Z. Bennett Lorimer is the author of several SFF series and short stories including the Tales of Ciel, The Divine Heretic, the Compact Cycle, and Shattered, and a recipient of the 2019 Iowa Home Voices Award for his short story "American Drone Pilot," first published in The Superstition Review. He is a graduate of the 2014 Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Workshop at UC-San Diego. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Iowa State University and is the former managing editor of the international literary journal Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment. In 2025, he launched High Trestle Press LLC, an independent press dedicated to publishing series science fiction and fantasy on an expedited timeline. A Long Island native, he currently lives in Ames, IA, with his partner and children.