Marie Brennan a.k.a. M.A. Carrick Marie Brennan is a former anthropologist and folklorist who shamelessly pillages her academic fields for material. She recently misapplied her professors' hard work to Turning Darkness Into Light, a sequel to the Hugo Award-nominated series The Memoirs of Lady Trent. As half of M.A. Carrick, she is also the author of The Mask of Mirrors, first in the Rook and Rose trilogy. For more information, visit swantower.com, Twitter @swan_tower, or her Patreon.

Tim Marquitz is the author of the Demon Squad series, The Enemy of My Enemy series (Kurtherian Gambit) along with Michael Anderle, the Blood War Trilogy, co-author of the Dead West series, as well as several standalone books, and numerous anthology appearances alongside the biggest names in fantasy and horror. Tim also collaborated on Memoirs of a MACHINE, the story of MMA pioneer John Machine Lober. "Horror becomes art when it flows from the pen of Tim Marquitz." ~ Bobby D. Whitney - BookWenches "Witty, sarcastic and hilarious." Michelle - Publishers Weekly

I grew up in a small town north of Chicago. While it wasn't Mayberry, with all the doors unlocked and everyone offering each other slices of pie and quaint homilies, it was pretty quiet and sleepy, so I got started early imagining my way into all kinds of other worlds and universes that were loud, chaotic, and full of irrepressible characters and heaps of danger. Massive explosions. Tentacled aliens. Men with sharp swords and thousand-yard stares and secrets they would die to protect. Clearly, I was a full-bore dork. Royal Crown bag full of multi-sided dice? Check. Blood-red hooded cloak? Check. Annual pilgrimages to Renaissance Faires? Check. Whacking other (curiously athletic and gifted) dorks with rattan swords in the SCA? Check. Yes, I earned my badges, thank you very much. My whole life, I've been fascinated by the fantastic, and of course this extended to speculative fiction of all kinds. Countless prepubescent evenings found me reading a worn, dog-eared copy of Thuvia, Maid of Mars (it sounded so much dirtier than it was!) or The Frost Giant's Daughter (high hopes for that one too!) well past lights-out, flashlight in hand, ignoring the repeated calls to turn in. That's as quiet and harmless a rebellion as you can have, and my parents mostly sighed and left me to it. So, no one has ever been surprised to hear that I was working on (or at least talking about working on) some sci-fi or fantasy story or other. But it took years of flirting with various projects, flitting from one to the next without the hint of complete commitment, before I finally mastered myself enough to finish a novel. And longer still before I finished another one that was worthy of being published. But wonders never cease. And here we are. My debut novel, Scourge of the Betrayer, is a hard-boiled fantasy to be published by Night Shade Books in May 2012. It’s the first installment in a series called Bloodsounder’s Arc. I'm so excited I'm beginning to annoy myself. I am represented by Michael Harriot at Folio Literary Management, and couldn't be happier. His savvy, smart advice has been invaluable on this journey. I suspect he has a secret stash of 20-siders somewhere in his desk. I live with my lovely wife, Kris, and three daughters in a suburb west of Chicago. I am indebted to Kris in countless ways for her steadfast encouragement, support, and thick skin in dealing with a prickly, moody writer. I don't always like living with me, but she has a choice and stays anyway. And before you are tempted to mention it, I am fully aware that siring three daughters is certainly karmic retribution, particularly when they all transform into teenagers. I cling to the hope of discovering at least one of them reading covertly in the middle of the night. That kind of transgression I can handle.

R.S. (Rod) Belcher is an award-winning newspaper and magazine editor and reporter. Rod has been a private investigator, a DJ, a comic book store owner and has degrees in criminal law, psychology and justice and risk administration, from Virginia Commonwealth University. He's done Masters work in Forensic Science at The George Washington University, and worked with the Occult Crime Taskforce for the Virginia General Assembly. He lives in Roanoke Virginia with his children: Jonathan and Emily .

Check out my newsletter for Los Nefilim epilogues and more. T. Frohock has turned a love of history and dark fantasy into tales of deliciously creepy fiction. A real-life cyborg, T has a cochlear implant, meaning she can turn you on or off with the flick of a switch. Make of that what you will. She currently lives in North Carolina, where she has long been accused of telling stories, which is a southern colloquialism for lying.

