Riley Passmore is a speculative fiction writer, essayist, and English professor based in Tampa, Florida. He earned his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of South Florida in 2015, and in the fall of 2020 he joined River Ridge High School in New Port Richey as the head of its Dual Enrollment English Composition and Literature program. Since his start, he has grown the program from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty annual students, and co-facilitated River Ridge’s Literary Society, a creative writing club.

Riley is also a published writer himself. His fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in magazines and online publications such as Swamp Ape Review, Small World City, Carmina Magazine, Idle Ink, Barnstorm Journal, Five on the Fifth, and others. In 2019, his flash creative nonfiction essay “Type One” was anthologized in Dinty Moore’s Bodies of Truth: Personal Narratives on Illness, Disability, and Medicine, and he is also currently at work on his first short fiction collection. Tentatively-titled Black-Collar, it chronicles working class characters who support themselves through dangerous, supernatural jobs.

When not at work, Riley can be found making custom furniture in his woodshop, playing tabletop roleplaying games, or hanging out with his ball python named Howie.