The Great Glowing Coils of the Universe (39 page)

Cecil Baldwin
is the narrator of the hit podcast
Welcome to Night Vale
. He is an alumnus of the New York Neo-Futurists, performing in their late-night show
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind,
as well as Drama Desk–nominated
The Complete and Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O'Neill Vol. 2
. Cecil has performed at the Shakespeare Theatre Company, DC, Studio Theatre (including the world premiere production of Neil LaBute's
Autobahn
), the Kennedy Center, the National Players, LaMaMa E.T.C., Emerging Artists Theatre, and at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. Film/TV credits include Braden in
The Outs
(Vimeo), the voice of Tad Strange in
Gravity Falls
(Disney XD), the Fool in
Lear
(with Paul Sorvino), and
Billie Joe Bob
. Cecil has been featured on podcasts such as
Ask Me Another
(NPR),
Selected Shorts
(PRI),
Shipwreck, Big Data
, and
Our Fair City
.

Disparition
is a project created by Jon Bernstein, a composer and producer based in Brooklyn, New York. More at Disparition.info.

Kevin R. Free
is a writer/performer whose work has been showcased on PRX's
The Moth Radio Hour
and NPR's
News & Notes
. His most recent work, created with Eevin Hartsough, is the Web series
Gemma & the Bear!
(www.mycarl.org), which is the recipient of several awards, including an Award of Excellence from the Best Shorts Competition. His full-length plays include
(Not) Just a Day Like Any Other,
written and performed with Christopher Borg, Jeffrey Cranor, and Eevin Hartsough;
A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People; The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, or TRIPLE CONSCIOUSNESS; Night of the Living N-Word
; and
AM I DEAD?: The Untrue Narrative of Anatomical Lewis, The Slave
(commissioned by Flux Theatre Ensemble through the FluxForward program, 2015). He is an alumnus of the New York Neo-Futurists, with whom he wrote and performed regularly in
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (30 Plays in 60 Minutes)
between 2007 and 2011. More at www.kevinrfree.com and on Twitter ©kevinrfree.

Glen David Gold
is the author of the novels
Carter Beats the Devil
and
Sunnyside
.

Jessica Hayworth
is an illustrator and fine artist. She has produced a variety of illustrated works for the
Welcome to Night Vale
podcast since 2013, including all posters for the touring live show. Her other works include the graphic novels
Monster
and
I Will Kill You with My Bare Hands
, as well as various solo and group exhibitions. She received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, and lives and works in Detroit.

Maureen Johnson
is the
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author of several YA novels, including
13 Little Blue Envelopes, Suite Scarlett,
and
The Name of the Star
. She has also done collaborative works, such as
Let It Snow
(with John Green and Lauren Myracle) and
The Bane Chronicles
(with Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan). Maureen has an MFA in writing from Columbia University. She has been nominated for an Edgar Award and the Andre Norton Award, and her books appear frequently on YALSA and state award lists.
Time
magazine has named her one of the top 140 people to follow on Twitter (©maureenjohnson). Maureen lives in New York, and online on Twitter (or at www.maureenjohnsonbooks.com).

Ashley Lierman
is a professional university librarian and an occasional writer. Apart from contributing guest episodes to
Welcome to Night Vale
, she writes the monthly column “Queer Quest” for the news blog of the American Library Association's GLBT Round Table, in which she discusses LGBTQ+ representation in video games, comics, speculative fiction, and other forms of niche media. She has also contributed to two short story anthologies by the independent genre fiction press the Sockdolager (www.sockdolager.net), and has appeared as a guest on the podcast
I Haven't Seen That
(www.ihavent seenthat.com)
.

One of the creators and cohosts of
We Got This with Mark and Hal
on the Maximum Fun Network,
Hal Lublin
is an accomplished actor and improviser. Best known for his work as one of the core WorkJuice players in
The Thrilling Adventure Hour
and Steve Carlsberg on
Welcome to Night Vale
, Hal plays Wide Wale and Manolo on
The Venture Bros.
and will recur on Cartoon Network's upcoming series
Mighty Magiswords
. His work runs the gamut from animated films and television programs to radio shows and video games for CBS, Happy Madison, Disney, SyFy, JibJab, Wired, and more.

Originally from Birmingham, Alabama,
Jasika Nicole
studied theatre, voice, and dance at Catawba College in North Carolina before moving to New York City to pursue a career in the arts. She got her start in musical theatre but is best known for her role as Agent Astrid Farnsworth on Fox's sci-fi series
Fringe
. In addition to performing, Nicole has a degree in studio art and is an accomplished illustrator as well as a published author. An avid DIYer, Nicole knits, sews, bakes, makes shoes, and builds furniture in her spare time. Miss Nicole resides in Los Angeles with her lovely wife, Claire.

