Susan M. Gaines is the author of the novels Accidentals and Carbon Dreams (reissued 2022), and of the science book Echoes of Life: What Fossil Molecules Reveal about Earth History, as well as stories and essays in many journals and anthologies. Gaines's literary fiction often incorporates natural history and scientific knowledge, and she is known for her pioneering contribution to the genres now variously known as eco-fiction, cli-fi, and lab-lit or science-in-fiction. She holds degrees in chemistry and oceanography. Raised in California, Gaines has spent much of her adult life in South America and Europe. Currently, she divides her time between Santa Cruz, CA and Bremen, Germany, where she was a founding director of the Fiction Meets Science program at the University of Bremen and the Hanse Institute for Advanced Study.