John Joseph Vincent Kessel (born September 24, 1950) is an American author of science fiction and fantasy.

He is a prolific short story writer, and the author of four solo novels, Good News From Outer Space (1989), Corrupting Dr. Nice (1997), The Moon and the Other (2017), and Pride and Prometheus (2018), and one novel, Freedom Beach (1985) in collaboration with his friend James Patrick Kelly.

[3] Since 1982 Kessel has taught classes in American literature, science fiction, fantasy, and fiction writing at North Carolina State University, and helped organize the MFA Creative Writing program at NCSU, serving as its first director.

[4][5] Kessel won a Nebula Award in 1982 for his novella "Another Orphan", in which the protagonist finds himself living inside the novel Moby-Dick.

His short story "Buffalo" won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award and the Locus poll in 1992.