LINDY MILLER RYAN is a Bram Stoker Awards®-nominated and Silver Falchion Award-winning editor, author, short-film director, and professor. Ryan the current author-in-residence at Rue Morgue, the world’s leading horror culture and entertainment brand, and a regular contributor at Booktrib and LitReactor. Her guest articles and features include NPR, BBC Culture, Irish Times, Daily Mail, and more. She is an active member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA), the International Thriller Writers (ITW), and the Brothers Grimm Society of North America. In 2022, she was named one of horror's most masterful anthology curators, alongside Ellen Datlow and Christopher Golden, and has been declared a "champion for women's voices in horror" by Shelf Awareness (2023). Her animated short film, TRICK OR TREAT, ALISTAIR GRAY, based on her children's book of the same name, won the Grand Prix Award at the 2022 ANMTN Awards. ​ Ryan is currently a full-time professor at Rutgers University in the Masters of Professional Science program, She is also a guest faculty mentor in Western Connecticut State’s MFA program. Prior to her career in academia, Ryan was the co-founder of Radiant Advisors, a business intelligence research and advisory firm, where she led the company’s research and data enablement practice for clients that included 21st Century Fox Films, Warner Bros., and Disney. In 2017, Ryan founded Black Spot Books, an independent press focused on amplifying underrepresented voices in horror, where she maintains her role as President after the company was acquired in 2019 as an imprint of Vesuvian Media Group. Ryan served from 2020 to 2022 on the Board of Directors for the Independent Book Publishers Association and was named one of Publishers Weekly‘s 2020 Star Watch Honorees. Currently, she is the co-chair of the Horror Writers Association Publishers Council. Ryan grew up cutting her teeth on Goosebumps and universal monsters. She has published numerous academic texts and also writes clean, seasonal romance under the name ​Lindy Miller, where her books have been adapted for screen.

Rebecca Cuthbert is a speculative, slipstream, and dark fiction and poetry writer living in Western New York. She loves ghost stories, folklore, witchy women, and anything that involves nature getting revenge. Her debut poetry collection, In Memory of Exoskeletons, is out now with Alien Buddha Press. Her story “The Quilting Circle of Bygone Gardens” will be part of Soul Scream Antholozine (Seamus & Nunzio Productions, 2023), and her sonnet “No Rest Nor Relief For You With Me Dead” will be included in Shakespeare Unleashed (Monstrous Books and Crystal Lake Publishing, 2023). Her poem “Still Love” was published in Nocturne Magazine and nominated for a Pushcart Prize (2022). A flash piece, “Dare You,” is part of Diet Milk Magazine’s “In the Bleak Midwinter” Gothic Advent Calendar. She is an Affiliate Member of the Horror Writers Association. For publications and more, visit rebeccacuthbert.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.

Cindy O'Quinn is an Appalachian writer who grew up in the mountains of West Virginia. She now lives and writes dark stories and poetry, on the old Tessier Homestead in northern Maine. Cindy is the author of the short story, “Lydia,” from _The Twisted Book of Shadows Anthology_ She was a 2019 HWA Bram Stoker Nominee for her story. The anthology went on to win the Shirley Jackson award. She is the author of the Appalachian Horror Noir, _Dark Cloud on Naked Creek_, and the dark poetry collection, _Return to Graveyard Dust._ Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Twisted Book of Shadows, the HWA Poetry Showcase Vol. V, Nothing's Sacred Vol. 4 & 5, Rag Queen Periodical, Moonchild Magazine, Space & Time Magazine, Weirdbook Magazine, Gothic Blue Book Vol VI: A Krampus Carol, Shotgun Honey Presents Vol 4: RECOIL, Sanitarium Magazine, and others. Cindy is an Active member of the HWA, HWoM, SFPA, & NEHW You can follow Cindy for updates on Facebook @CindyOQuinnWriter, Instagram cindy.oquinn, and Twitter @COQuinnWrites.

