During the summer of 2007, in the middle of lecturing one of his children on the importance of following dreams, Lance began to wonder why he’d stopped following his. Gathering up a few shreds of unfinished stories, he began writing (nearly) every day. On Christmas Day that year, after the rest of his family had gone to bed, he began his first novel. Dragon Summer took exactly five months to complete and came in at 108,104 words. Fortunately, no one will ever be allowed to read it. He’s written several novels, and many shorter works in the years since, some of which have even seen publication. Lance’s writing habits are eclectic, although most of his stories do fall into the broad buckets of Science Fiction or Fantasy. Mostly, he’s gotten over casting himself as the hero, but admits there’s a piece of him in a lot of his characters. Long since leaping over the border into obsession, Lance continues to heed the keyboard’s siren call. At any given moment, he’s working on a novel and at least one short story. Probably more. You can find him on his web site at http://lanceschonberg.com/, on Twitter as WritingDad, and sometimes even on Facebook.

Michael Hodges is an American speculative fiction writer. His debut novel, The Puller, was released on April 24, 2015. Film rights for The Puller were purchased by Sonny Mallhi, producer of the film classic "The Strangers". The Puller was acquired by award winning publisher PYR in 2021. Tentative release date is November 2021. Michael's latest release is a short story collection called "The Gloaming". Michael's short stories have been published in over twenty magazines and anthologies, and he's a member of the Horror Writers Association and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He's also taught writing with Game of Thrones editor Anne Groell. His novel, "Black Friday" was called a "Glorious work of literature" by Horror Novel Reviews. Along with writing fiction, Hodges is a professional nature photographer, with work appearing in Outside Magazine (Best Adventure Photography of the Year) and newspapers, amongst other places. Animals often play a big role in his fiction, and the two art forms feed each other. He loves hearing from readers at: facebook.com/MichaelHodgesAuthor/ or his website: https://michaelhodgesfiction.com/

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I was born on November 21, 1939, in the small village of Hopwas, near Tamworth, Staffordshire, England. My mother was a pre-war historical novelist (E. M. Weale) and she always encouraged me to write. I was first published at the age of 12 in The Tettenhall Observer, a local weekly newspaper. Between 1952-57 I wrote 56 stories for them, many serialized. In 1990 I collated these into a book entitled Fifty Tales from the Fifties. My father was a dedicated bank manager and I was destined for banking from birth. I accepted it but never found it very interesting. During the early years when I was working in Birmingham, I spent most of my lunch hours in the Birmingham gun quarter. I would have loved to have served an apprenticeship in the gun trade but my father would not hear of it. Shooting (hunting) was my first love, and all my spare time was spent in this way. In 1961 I designed and made a 12-bore shotgun, intending to follow it up with six more, but I did not have the money to do this. I still use the Guy N. Smith short-barrelled magnum. During 1960-67 I operated a small shotgun cartridge loading business but this finished when my components suppliers closed down and I could no longer obtain components at competitive prices. My writing in those days only concerned shooting. I wrote regularly for most of the sporting magazines, interspersed with fiction for such magazines as the legendary London Mystery Selection, a quarterly anthology for which I contributed 18 stories between 1972-82. In 1972 I launched my second hand bookselling business which eventually became Black Hill Books. Originally my intention was to concentrate on this and maybe build it up to a full-time business which would enable me to leave banking. Although we still have this business, writing came along and this proved to be the vehicle which gave me my freedom. I wrote a horror novel for the New English Library in 1974 entitled Werewolf by Moonlight. This was followed by a couple more, but it was Night of the Crabs in 1976 which really launched me as a writer. It was a bestseller, spawning five sequels, and was followed by another 60 or so horror novels through to the mid-1990's. Amicus bought the film rights to Crabs in 1976 and this gave me the chance to leave banking and by my own place, including my shoot, on the Black Hill. The Guy N. Smith Fan Club was formed in 1990 and still has an active membership. We hold a convention every year at my home which is always well attended. Around this time I became Poland's best-selling author. Phantom Press published two GNS books each month, mostly with print runs of around 100,000. I have written much, much more than just horror; crime and mystery (as Gavin Newman), and children's animal novels (as Jonathan Guy). I have written a dozen or so shooting and countryside books, a book on Writing Horror Fiction (A. & C. Black). In 1997 my first full length western novel, The Pony Riders was published by Pinnacle in the States. With 100-plus books to my credit, I was looking for new challenges. In 1999 I formed my own publishing company and began to publish my own books. They did rather well and gave me a lot of satisfaction. We plan to publish one or two every year. Still regretting that I had not served an apprenticeship in the gun trade, the best job of my life dropped into my lap in 1999 when I was offered the post of Gun Editor of The Countryman's Weekly, a weekly magazine which covers all field sports. This entails my writing five illustrated feature articles a week on guns, cartridges, deer stalking, big game hunting etc. Alongside this we have expanded our mail order second hand crime fiction business, still publish a few books, and I find as much time as possible for shooting. Jean, my wife, helps with the business. Our four children, Rowan, Tara, Gavin and Angus have all moved away from home but they visit on a regular basis. I would not want to live anywhere other than m

