Nicole Appleby is a writer, actor and educator living in Los Angeles, CA. She is a playwright and her work has been seen throughout the United States and Canada. When she isn’t writing you might catch her doing stand-up comedy.
Erinn Batykefer earned her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is the author of Allegheny, Monongahela (Red Hen Press) and The Artist’s Library: A Field Guide (Coffee House Press). She is co-founder and editor of The Library as Incubator Project, and lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
With degrees in Physics and Chemistry, Andy Betz has tutored and taught in excess of 30 years. His novel (The Lady in Red Quilt), his short stories (“If Revenge is What You Seek,” “To Tell or Not to Tell,” “The Copy,” “Kelly”, “My Color,” and “Mrs. Zeeman”), and his poems (“Soon,” “When I Was 10,” and “I Watched the Ocean”) are works still defining his style. He lives in 1974, has been married for 26 years, and collects occupations (the current tally is 95).
D. A. Borer roams the shores of the Monterey Bay. He has worked as a paperboy, general laborer, doodle-bugger, meat-packer, stone poacher, ranch-hand, and war college instructor. His poetry appears in The Write Launch and Sonder Midwest, and Rise Up Review, his prose in Montana Mouthful. Contact him at daborer@yahoo.com.
Jill Bronfman is a professor, a lawyer, and she shelters two practitioners of the dark arts of teenaging.
Gary Budden is a writer and editor. His collection of uncanny psychogeographies and landscape punk, Hollow Shores, was published earlier in 2017 by Dead Ink, and his dark fiction novella Judderman (as D.A. Northwood) is published in 2018 by the Eden Book Society. His short story “Greenteeth” was nominated for a 2017 British Fantasy Award and adapted into a short film by the filmmaker Adam Scovell. His work has been published widely, including Structo, Elsewhere, Unthology, The Lonely Crowd, Gorse, and Year’s Best Weird Fiction. He lives in London, UK.
Elizabeth Burnam was born and raised in a yellow trailer in Syracuse, New York, keeping secrets and getting her feet dirty. Now she lives in Burlington, Vermont, where she recently graduated from Champlain College for Professional Writing. Her work has been published in The Raven Chronicles.
Elaine Chellberg is an aspiring writer and poet from Chicago. Although she is majoring in English at the College of DuPage, she currently works at a doggy day care.
Sharon Cogbill is a throw-back to a former time, a time of discovery and exercise of interests without academic sanction. Trained as an abstract expressionist just before that style yielded to other forms, she emerged with no interest in claims to stylistic superiority or the insistence that she focus on one thing, either art or writing. At present, she writes short stories and poetry and is working on a novella. She has trod a metaphysical path for much of life. Her imagination sometimes takes her to the razor’s edge of the dark side and when it does, she steps gingerly.
N. D. Coley currently serves as an instructor of English at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, Community College of Allegheny County, and the University of Phoenix. His work has recently appeared in Near to the Knuckle, Shotgun Honey, Deadlights Horror Fiction Magazine, Indiana Voice Journal, Corner Bar Magazine, Jakob’s Horror Box, Massacre Magazine, Funny in Five Hundred, and Crack the Spine. In his spare time, he laments the human condition, reads satire and dark, depressing literature, plays with his son, irritates is wife, and tries to keep a smile on his face. You can irritate him at ndcoley1983@gmail.com.
Megan Pillow Davis is a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop in fiction and is currently a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the University of Kentucky’s English Department. Her work has appeared, among other places, in Brain, Child Magazine; Still: The Journal; and The Huffington Post. She is the 2017-2018 Pen Parentis Writing Fellow and is currently at work on her first novel.
David D’Ettore was born in Rochester, NY and graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a Bachelor of Arts in Modern Languages & Communications. He studied as part of the university’s international program in Angers, France and returned to live in Paris, France where he nurtured his love for writing and painting. He completed the Writer’s Digest Writing to Sell Fiction course with Paul Darcy Boles and Mort Castle as instructors as well as James Patterson’s Master Class. He has completed two novels, DELUSION and ENIGMA; a parody entitled POOR DAVID’S ALMANAC; a collection of short stories, MOMENTS OF OUR LIVES; a memoir, MY LIFE’S WORK; a poetry collection IN SHADOWS AND SMILES; and a multitude of essays. One of his short stories, “THE LAST TIME I SAW MY FATHER,” merited Honorable Mention in a recent contest by Glimmer Train, and another, “FALLEN LEAVES,” was part of a collection of stories generated through Master Class. You can read more in his blog, DD’s Blog Universe at www.domingnd71.wordpress.com. “A LEPER’S LAMENT” is part of the IN SHADOWS AND SMILES collection.
