Laura Benson
(she/her)

Laura is a big fan of sci-fi novels and comic books. Give her anything to do with space travel, aliens, robots, artificial intelligence, futuristic technology, and powered humans and she’ll be as happy as can be. She also enjoys a bit of urban fantasy.

Aside from books, Laura is a geek of a variety of other things. She loves video games, movies/tv shows, and is a professional graphic designer that works from home. She’s also dabbled in a bit of film production, animation, music, and writing.

Follow Laura on Instagram and Goodreads!

Jason Rico
(he/him)

A lifelong geek, Jason grew up on equal parts comic books, novels, and cartoons. If you know him, none of this should be a surprise.

A professional video editor by day and an avid relaxer by night, Jason has fully accepted the reality that he buys books as decoration rather than to actually read them. That’s not to say he doesn’t read a lot of books. He does. Just not always the books he physically owns.

Jason has studied at Battle School, Brakebills College, and Miskatonic University, and his passport includes stamps from lands such as Earthsea, Panem, Fillory, Ravka, and Trantor.

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Bella Romero
(she/they)

Like so many others, the pandemic brought out Bella’s creative side and allowed their true identity as a creative book nerd to shine.

Bella can always be found reading anything fiction, but their favorite genres by far are historical fiction and fantasy. In addition, they love everything that includes fairytale reimaginings, romance, dystopian societies, mythology, mystery, and Bildungsroman.

When not reading, Bella can be found at local coffee shops, hiking out in the wilderness while pretending to explore fictional worlds like Endor and the Enchanted Forest, or thrifting cottagecore and dark academia decor to go with their collection of old books.

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EmmaSkies
(she/her)

From long-time guest host to now official SWR After Dark co-host, Emma is a reader of fantasy, sci-fi, and romance – that is, anything that removes her from real life. She is also a fan of fantasy/sci-fi movies and TV as well as an avid gamer. You can usually see her decades of gaming experience adding up to still not being very good at them a few nights a week on Twitch.

She’s also a co-host on the podcast BYLO Watch where her and a friend dissect book-to-TV show adaptations. The first four seasons are available to listen to now, where they discuss three seasons of HBO’s His Dark Materials and the first season of Netflix’s Shadow & Bone.

Follow Emma on Instagram and Goodreads!