Also writes as Jeff Mariotte Jeffrey J. Mariotte is the bestselling, award-winning author of more than 70 novels, including the Cody Cavanaugh western series, historical western epic Blood and Gold: The Legend of Joaquin Murrieta (with Peter Murrieta), thrillers Empty Rooms and The Devil's Bait, supernatural thrillers Season of the Wolf, Missing White Girl, River Runs Red, and Cold Black Hearts, horror epic The Slab, and the Dark Vengeance teen horror quartet. With wife and writing partner Marsheila (Marcy) Rockwell, he wrote the sf/horror/thriller 7 SYKOS and Mafia III: Plain of Jars, the authorized prequel to the bestselling video game. His most recent release is the short story collection Byrd's Luck & Other Stories, comprising five "traditional" Western tales and five horror-Western stories, two of them brand-new for this edition. He also writes occasional nonfiction, short fiction (some of which is collected in Nine Frights), and comic books, including the long-running horror/Western comic book series Desperadoes and graphic novels Fade to Black and Zombie Cop. With Marsheila Rockwell, he has published several short stories and is working on more. He has worked in virtually every aspect of the book business, as a writer, editor, marketing executive, and bookseller. Learn more at www.jeffmariotte.com, and follow him at https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyJMari... and @JeffMariotte on Twitter. Also writes as Jeff Mariotte

I'm a Scottish writer, now living in Canada, with more than twenty five novels published in the genre press and over 300 short story credits in thirteen countries. My work has appeared in a number of professional anthologies and I have recent short story sales to NATURE Futures, Penumbra, Read Short Fiction and Buzzy Mag. When I'm not writing I play guitar, drink beer and dream of fortune and glory. For full details see my website at https://www.williammeikle.com

Marsheila (Marcy) Rockwell was born [redacted] years ago in America's Last, Best Place. A descendant of kings, pilgrims, Ojibwe hunters and possibly a witch or two, she spent the first few years of her life frolicking gleefully in a large backyard that is now part of one of the nation's largest Superfund sites. Perhaps that explains her early penchant for fantasy and horror - the first book she ever read (at the tender age of three) was Frank L. Baum's "Ozma of Oz." Marcy sold her first short story to Marion Zimmer Bradley while in college and her first novel to Wizards of the Coast in 2005. She now lives in the desert in the shadow of an improbably green mountain and in odd moments stolen from her family and her writing, she can be found browsing eBay for Wonder Woman/Girl figures.

My books vary a LOT - so here's a handy guide. [My new book The Book That Wouldn't Burn is out now!] Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/marklawrencea... Blog here: http://mark—-lawrence.blogspot.co.uk/ I'm on Youtube now! *excitement!* https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIrB... Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/MarkLawrence... Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mark\_\_\_lawr... Threads https://www.threads.net/@mark\_\_\_lawrence Three-emails-a-year newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/cimnK1 #Prizes #FreeContent I'm even on Tumblr! https://www.tumblr.com/blog/marklawre... Pintrest! https://uk.pinterest.com/princeofthor... Plus I have free stuff on Wattpad! https://www.wattpad.com/user/MarkLawr... Mark Lawrence is married with four children, one of whom is severely disabled. Before becoming a fulltime writer in 2015 day job was as a research scientist focused on various rather intractable problems in the field of artificial intelligence. He has held secret level clearance with both US and UK governments. At one point he was qualified to say 'this isn't rocket science ... oh wait, it actually is'. Mark used to have a list of hobbies back when he did science by day. Now his time is really just divided between writing and caring for his disabled daughter. There are occasional forays into computer games too.

Welcome to my little space out on the web. I'm Kenny Soward, and I'm an author, musician, and once IT guy. I write books in many sub-genres of Science Fiction and Fantasy, including post-apocalyptic, military science fiction, epic fantasy, and horror. I'm influenced by authors such as Stephen King, George R. R. Martin, Anne Rice, J.K. Rowling, Mark Lawrence, Dan Simmons, Robin Hobb, Robert McCammon, Larry Correia, and Mike Kraus. I love all kinds of movies and shows from Battle Star Galactica (reboot) to the Walking Dead. There's nothing I won't try. I grew up in Kentucky in a small suburb just south of Cincinnati, Ohio, listening to hard rock and playing outdoors. In those quiet 1970's streets, I jumped bikes, played Nerf football, and came away with many scars. My grandfather and many of my uncles and cousins served in the United States Military, and my father was a Kentucky State Trooper. Their efforts taught me the meaning of sacrifice and gratitude. I've always had an avid curiosity about the world around me, and I hope my enthusiasm for life carries over into my stories, even the dark ones.