John Kessel has written the novels Pride and Prometheus, The Moon and the Other, Good News from Outer Space, Corrupting Dr. Nice, and Freedom Beach (with James Patrick Kelly), and the collections Meeting in Infinity, The Pure Product, and The Baum Plan for Financial Independence. The Dark Ride: The Best Short Fiction of John Kessel, was published by Subterranean Press in 2022, and in 2024 PM Press published his satirical collection The Presidential Papers in its Outspoken Authors series.
His work has received the Nebula, the Theodore Sturgeon, the Locus, the James Tiptree Jr./Otherwise, the Ignotus, and the Shirley Jackson awards.
His undergraduate degree was in physics and English, and he holds a PhD in English from the University of Kansas, where he studied with SFWA Grandmaster James Gunn. He co-founded the Sycamore Hill Writers Conference. At North Carolina State University, Kessel taught literature and creative writing for forty years, including courses on science fiction and fantasy. He helped found the MFA program in creative writing, serving twice as its director.
He lives with his wife, the novelist Therese Anne Fowler, in North Carolina.