Larry Hinkle is the least famous writer you’ve never heard of. A copywriter living with his wife and two doggos in Rockville, Maryland, when he's not writing stories that scare people into peeing their pants, he writes ads that scare people into buying adult diapers so they’re not caught peeing their pants. "The Eris Ridge Trail," his new cosmic horror road trip novella (with dogs!) was released in March 2025, while his debut collection, “The Space Between,” came out in February 2024. His work has also appeared in "October Screams: A Halloween Anthology," "The Rack: Stories Inspired by Vintage Horror Paperbacks," and The NoSleep Podcast, among others. He's an active member of the HWA (his short stories made the preliminary Stoker ballot in 2020 and 2022); a graduate of Fright Club and Crystal Lake’s Author’s Journey program; an HWA mentee; and a survivor of the Borderlands Writers Bootcamp.

BRIAN KEENE writes novels, comic books, short fiction, and occasional journalism for money. He is the author of over forty books, mostly in the horror, crime, and dark fantasy genres. His 2003 novel, The Rising, is often credited (along with Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead comic and Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later film) with inspiring pop culture’s current interest in zombies. Keene’s novels have been translated into German, Spanish, Polish, Italian, French, Taiwanese, and many more. In addition to his own original work, Keene has written for media properties such as Doctor Who, Hellboy, Masters of the Universe, and Superman. Several of Keene’s novels have been developed for film, including Ghoul, The Ties That Bind, and Fast Zombies Suck. Several more are in-development or under option. Keene also serves as Executive Producer for the independent film studio Drunken Tentacle Productions. Keene also oversees Maelstrom, his own small press publishing imprint specializing in collectible limited editions, via Thunderstorm Books. Keene’s work has been praised in such diverse places as The New York Times, The History Channel, The Howard Stern Show, CNN.com, Publisher’s Weekly, Media Bistro, Fangoria Magazine, and Rue Morgue Magazine. He has won numerous awards and honors, including the World Horror 2014 Grand Master Award, two Bram Stoker Awards, and a recognition from Whiteman A.F.B. (home of the B-2 Stealth Bomber) for his outreach to U.S. troops serving both overseas and abroad. A prolific public speaker, Keene has delivered talks at conventions, college campuses, theaters, and inside Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, VA. The father of two sons, Keene lives in rural Pennsylvania.

Born and raised in a small harbor town in the south of Ireland, Kealan Patrick Burke knew from a very early age that he was going to be a horror writer. The combination of an ancient locale, a horror-loving mother, and a family full of storytellers, made it inevitable that he would end up telling stories for a living. Since those formative years, he has written five novels, over a hundred short stories, six collections, and edited four acclaimed anthologies. In 2004, he was honored with the Bram Stoker Award for his novella The Turtle Boy. Kealan has worked as a waiter, a drama teacher, a mapmaker, a security guard, an assembly-line worker at Apple Computers, a salesman (for a day), a bartender, landscape gardener, vocalist in a grunge band, curriculum content editor, fiction editor at Gothic.net, and, most recently, a fraud investigator. When not writing, Kealan designs book covers through his company Elderlemon Design. A movie based on his short story "Peekers" is currently in development as a major motion picture. Represented by Merrilee Heifetz at Writers House Agency.

Evans Light is author of Screamscapes: Tales of Terror, the upcoming I Am Halloween, and more. He is editor of Doorbells at Dusk and the ongoing In Darkness, Delight horror anthology series, and is co-creator of Bad Apples: Halloween Horrors and Dead Roses: Five Dark Tales of Twisted Love. Evans lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, surrounded by thousands of vintage horror paperbacks. Author links: Amazon Author Page: https://tinyurl.com/EvansLight-AmazonUS Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheEvansLight Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EvansLightAu... Corpus Press: https://www.corpuspress.com/authors/e...