One evening when I was only a small boy, my father allowed me to stay up late with him and watch NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD on television. He fell asleep, but I waited for the end. I couldn’t believe they’d let the lead guy die after all that. I was horrified. Later that summer we went to the drive-in, which was a big deal in Norwalk, Connecticut in the 1970s. Everyone went. We all piled into the Bomb, our old station wagon, and saw lots of movies there. There was a swing set right up front where a many of the little kids congregated. We got a kick out of that, especially during GREASE, because there was a similar set-up in the movie. One night, though, there was a double-feature that I’ll never forget. Demon Seed scared me, and the unforgettable images still haunt me. The film that followed, though, ruined me for good. ALIEN. I don’t think I walked past my attic door after dark that entire summer for fear the alien would snatch me up and away. Soon I couldn’t even go to the beach. JAWS waited for us. Of course, this was also the time I discovered my father’s treasure trove of old horror comics, most of which I still have safe and sound. My imagination was on fire. We went to some of the early science fiction conventions in New York. I found Fangoria, and used Tom Savini’s Grande Illusions book in an attempt to make my own monsters at home, and experimented with that for several fake-bloodstained years. Eventually, though, I realized my favorite part was in dreaming up the ideas. In all truth, I was better in that regard than in any of my make-ups. During middle school I put out a xeroxed fanzine Castle Gore that I sold to my classmates for a quarter an issue. Inside, alongside my reviews of whatever movies were coming out, I put some of my own short stories. By the time I was thirteen I’d completed my first novel . . . novella, really . . . about a time-traveling teenager who saves the world from a monster bred in a Victorian scientist’s lab. He used a flying go-kart to do so. Songwriting found me. For years I toured with rock n’ roll bands, opening for national acts, and all the while, writing lots of lyrics, poems, and short stories. Winding up at Emerson College, I truly found myself. My short stories were finally professionally published in some of the local academic literary magazines, and also my script He’d Hoped For Mars won the Latent Image Magazine screenwriting contest, but was turned into a successful short film, scored by Aaron Logan at nearby Berklee College of Music. After college I moved to Los Angeles, taking an internship with Ridley Scott. That was a phenomenal time in my life, and I learned so much. I worked on many big budget films, and got to see how those films I grew up with really came together. Of course, being in that hotbox, I wrote lots of scripts. Had an option or three, and produced a couple of low-budget films while I was at it. Something happened, though. The movies of the scripts often came out so differently than the original ideas. Budget compromises. With writing stories, well, the only limit is your imagination. You’re not limited to how much money you have, or time, or your location, or the skill of the CG artists on your team. Shifting gears to prose has not been easy. I had hundreds of rejections from top markets until I began to place my stories. That is not an exaggeration. It was harder to place a pro-level fiction piece than find financing for my first film. I love the challenge, and few things have been as satisfying. My journey continues, of course. All these years later, we finally have the release of my novel NERVES from Bad Moon Books in the winter of 2012. In the meantime, there’s lots of short stories appearing soon, and several movie projects, too. Thanks for reading. Best, John Palisano

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

Hi! I'm Seanan McGuire, author of the Toby Daye series (Rosemary and Rue, A Local Habitation, An Artificial Night, Late Eclipses), as well as a lot of other things. I'm also Mira Grant (www.miragrant.com), author of Feed and Deadline. Born and raised in Northern California, I fear weather and am remarkably laid-back about rattlesnakes. I watch too many horror movies, read too many comic books, and share my house with two monsters in feline form, Lilly and Alice (Siamese and Maine Coon). I do not check this inbox. Please don't send me messages through Goodreads; they won't be answered. I don't want to have to delete this account. :(

Stephanie M. Wytovich is an American poet, novelist, and essayist. Her work has been showcased in numerous magazines and anthologies such as Weird Tales, Nightmare Magazine, Southwest Review, Year's Best Hardcore Horror: Volume 2, The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 8 & 15, as well as many others. Wytovich is the Poetry Editor for Raw Dog Screaming Press, and an adjunct at Western Connecticut State University, Southern New Hampshire University, and Point Park University. She is a recipient of the Elizabeth Matchett Stover Memorial Award, the 2021 Ladies of Horror Fiction Writers Grant, and has received the Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship for non-fiction writing. Wytovich is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association, an active member of the Horror Writers Association, and a graduate of Seton Hill University’s MFA program for Writing Popular Fiction. Her Bram Stoker Award-winning poetry collection, Brothel, earned a home with Raw Dog Screaming Press alongside Hysteria: A Collection of Madness, Mourning Jewelry, An Exorcism of Angels, Sheet Music to My Acoustic Nightmare, and The Apocalyptic Mannequin. Her debut novel, The Eighth, is published with Dark Regions Press, and her nonfiction craft book for speculative poetry, Writing Poetry in the Dark, is available now from Raw Dog Screaming Press. Her 2023 poetry collection, On the Subject of Blackberries, is out now. Follow Wytovich at http://stephaniewytovich.blogspot.com/ and on Twitter and Instagram @SWytovich​ and @thehauntedbookshelf. You can also find her essays, nonfiction, and class offerings on LitReactor.