Zack Parsons
is a Chicago-based humorist and author of non-fiction (
My Tank Is Fight!
) and fiction (
Liminal States
). In addition to
Welcome to Night Vale
, he has worked with Joseph Fink on the website Something Awful and can also be found writing for his own site, the Bad Guys Win (www.thebadguyswin.com). You can call him a weird idiot on twitter at ©sexyfacts4u.

Lauren Sharpe
lives in Brooklyn with her husband and twin daughters. She listens to trees and believes in magic. More at www.LaurenSharpe.com.

Mara Wilson
is a writer, storyteller, and voice actress. Her voice can be heard on
BoJack Horseman
, and her writing can be read on the Toast, McSweeney's, Jezebel, Reductress, Cracked, and her own website, www.MaraWilsonWritesStuff.com. She is the author of the book
Where Am I Now?
available from Penguin books.

PRAISE FOR
WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE: A NOVEL

“Fink and Cranor's prose hints there's an empathetic humanity underscoring their well of darkly fantastic situations. . . . As a companion piece,
Welcome to Night Vale
will be hard to resist. Though the book builds toward a satisfyingly strange exploration of the strange town's intersection with an unsuspecting real world, [its] mysteries—like the richest conspiracy theories—don't exist to be explained. They just provide a welcome escape.”

—
Los Angeles Times

“The book is charming and absurd—think
This American Life
meets
Alice in Wonderland
.”

—
Washington Post

“Longtime listeners and newcomers alike are likely to appreciate the ways in which Night Vale, as Fink puts it, ‘treats the absurd as normal and treats the normal as absurd.' What they might not foresee is the emotional wallop the novel delivers in its climactic chapters.”

—
Austin Chronicle

“The charms of
Welcome to Night Vale
are nearly impossible to quantify. That applies to the podcast, structured as community radio dispatches from a particularly surreal desert town, as well as this novel.”

—
Minneapolis Star Tribune

“
Welcome to Night Vale: A Novel
masterfully brings the darkly hilarious, touching and creepy world of the podcast into the realm of ink and paper.”

—
Asbury Park Press

“
Welcome to Night Vale
lives up to the podcast hype in every way. It is a singularly inventive visit to an otherworldly town that's the stuff of nightmares and daydreams.”

—
BookPage

“All hail the glow cloud as the weird and wonderful town of Night Vale brings itself to fine literature. . . . The novel is definitely as addictive as its source material.”

—
Kirkus Reviews
(starred review)

“Take Conan's Hyborea, teleport it to the American Southwest, dress all the warriors in business casual and hide their swords under the floorboards—that's Night Vale: absurd, magical, wholly engrossing, and always harboring some hidden menace.”

—John Darnielle, author of
Wolf in White Van

“They've done the unthinkable: merged the high weirdness and intense drama of Night Vale to the pages of a novel that is even weirder, even more intense than the podcast.”

—Cory Doctorow, author of
Little Brother
and coeditor of
Boing Boing

“This is the novel of your dreams. . . . A friendly (but terrifying) and comic (but dark) and glittering (but bleak) story of misfit family life that unfolds along the side streets, back alleys and spring-loaded trap doors of the small town home you'll realize you've always missed living in.”

—Glen David Gold, author of
Carter Beats the Devil
and
Sunnyside

“This small town full of hooded figures, glowing clouds, cryptically terrifying public policies, and flickering realities quickly feels more like home than home. . . . There is nothing like Night Vale, in the best possible way.”

—Maureen Johnson, author of
13 Little Blue Envelopes
and
The Name of the Star

“I've been a fan of
Welcome to Night Vale
for years, and in that time writers Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink have delighted me with stories that are clever, twisted, beautiful, strange, wonderful, and sweet. This book does all of that and so much more. It's even better than I'd hoped. I think this might be the best book I've read in years.”

—Patrick Rothfuss, author of
The Name of the Wind

“Emotionally compelling and superbly realized. This seductive, hilarious book unfolds at the moment when certain quiet responsible people find they must risk everything on behalf of love, hope, and understanding. Not a single person who reads this book will be disappointed.”

—Deb Olin Unferth, author of
Revolution
and
Vacation

“
Welcome to Night Vale
brings its eponymous desert town to vivid life. Those of us who have gotten to know Night Vale through Cecil Palmer's bi-weekly radio broadcasts can finally see what it's like to actually live there. It is as weird and surreal as I hoped it would be, and a surprisingly existential meditation on the nature of time, reality, and the glow cloud that watches over us. ALL HAIL THE GLOW CLOUD.”

—Wil Wheaton

ALSO BY JOSEPH FINK & JEFFREY CRANOR

Welcome to Night Vale: A Novel

Mostly Void, Partially Stars:

Welcome to Night Vale Episodes, Volume 1

CREDITS

Illustrations by Jessica Hayworth

COPYRIGHT