Review of Books and the host of the podcast A Meal of Thorns, both of which have been nominated for the Hugo Awards. He is a founding member of the Translated Hugo Initiative, which seeks to highlight translated speculative fiction throughout the reading community. Casella’s reviews and essays appear with Locus Magazine, the Chicago Review of Books, Strange Horizons, Typebar Magazine, Seize the Press, and more; his academic work on speculative fiction has been presented with SFRA, ICFA, the ACLA, the ACCSFF, and others. A once and future barista and bookseller, he lives in beautiful Buffalo, New York.