Alessandro Manzetti (Rome, Italy) is a Three-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author, editor, scriptwriter and essayst of horror fiction and dark poetry whose work has been published extensively (more than 40 books) in Italian and English, including novels, short and long fiction, poetry, essays, graphic novels and collections. ​ English publications include his novels Shanti - The Sadist Heaven (2019) and Naraka - The Ultimate Human Breeding (2018), the novella The Keeper of Chernobyl (2019), the collections The Radioactive Bride (2020), The Garden of Delight (2017), The Monster, the Bad and the Ugly (2016, with Paolo Di Orazio), and The Massacre of the Mermaids (2015), the poetry collections Dancing with Maria's Ghost (2021), Whitechapel Rhapsody (2020), The Place of Broken Things (2019, with Linda D. Addison), War (2018, with Marge Simon), No Mercy (2017), Sacrificial Nights (2016, with Bruce Boston) Eden Underground (2015), Venus Intervention (2014, with Corrine de Winter), and the graphic novels Calcutta Horror (2019), Her Life Matters (2020) and The Inhabitant of the Lake (2021), and the Guide '150 Exquisite Horror Books' (2021) ​ He edited the anthologies The Beauty of Death (2016), The Beauty of Death Vol. 2 - Death by Water (2017, with Jodi Renee Lester) and Monsters of Any Kind (2018, with Daniele Bonfanti) ​ His stories and poems have appeared in Italian, USA, UK, Australian, Polish and Russian magazines, such as Weird Tales Magazine, Dark Moon Digest, Splatterpunk Zine, Disturbed Digest, Space and Time, The Horror Zine, Illumen, Devolution Z, Hinnom, Recompose, Polu Texni, Nothing's Sacred, Okolica Strachu, and anthologies such as Splatterpunk Forever, The Best Horror of the Year Vol. 13, Classic Monsters Unleashed, Best Hardcore Horror of the Year Vol. 2, 4, 5, 6, The Big Book of Blasphemy, Midnight Under the Big Top, Bones III, Rhysling Anthology (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021), HWA Poetry Showcase Vol. 3 and 4, The Beauty of Death Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, World of Light and Darkness, One of Us, Professor Charlatan Bardot's Travel Anthology to the Most (Fictional) Haunted Buildings in the Weird, Wild World, Tales of the Lost Vol. 3, Hope: Poems of Hope and Resilience From the Pandemic, Sorrow and many others He edited the anthologies The Beauty of Death (2016), The Beauty of Death Vol. 2 - Death by Water (2017, with Jodi Renee Lester) and Monsters of Any Kind (2018, with Daniele Bonfanti) Awards and Nominations: • Bram Stoker Awards 2021 winner • Bram Stoker Awards 2019 winner • Bram Stoker Awards 2015 winner • SFPA Elgin Awards 2019 winner • Bram Stoker Awards 2019 three-time nominee • Bram Stoker Awards 2018 nominee • Bram Stoker Awards 2017 two-time nominee • Bram Stoker Awards 2016 two-time nominee • Bram Stoker Awards 2014 nominee • Splatterpunk Awards 2019 nominee • Splatterpunk Awards 2018 nominee • Rhysling Awards 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 nominee • Elgin Awards 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 nominee • This is Horror Awards 2017 nominee • HWA Specialty Press Awards 2017 winner (as CEO of Independent Legions Press) Furthermore, he received honorable mentions (for stories and poems) in Ellen Datlow's 'The Best Horror of the Year' Vol. 7-8-9-10-12-13 ​ ​He is the CEO & Founder of Independent Legions Publishing, editor of 'Molotov Magazine' (in Italian), HWA Active member and a former HWA Board of Trustees member. In 2021 he served the Science Fiction Poetry Association as the Rhysling Award Chair. He lives in Trieste, Italy website: www.battiago.com

Hailey Piper is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth, No Gods for Drowning, The Worm and His Kings series, Your Mind Is a Terrible Thing, Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy, Benny Rose, the Cannibal King, and The Possession of Natalie Glasgow. She is an active member of the Horror Writers Association, with articles and short fiction appearing in Tor Nightfire, CrimeReads, Library Journal, Pseudopod, Cast of Wonders, Vastarien, Cosmic Horror Monthly, and various other publications. She lives with her wife in Maryland, where their occult rituals are secret. Find her on Twitter via @HaileyPiperSays or at www.haileypiper.com.

Kenneth W. Cain first got the itch for storytelling during his formative years in the suburbs of Chicago, where he got to listen to his grandfather spin tales by the glow of a barrel fire. But it was a reading of Baba Yaga that grew his desire for dark fiction. Shows like The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and One Step Beyond furthered that sense of wonder for the unknown, and he’s been writing ever since. Cain is the author of The Saga of I trilogy, United States of the Dead, the short story collections These Old Tales and Fresh Cut Tales, and the forthcoming Embers: A Collection of Dark Fiction. Writing, reading, fine art, graphic design, and Cardinals baseball are but a few of his passions. Cain now resides in Chester County, Pennsylvania with his wife and two children.

Champion Mojo Storyteller Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over forty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in more than two dozen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies. He has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others. His novella Bubba Ho-Tep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" was adapted to film for Showtime's "Masters of Horror," and he adapted his short story "Christmas with the Dead" to film hisownself. The film adaptation of his novel Cold in July was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and the Sundance Channel has adapted his Hap & Leonard novels for television. He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.