Alyson Faye lives in the UK, with her family and 4 rescue animals,she teaches, edits and proofreads part time and enjoys swimming, singing, and eating chocolate. She writes flash fiction and horror/supernatural short stories – her fiction has appeared on line on varied sites, most often at the Horror Tree, Horror Scribes, zeroflash, Tubeflash, Ellipsis mag, Siren’s Call ezine, and in print in Women in Horror Annual 2017. Her debut collection of flash, Badlands, is out from indie publisher Chapeltown books. Her blog is at www.alysonfayewordpress.wordpress.com.
Apryl Fox has been published previously in Strange Horizons, Offcourse Magazine, Dark Animus, Snow Monkey, Whistling Shade, Not Very Quiet, and many others. She was recently published in Three Line Poetry and Dragon Poet Review and currently resides in Michigan. She has written six novels and some of those books are on lulu.com.
Jeanie Fritzsche is a lifetime writer and the author of the literary blog, Too Many Books, Too Little Time. A longtime participant in The Writers Block Party, Jeanie writes short fiction and creative essays. Her work has appeared previously in Flash Fiction Magazine.
Lara Henerson is a writer, teacher, and improviser from San Francisco. She writes magical realism, and has a Masters degree in Creative Writing (Fiction) from the University of Edinburgh. She’s been published in the Gateway Review, The Mitre, and the Inkwell.
Anna Kaye-Rogers’s previous work has been published in Illinois Valley Community College River Currents, The Feminine Collective, Eastern Iowa Review, Zoetic Press Non-Binary Review, Cosmonauts Avenue, Pen 2 Paper, and Zimbell House Publishing. She received the Editor’s Choice Award in Non-Fiction in Northern Illinois University Towers 2017. She studies English, Creative Writing, and Professional Communications at Northern Illinois University.
Jake Kendall is a Creative Writing graduate of Cardiff University currently based in his hometown of Oxford. His stories explore the overlap between comedy and tragedy. He has had work included in Here Come’s Everyone’s Brutal Literature edition, and Burning House Press‘s Identity edition. Find him on Twitter @jakendallox.
Eric Knowlson is an aspiring writer and poet hailing from Albuquerque, New Mexico. He has had poetry and fiction published in The Leonardo, a journal published by Central New Mexico Community College. He is currently finishing his BA in creative writing at the University of New Mexico.
Laura Lee is a Chicago area college instructor, teacher, and writer. Her poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have been published in the US, the UK, New Zealand, and Greece. Her website is at: http://lauraleewriterpoeteducator.com.
Dawne Leiker is a former journalist, now working in academia. Her news/feature stories have appeared in The Hays Daily News, Lawrence Journal World, and several online publications. Her poetry and short stories have garnered awards in regional and statewide literary competitions. Ms. Leiker’s fiction and poetry often are influenced by her past news story interviews, as she develops and reimagines fictional characters and situations loosely based on local individuals and events.
Alexander Dove Lempke is a poet and songwriter currently living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He attended Cornell College and Northern Illinois University. His music, under the name Alexander Dove, can be found on Spotify, Bandcamp, iTunes, and the like.
Brodie Lowe has a B.A. in English with a concentration in professional writing from Western Carolina University. His brother and he wrote a film named Three Count that was picked up by executive producers of One Media Productions in 2016. He has forthcoming short stories to be published in Story and Grit and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature literary magazines. A short film that we wrote is currently in pre-production by a North Carolina based, award winning director of photography.
Colin Lubner is a writer and math teacher from southern New Jersey. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Nothing Short Of: Selected Tales from 100 Word Story, Bards and Sages Quarterly, Corvus Review, 365 Tomorrows, The Blue Route, and elsewhere. He owns, or is owned by, several cats. You can follow him on Twitter: @Colinization_L.
