About

Stacy Woodson is a US Army combat veteran. Memories of her time in the military are often a source of inspiration for her stories. She made her crime fiction debut in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine’s Department of First Stories and won the 2018 Readers Award, the second time in the award’s history a debut took first place. Since then, she has placed over forty short stories in various publications—three winning the Derringer award for excellence in short mystery fiction. (She is a five-time nominee.) Her short fiction has also been nominated for a Macavity Award, Thriller Award, Anthony Award (anthology, co-editor), selected for The Best Mystery Stories of the Year, named a finalist for ScreenCraft’s Best Cinematic Short Story, and adapted for animation. 

She also writes screenplays and was recently accepted to the Writers Guild Foundation’s Veterans Writing Project. Her pilot script, “Poppins,” was named a Second Rounder in the Drama Teleplay Pilot category in the 2025 Austin Film Festival Script Competition.

When she’s not writing, she co-edits anthologies with Michael Bracken for Down and Out Books and Level Best Books and teaches at Outliers Writing University. She is also a member of the Screen Actors Guild and works as background talent for movies and television which has deepened her understanding of the filmmaking process and the need for practical scripts. Past projects include Homeland, Jack Ryan, The Walking Dead: World Beyond, Silo, Terminal List: Dark Wolf, Wonder Woman 1984, and A House of Dynamite.