Kate MacLeod is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. She is best known for her short stories in magazines such as Analog, Strange Horizons, and Mythic Delirium, as well as her young adult science fiction series The Travels of Scout Shannon and The Forgotten Planet. Her most recent novelette, Heat Death (2025), appeared in Analog Science Fiction & Fact.
Kate MacLeod trained as a medical laboratory technician before becoming a medical transcriptionist. She later credited the productivity demands of that work with helping her develop the discipline required for a writing career.
Kate began writing fiction in childhood and completed her first novel while still in high school. “Of course it wasn’t a particularly good novel,” she recalled, “but I’ve always loved creating characters, sticking them in strange settings, and seeing what they get up to.”
Her short fiction has since appeared in Analog, Mythic Delirium, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, Abyss & Apex, Allegory, and other outlets. Her story “Din Ba Din” received an honourable mention in The Year’s Best Science Fiction: 31st Edition and appeared on Locus magazine’s recommended reading list for 2013.
Her return to Analog with Heat Death marked her fourth appearance in the magazine. The story began as a submission to a workshop led by Kristine Kathryn Rusch on science fiction mysteries.
She explained: “My initial impulse was to write something in the cold, dark winter, because being from Minnesota, I know a bit about living in cold, dark winters. But I actually find the idea of heat stroke so much more terrifying than hypothermia. And once I had the title, the rest of the story clicked into place.”
Heat Death is set in the near future against the backdrop of climate change. The story follows Lidia Alvarez, a law enforcement officer who returns to her depopulated Texas hometown. When a hiker dies under suspicious circumstances in extreme heat, she begins an investigation that raises more profound questions about her community and herself.
MacLeod described her identification with the character Chloe Summers in the story, noting: “I feel for her, getting left behind in a town with no future when her best friend moves on to better prospects.”
Beyond her short fiction, MacLeod has published several novel series. These include The Travels of Scout Shannon, which follows an orphan navigating a war-torn world with her two dogs, and The Ritchie and Fitz Sci-Fi Murder Mysteries, centred on a pair of students investigating crimes in interstellar settings. Her more recent series, The Forgotten Plane,t features a teenage heroine uncovering hidden history with the aid of a cyborg dog.
The latest volume, Plundering the Planetary Secrets, was released in March 2025, with Salvaging the Arctic Wreck scheduled for later in the year.
MacLeod has also contributed to the science fiction podcast The Tales of the Chai Makhani Trio. Her collections include Tales of Blood and Ink, Tales of Old Gods and New, and Tales from Ancient and Future Times.
Kate MacLeod lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her husband, two sons, two dogs, and a cat. She has mentioned that the family may move further north since, in her words, “the winters in Minnesota just don’t get cold enough anymore.”
Photo credit: KateMacLeodWrites.com
Kate MacLeod trained as a medical laboratory technician before becoming a medical transcriptionist. She later credited the productivity demands of that work with helping her develop the discipline required for a writing career.
Kate began writing fiction in childhood and completed her first novel while still in high school. “Of course it wasn’t a particularly good novel,” she recalled, “but I’ve always loved creating characters, sticking them in strange settings, and seeing what they get up to.”
Her short fiction has since appeared in Analog, Mythic Delirium, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, Abyss & Apex, Allegory, and other outlets. Her story “Din Ba Din” received an honourable mention in The Year’s Best Science Fiction: 31st Edition and appeared on Locus magazine’s recommended reading list for 2013.
Her return to Analog with Heat Death marked her fourth appearance in the magazine. The story began as a submission to a workshop led by Kristine Kathryn Rusch on science fiction mysteries.
She explained: “My initial impulse was to write something in the cold, dark winter, because being from Minnesota, I know a bit about living in cold, dark winters. But I actually find the idea of heat stroke so much more terrifying than hypothermia. And once I had the title, the rest of the story clicked into place.”
Heat Death is set in the near future against the backdrop of climate change. The story follows Lidia Alvarez, a law enforcement officer who returns to her depopulated Texas hometown. When a hiker dies under suspicious circumstances in extreme heat, she begins an investigation that raises more profound questions about her community and herself.
MacLeod described her identification with the character Chloe Summers in the story, noting: “I feel for her, getting left behind in a town with no future when her best friend moves on to better prospects.”
Beyond her short fiction, MacLeod has published several novel series. These include The Travels of Scout Shannon, which follows an orphan navigating a war-torn world with her two dogs, and The Ritchie and Fitz Sci-Fi Murder Mysteries, centred on a pair of students investigating crimes in interstellar settings. Her more recent series, The Forgotten Plane,t features a teenage heroine uncovering hidden history with the aid of a cyborg dog.
The latest volume, Plundering the Planetary Secrets, was released in March 2025, with Salvaging the Arctic Wreck scheduled for later in the year.
MacLeod has also contributed to the science fiction podcast The Tales of the Chai Makhani Trio. Her collections include Tales of Blood and Ink, Tales of Old Gods and New, and Tales from Ancient and Future Times.
Kate MacLeod lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her husband, two sons, two dogs, and a cat. She has mentioned that the family may move further north since, in her words, “the winters in Minnesota just don’t get cold enough anymore.”
Photo credit: KateMacLeodWrites.com
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