Valerie Lute is a writer whose short stories and poetry have appeared in Everyday Fiction, The Good Men Project, Prime Number Magazine, and the Rusty Nail, among others. She lives in Massachusetts where she reads like a fiend, listens to vintage punk rock, and occasionally goes outside.
J. H. Martin is from London, England but has no fixed abode. His writing has appeared in a number of places in Asia, Europe and the Americas. For more information, please visit: acoatforamonkey.wordpress.com.
Kirsty McGrory is a writer and teacher from Edinburgh. Her writing has appeared on bust.com (https://bust.com/arts/194585-gwen-john-artist.html) and The Wee Review (http://theweereview.com/preview/stref/).
David McVey lectures at New College Lanarkshire in Scotland. He has published over 120 short stories and a great deal of non-fiction that focuses on history and the outdoors. He enjoys hillwalking (i.e. hiking), visiting historic sites, reading, watching telly (i.e. TV), and supporting his home-town football (i.e. soccer) team, Kirkintilloch Rob Roy FC.
J. Motoki graduated with a BA in Creative Writing from the University of California Santa Barbara. She is a nomadic librarian who writes in the stacks, snubs patrons, and whispers uncomfortable things from the shadows. You can read more of her work at www.jumotki.com.
Ashley Naftule is a writer & performer from Phoenix, AZ. He’s been published in Vice, The Outline, Phoenix New Times, Rinky Dink Press, The Hard Times, Ghost City Press, Under The Radar, The Occulum, Invisible Oranges, Four Chambers Press, Tucson Weekly, Runt Of The Web, Aquarium Drunkard, and The Dark City Mystery Magazine. He’s a playwright and the Associate Artistic Director at Space55 theatre. His favorite Marx brothers are Chico and Karl.
Stephen Owen lives and works as a sign maker in the UK. His interest in writing stories began in the nineties when he started writing for the school nursery his children attended. When teachers advised him to think seriously about taking it further, he took a crash course in evening classes to find out what he really wanted to write about. Many years ago he finished his first short horror story. He hasn’t written a child’s story since.
Dayna Patterson is a consulting editor for Bellingham Review, poetry editor for Exponent II Magazine, and founding editor-in-chief of Psaltery & Lyre. She is a co-editor (with Tyler Chadwick and Martin Pulido) of Dove Song: Heavenly Mother in Mormon Poetry (Peculiar Pages Press 2018). Her poetry has appeared recently in Hotel Amerika, Sugar House Review, Western Humanities Review, and Zone 3, among others. You can discover more at www.daynapatterson.com.
Robert Perchan’s poetry chapbooks are Mythic Instinct Afternoon (2005 Poetry West Prize) and Overdressed to Kill (Backwaters Press, 2005 Weldon Kees Award). His poetry collection Fluid in Darkness, Frozen in Light won the 1999 Pearl Poetry Prize and was published by Pearl Editions in 2000. His avant-la-lettre flash novel Perchan’s Chorea: Eros and Exile (Watermark Press, Wichita, 1991) was translated into French and published by Quidam Editeurs (Meudon) in 2002. In 2007 his short short story “The Neoplastic Surgeon” won the on-line Entelechy: Mind and Culture Bio-fiction Prize. He currently resides in Pusan, South Korea. You can see some of his stuff on robertperchan.com.
Cecilia Pinto’s writing has appeared in Esquire, Fence, Rhino, Diagram, TriQuarterly, Snake Nation Review, The Seneca Review, Quarter After Eight, Fifth Wednesday, qartsiluni, PoetsArtists and elsewhere. Her work is included in several anthologies including those produced by Dancing Girl Press, Beard of Bees, Cracked Slab Books and DePaul University. Her work with collaborator Alice George appears in print as well and is included in Saints of Hysteria, a Half Century of Collaboration, and Mentor to Muse, a book of essays on the collaborative process.
Travis D. Roberson grew up in Central Florida. His work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Dark Ink Magazine, the horror anthologies Decay and Dark Monsters, and a few other places. In 2011 he was the third place recipient in the non-fiction category of the Porter Fleming Literary Competition. He currently resides in New York.