Steve Alten grew up in Philadelphia, earning his Bachelors degree in Physical Education at Penn State University, a Masters Degree in Sports Medicine from the University of Delaware, and a Doctorate of Education at Temple University. Struggling to support his family of five, he decided to pen a novel he had been thinking about for years. Working late nights and on weekends, he eventually finished MEG; A Novel of Deep Terror. Steve sold his car to pay for editing fees. On September (Friday) the 13th, 1996, Steve lost his general manager’s job at a wholesale meat plant. Four days later his agent had a two-book, seven figure deal with Bantam Doubleday. MEG would go on to become the book of the 1996 Frankfurt book fair, where it eventually sold to more than a twenty countries. MEG hit every major best-seller list, including #19 on the New York Times list (#7 audio), and became a popular radio series in Japan. Steve’s second release, The TRENCH (Meg sequel) was published by Kensington/Pinnacle in 1999 where it also hit best-seller status. His next novel, DOMAIN and its sequel, RESURRECTION were published by St. Martin’s Press/Tor Books and were runaway best-sellers in Spain, Mexico, Germany, and Italy, with the rights selling to more than a dozen countries. Steve’s fourth novel, GOLIATH, received rave reviews and was a big hit in Germany. It is being considered for a TV series. MEG: Primal Waters was published in the summer of 2004. A year later his seventh novel, The LOCH, hit stores—a modern-day thriller about the Loch Ness Monster. Steve’s eighth novel, The SHELL GAME, is about the end of oil and the next 9/11 event. The book was another NY Times best-seller, but the stress of penning this real-life story affected Steve’s health, and three months after he finished the manuscript he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. Steve’s ninth novel, MEG: Hell’s Aquarium, is considered to be the best of the best-selling MEG series. Steve says his best novel is GRIM REAPER: End of Days. The story, a modern-day Dante’s Inferno, takes place in New York when a man-made plague strikes Manhattan. Steve’s novels are action-packed and very visual. He has optioned DOMAIN, MEG and The LOCH to film producers. Steve has written six original screenplays. His comedy, HARLEM SHUFFLE was a semi-finalist in the LA screenwriting contest, his comedy MINTZ MEATS was selected as a finalist at the Philadelphia film festival as was his psychological thriller, STRANGLEHOLD. Steve’s reality series, HOUSE OF BABEL won at Scriptapalooza. He has also created a TV Drama, PAPA JOHN, based on his years coaching basketball with Hall of Fame coach John Chaney. Over the years, Steve has been inundated with e-mail from teens who hated reading …until they read his novels. When he learned high school teachers were actually using his books in the classroom (MEG had been rated #1 book for reluctant readers) Steve launched Adopt-An-Author, a nationwide non-profit program designed to encourage students to read. Teachers who register for the program (it’s free) receive giant shark posters, free curriculum materials, student-author correspondence, an interactive website, and classroom conference calls/visits with the author. To date, over 10,000 teachers have registered, and the success rate in getting teens to read has been unprecedented. Steve now spends half his work week working with high schools. For more information click on www.AdoptAnAuthor.com As an author, Steve has two goals. First, to continue to work hard to become a better storyteller and create exciting page turning thrillers. Second, to remain accessible to his readers. Steve reads and answers all e-mails, uses the names and descriptions of his loyal fans as characters in all his novels, and even hires readers as editors, depending on their particular expertise.

Tim Curran lives in Michigan and is the author of the novels Skin Medicine, Hive, Dead Sea, Resurrection, The Devil Next Door, and Biohazard, as well as the novella The Corpse King. His short stories have appeared in such magazines as City Slab, Flesh&Blood, Book of Dark Wisdom, and Inhuman, and anthologies such as Shivers IV, High Seas Cthulhu, and Vile Things. For DarkFuse and its imprints, he has written the bestselling The Underdwelling, the Readers Choice-Nominated novella Fear Me, Puppet Graveyard as well as Long Black Coffin. Find him on the web at: www.corpseking.com.

I write science fiction intended to make readers feel like they’ve solved a challenging problem or taken an adventurous voyage along with my characters. I've written in several genres, including science fiction, steampunk, historical, alternate history, horror, and fantasy. My short stories appear in over a dozen anthologies. Fourteen others form the What Man Hath Wrought series. I co-edited the following anthologies: 20,000 Leagues Remembered; Extraordinary Visions, Stories Inspired by Jules Verne; and Ain’t Our First Rodeo. Ideas prevalent in my works include submarines, the ocean, the evolution of technology, and how the past could have been different. Feel free to dive into my website (where I’m known as Poseidon’s Scribe) at http://www.stevenrsouthard.com