Once an operating room registered nurse, Bridgett Nelson so enjoyed playing with human organs, she decided to turn her macabre interest into a horror writing career. She loves bubble baths (because nothing says spooooky writer like orange-scented bubbles), hates not knowing what’s swimming in the water with her, lives for Halloween season (but loathes chainsaw-wielding dudes in haunted houses), adores her West Virginia University Mountaineers, is very pro-Oxford comma, and thinks bananas are absolutely disgusting. She was a 2022 Michael Knost "Wings" award nominee, and won second place (out of fourteen contestants) in the '22 Gross-Out contest at KillerCon in Austin, Texas. Bridgett's bestselling, two-time Splatterpunk Award nominated debut collection, A BOUQUET OF VISCERA, is available in all formats. She has also contributed to many anthologies, including DEAD & BLOATED by The Evil Cookie Publishing, A WOMAN UNBECOMING by Crone Girls Press, and the upcoming AMERICAN CANNIBAL by Maenad Press. When Edward Lee read her story "Giggly" which will be dropping soon, he said to her: "Giggly kicked my ass. Outstanding job! I need therapy now." Much more is coming in 2023! More tidbits! Bridgett is a(n)… HWA: WV Chapter co-chair. Editor. Audiobook proofer. Bookworm. Dog lover. Tarantula whisperer. Bra avoider. ENJF. Amaretto Sour obsessor. Check out her website for more info. www.bridgettnelson.com

Philip Fracassi is an award-winning author and screenwriter living in Los Angeles. His debut collection of short horror, BEHOLD THE VOID, won "Story Collection of the Year" award from both This Is Horror and Strange Aeons Magazine. His new collection, BENEATH A PALE SKY, arrives June, 2021, and his debut novel, BOYS IN THE VALLEY, comes out on Halloween day, 2021. His stories have been printed in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Best Horror of the Year, Black Static, Cemetery Dance, and Nightmare Magazine. His work has been reviewed in The New York Times, LOCUS Magazine, Rue Morgue and many others. His screenplays include the Lifetime thriller Girl Missing and Santa Paws 2: The Santa Pups, from Disney. Both are available as VOD. Follow Philip on Facebook and Twitter (@philipfracassi), or visit his website at http://pfracassi.com.

Gwendolyn Kiste is the three-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens, Reluctant Immortals, Boneset & Feathers, and Pretty Marys All in a Row, among others. Her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in outlets including Lit Hub, Nightmare, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, Vastarien, Tor Nightfire, Titan Books, and The Dark. She's a Lambda Literary Award winner, and her fiction has also received the This Is Horror award for Novel of the Year as well as nominations for the Premios Kelvin and Ignotus awards. Originally from Ohio, she now resides on an abandoned horse farm outside of Pittsburgh with her husband, their excitable calico cat, and not nearly enough ghosts. Find her online at gwendolynkiste.com

Richard Chizmar is a New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Amazon, and Publishers Weekly bestselling author. He is the co-author (with Stephen King) of the bestselling novella, Gwendy’s Button Box and the founder/publisher of Cemetery Dance magazine and the Cemetery Dance Publications book imprint. He has edited more than 35 anthologies and his short fiction has appeared in dozens of publications, including multiple editions of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories. He has won two World Fantasy awards, four International Horror Guild awards, and the HWA’s Board of Trustee’s award. Chizmar (in collaboration with Johnathon Schaech) has also written screenplays and teleplays for United Artists, Sony Screen Gems, Lions Gate, Showtime, NBC, and many other companies. He has adapted the works of many bestselling authors including Stephen King, Peter Straub, and Bentley Little. Chizmar is also the creator/writer of the online website, Stephen King Revisited. His fourth short story collection, The Long Way Home, was published in 2019. With Brian Freeman, Chizmar is co-editor of the acclaimed Dark Screams horror anthology series published by Random House imprint, Hydra. His latest book, The Girl on the Porch, was released in hardcover by Subterranean Press, and Widow’s Point, a chilling novella about a haunted lighthouse written with his son, Billy Chizmar, was recently adapted into a feature film. Chizmar’s work has been translated into more than fifteen languages throughout the world, and he has appeared at numerous conferences as a writing instructor, guest speaker, panelist, and guest of honor.

