Shannon Riley (she/her) grew up writing gore starring her friends and family instead of doing math homework. She is the author of new revenge and body horror laden Pocketknife Kitty (Ghoulish Books, 2024). Additionally, her short fiction has been seen in the Dark Blooms: Girls' Coming-of-Age Horrors anthology, and in Ghoulish Tales, as well as various other places online. She lives with her husband and two daughters in a mediumish suburb outside of Pittsburgh. If you like chatting about 2000s emo and post-hardcore music, you can go yell at her on Twitter.
Tom Over is a reptilian limbic system currently manipulating a hominid cortex somewhere in Manchester, UK. The Comfort Zone and Other Safe Spaces is his first book. He is not on Twitter.
Dr. Jenkins has used the fluent Spanish he acquired smuggling to provide healthcare to Spanish-speaking patients in various safety net settings, both rural and inner city. He has taught clinic-based and hospital-based medicine at a major medical center and has volunteered at clinics in Sinaloa, Mexico. In his spare time he enjoys backpacking and playing guitar.
Rick Claypool is the author of Skull Slime Tentacle Witch War (Anxiety Press 2024), Tentacle Head (2022), The Mold Farmer (Six Gallery Press 2020) and Leech Girl Lives (Spaceboy Books 2017). He lives in Rhode Island.
Hello! I’m a middle school teacher trying my hand at writing YA and Sci-Fi drama. First of all, I love books! Imagine a grown woman who devours Kristen Hannah, Ruth Ware, Lisa Jewell, and Jojo Moyes. Oh my God, I love Jojo Moyes!
My attempts at becoming an author are quite literally a mash up of what I’ve adored in my favorite books coupled with a myriad of life experiences. The Sci-fi obsession started in grade school where I fell in love with Ray Bradbury’s Illustrated Man. So, what you’ve got here is a book/space nerd teacher who’s addicted to audible. I’ve truly wanted to become a writer since my sophomore year of high school. Now that fifty is knocking on my door, I’ve moved on it. Lesson here-stop waiting to create a life you love.
Guðrún first worked as a secretary at a school in Reykjavík, and then as department manager at the National Health and Insurance Office. She was a city councillor for the People's Alliance from 1978 to 1982, and a member of the Icelandic legislative assembly from 1979 until 1995. In 1988 she became Speaker of the Alþing, the first woman to hold the position. She is one of the best known children's authors in Iceland, and in 1992 received the Nordic Children's Book Prize for Undan illgresinu (From Beneath the Weeds).
The supernatural always had the allure of forbidden fruit, ever since Robert Herold’s mother refused to allow him, as a boy, to watch creature features on late night TV. She caved in. (Well, not literally.) As a child, fresh snow provided him the opportunity to walk out onto neighbors’ lawns halfway and then make paw prints with his fingers as far as he could stretch. He would retrace the paw and boot prints, then fetch the neighbor kids and point out that someone turned into a werewolf on their front lawn. (They were skeptical.) He has pursued many interests over the years (among them being a history teacher and a musician), but the supernatural always called to him. You could say he was haunted. Finally, following the siren’s call, he wrote
Edward J. Cembal is a Canadian horror author and screenwriter. His award winning debut novel, The Monsters in our Shadows, is currently in development as a feature film. Growing up a storyteller, he toured as a musician before a diagnosis of Muscular Dystrophy took him from the road, leading him to focus on his writing full time. On the surface he creates gripping stories with mystery, horror, and suspense. Diving deeper, the themes threaded through his work echo the personal themes of disease, depression, his nightmares, and, least of all, hope. He currently resides in Toronto, with his wonderful wife and softy of a pup Juno.
Victory Witherkeigh is an award-winning female Filipino/PI author from Los Angeles, CA. Her debut novel, The Girl, was published in December 2022 with Cinnabar Moth Publishing. The Girl has been a finalist for Killer Nashville’s 2020 Claymore Award and was long-listed in the 2022 CIBA OZMA Fantasy Book Awards. The Girl won Third Place for YA Thriller in the 2023 Spring The Bookfest Awards. Her creative content creation for her Author TikTok also won First Place in the 2023 Spring The Bookfest Awards for Creative Content. Victory’s second novel, The Demon, published on October 1, 2024.
Beth Castrodale worked as a newspaper reporter until her love of books led her to the publishing field. She was a senior editor at Bedford/St. Martin’s and is the founding editor of Small Press Picks. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous publications, including Marathon Literary Review, Printer’s Devil Review, and the Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine. Her debut novel, MARION HATLEY, was a finalist for a Nilsen Prize for a First Novel from Southeast Missouri State University Press, and an excerpt from her second novel, IN THIS GROUND, was a shortlist finalist for a William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Award. Castrodale’s third novel is I MEAN YOU NO HARM. An excerpt from her fourth novel, THE INHABITANTS, landed her
Shannon Knight lives in the Pacific Northwest with her most excellent cat. Their adventurous lives include coffee, reading, ribbon games, and K-dramas.
Randy Thornhorn is the teller of many tales, including this one. His most recent work is the acclaimed Southern music novel The Kestrel Waters, the epic sequel to his novel Wicked Temper. Author of the longest fiction ever published in The Oxford American Magazine, most of Mr. Thornhorn's stories occur in a displaced world, a fable-infested Southern region some would surely deem unsafe. He visits often, sometimes stays the night. Other nights he might be found on a wooded hilltop somewhere east of Montgomery in the land of Alabama.
He seldom sees angels fly his skies. But magpies are another story.
Kevin Lucia is the ebook and trade paperback editor at Cemetery Dance Publications. His short fiction has been published in many venues, most notably with Clive Barker, David Morell, Peter Straub, Bentley Little, and Robert McCammon.
His first short story collection, Things Slip Through, was published by Crystal Lake Publishing in November, 2013. He's followed that with the collections Through A Mirror, Darkly, Devourer of Souls, Things You Need, October Nights, and the novellas Mystery Road, A Night at Old Webb, and The Night Road.
