Charles Coleman Finlay has been called "a versatile writer of imaginative fiction" by Publishers Weekly and praised by Kirkus for his "astonishing imagination."  He's become known for his fantasy adventures, his science fiction character studies, and his horror stories set in small town Ohio.  

His first published story, like his latest novels, reflects a lifelong interest in history.  "Footnotes," published in 2001, was a series of footnotes from a history article about a future nanotechnology disaster.  Since then, he's become a regular contributor to Fantasy & Science Fiction and other magazines.  His stories have been reprinted in Year's Best Fantasy, Year's Best Science Fiction, and Best New Horror.   In 2003, he was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and his stories have been finalists for the Hugo, Nebula, and Sidewise awards.  His fiction has also been translated into German, Hebrew, Portuguese, Romanian, and Russian. 

Finlay has taught creative writing at the Clarion Workshop (now located at San Diego State University), at the Clarion Young Authors Workshop (at Michigan State University), and the Alpha Writers Workshop (at the University of Pittsburg-Greensburg), as well as convention workshops.  From 2000 to 2007 he was the admin for the Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror.  He is also the founder of Blue Heaven, a professional workshop for novels that has been attended by two dozen diverse up-and-coming genre writers including Paolo Bacigalupi, Christopher Barzak, Tobias Buckell, Brenda Cooper, Daryl Gregory, Karin Lowachee, Sandra McDonald, Paul Melko, Tim Pratt, Sarah Prineas, M. Rickert, Ben Rosenbaum, Ian Tregillis, Catherynne M. Valente, Greg van Eekhout, and others. He has served on the jury for the Philip K. Dick Award and co-chaired the jury for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Finlay lives in Columbus, Ohio, with his writer wife (and sometimes co-author), Rae Carson.  They have two children from a previous marriage.  The youngest had his first book published at age 11 when his class at school won the Grand Prize in Scholastic Books' Kids-Are-Authors contest.