I'm a horror fiction author, podcaster, artist and voice actor from Bristol, in the U.K. I write for the wildly popular NoSleep Podcast and various other horror fiction audio dramas. My traditionally published debut FULL IMMERSION is out from Angry Robot in September 2022. Find me at @manylittlewords on Twitter and Insta. Repped by Mark Falkin at Falkin Literary.

Ronald Malfi is the bestselling, award-winning author of many novels and novellas in the horror, mystery, and thriller genres. In 2011, his novel, Floating Staircase, was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for best novel by the Horror Writers Association, and also won a gold IPPY award. Perhaps his most well-received novel, Come with Me (2021), about a man who learns a dark secret about his wife after she's killed, has received stellar reviews, including a starred review from BookPage, and Publishers Weekly has said, "Malfi impresses in this taut, supernaturally tinged mystery... and sticks the landing with a powerful denouement. There’s plenty here to enjoy." His most recent novels, Come with Me (2021) and Black Mouth (2022), tackle themes of grief and loss, and of the effects of childhood trauma and alcoholism, respectively. Both books have been critically praised, with Publishers Weekly calling Black Mouth a "standout" book of the year. These novels were followed by Ghostwritten (2022), a collection of four subtly-linked novellas about haunted books and the power of the written word. Ghostwritten received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, which called the book a "wonderfully meta collection...vibrantly imagined," and that "Malfi makes reading about the perils of reading a terrifying delight." Among his most popular works is December Park, a coming-of-age thriller set in the '90s, wherein five teenage boys take up the hunt for a child murderer in their hometown of Harting Farms, Maryland. In interviews, Malfi has expressed that this is his most autobiographical book to date. In 2015, this novel was awarded the Beverly Hills International Book Award for best suspense novel. It has been optioned several times for film. Bone White (2017), about a man searching for his lost twin brother in a haunted Alaskan mining town, was touted as "an elegant, twisted, gripping slow-burn of a novel that burrows under the skin and nestles deep," by RT Book Reviews, and has also been optioned for television by Fox21/Disney and Amazon Studios. His novels Little Girls (2015) and The Night Parade (2016) explore broken families forced to endure horrific and extraordinary circumstances, which has become the hallmark for Malfi's brand of intimate, lyrical horror fiction. His earlier works, such as Via Dolorosa (2007) and Passenger (2008) explored characters with lost or confused identities, wherein Malfi experimented with the ultimate unreliable narrators. He maintained this trend in his award-winning novel, Floating Staircase (2011), which the author has suggested contains "multiple endings for the astute reader." His more "monstery" novels, such as Snow (2010) and The Narrows (2012) still resonate with his inimitable brand of literary cadence and focus on character and story over plot. Both books were highly regarded by fans and reviewers in the genre. A bit of a departure, Malfi published the crime drama Shamrock Alley in 2009, based on the true exploits of his own father, a former Secret Service agent. The book was optioned several times for film. Ronald Malfi was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1977, the eldest of four children, and eventually relocated to Maryland, where he and his wife, Debra, currently reside along the Chesapeake Bay with their two daughters. When he's not writing, he's performing with the rock back VEER, who can be found at veerband.net and on Twitter at @VeerBand Visit with Ronald Malfi on Facebook, Twitter (@RonaldMalfi), or at http://www.ronaldmalfi.com.

Kevin Kangas is a writer/director of independent horror movies. His movies include "Hunting Humans", "Fear of Clowns 1&2", "Bounty", "Garden of Hedon", and "Terrortory 1&2", many of which can be found streaming on Amazon. He also authored a book on his favorite holiday, Halloween as well as a new vampire novella called "With Teeth" that's available now!