As a coder, he created the Moksha submissions system, a manuscript submissions system in use by some of the largest speculative fiction publishers today.[2] He is the founder of the speculative fiction magazine Sybil's Garage and the publishing house Senses Five Press. Currently he is a member of the Altered Fluid writing group and the co-host of the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series in Manhattan.[3]
Kressel worked in downtown Manhattan during the September 11 attacks. He said that prior to the attack he used to "look up at the World Trade Center towers on my way to work and think, 'Those are our pyramids. They’ll be here in a thousand years.' A few weeks later, from that same street, I watched them crumble and was running with a thousand screaming people away from a debris cloud rapidly chasing us. If ever there was a message on the impermanence of things."[5]
Writing
Kressel's first novel, King of Shards, was published in 2015. In a review on NPR the novel was called “Majestic, resonant, reality-twisting madness.”[6]
Kressel's short story "The Sounds of Old Earth" was a finalist for the 2013 Nebula Award for Best Short Story[8] while his story "The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye" was a finalist in the same category in 2013.[9] His story "The Last Novelist (Or a Dead Lizard in the Yard)"[10] was a finalist in the same category in 2017, and was a finalist for the 2018 Eugie Foster Memorial Award.[11] His short stories have also been named to the Locus Recommended Reading List.
Kressel created the Moksha submissions system in late 2011 after editor John Joseph Adams approached him about using the online submissions system he had created for his work publishing and editing his speculative fiction magazine Sybil's Garage. Adams requested many features that were not in the original version, so Kressel opted to build a new system from scratch. Adams began using Moksha for his publications, including Lightspeed and Nightmare Magazine, in early 2012.[12]
In 2003 Kressel co-founded the speculative fiction magazine Sybil's Garage,[13] In 2011 Kressel was nominated for World Fantasy Award in the category of Special Award, Non-Professional for editing Sybil's Garage.[14]