Desiree Roundtree was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY where she still lives with her husband and daughter. By day she crunches numbers, but anytime in between she is writing words. She is a lover of hip-hop, acoustic guitar and a well timed curse word.
Kathryn Rutz is an English and French undergraduate student at the University of North Dakota. This will be her first publication. She enjoys reading classic horror to her cats in her spare time.
Dorian J. Sinnott is a graduate of Emerson College’s Writing, Literature, and Publishing program, currently living in Kingston, New York with his sassy munchkin-mix cat, Scarlette. When he’s not busy at his full-time job, he works as a cat adoption assistant at a local humane society– which he claims is more therapy than work. He enjoys English horseback riding, playing violin, and cosplaying his favorite childhood characters at comic cons. Dorian’s work has appeared in Crab Fat Literary Magazine, Terror House Magazine, Alter Ego, and The Hungry Chimera.
M. C. St. John is a Chicago writer. He has been published in After Hours Press, Aphelion, Chicago Literati, Ink in Thirds, Literary Orphans, Maudlin House, Quail Bell Magazine, Word Branch, and Unbroken Journal. His short story collection Other Music was recently released. He is currently working on his second.
Claire Stevens is an undergraduate student at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where she has been living and writing for the last three years. She has won an award in the Writer’s Digest Competition and published in Reed College student publications. She is currently working on a collection of short stories centering around the Beat Generation.
Michael Sutton’s published stories can be found in Hellbound Books, Blood Moon Rising Magazine, Ashtales and Augora Wolf. For more information about Michael or his work please feel free to visit his website at darkroadfiction.com.
With degrees from Oakland University and Johns Hopkins University, David Thorndill has written the novel First Contact at Cabo Rojo, and Tales from the Confessional, a collection of short stories narrated by Catholic priests. Stories from Tales won a $3000 prize from the Maryland State Arts Council. I have recently written feature length screenplays for Rise of the Dolphins, The Last Vikings, and The Voyage of Genesis 2. The screenplays have received recognition from several film festivals including best action/adventure script (The Last Vikings) at the Los Angeles Film and Script Festival.
Patrick ten Brink writes non-fiction on environmental issues during the day, and a mix of fiction and poetry in any spare time that he can find. He is a member of the Brussels Writers Circle and editor of their second anthology – The Circle – which is coming out in October. His short story – “The Taken” – received honorary mention by Glimmer Train, and his poem – “Zen Garden, Kyoto” – was a winner, receiving honorary mention, in Dreamers Creative Writing’s Haiku competition. Patrick was born in Germany, grew up in Australia, Japan and England, studied in the UK, France and Mexico, lived in Belgium, and worked with writers from all continents.
With degrees from Oakland University and Johns Hopkins University, David Thorndill has written the novel First Contact at Cabo Rojo, and Tales from the Confessional, a collection of short stories narrated by Catholic priests. Stories from Tales won a $3000 prize from the Maryland State Arts Council. I have recently written feature length screenplays for Rise of the Dolphins, The Last Vikings, and The Voyage of Genesis 2. The screenplays have received recognition from several film festivals including best action/adventure script (The Last Vikings) at the Los Angeles Film and Script Festival.
John Timm writes short fiction in a variety of genres and styles. His work has appeared in Bartleby Snopes, Fiction Attic, Dark Gothic Resurrected and elsewhere. When not writing or reading, he teaches language and literature at a university in Phoenix.
Alexandra Tobasco received her Bachelor’s in English Literature, Language, and Culture, as well as Professional Writing from Virginia Tech. The following year she received her Master’s in English Education from Virginia Tech. Afterward, she began teaching high schoolers in Virginia.
C. M. Tollefson is a poet and musician living in Portland, OR. He co-runs the poetry journal Cathexis Northwest Press. He writes as a way of grasping the intangible and making sense out of overwhelming stimulus. His work may so far be found in Anapest, The Esthetic Apostle, Chaleur Magazine, and elsewhere. He harbors a strong distaste for describing himself.
Chase Troxell graduated with his B.A. from the University of Findlay where he was also the first managing editor for Slippery Elm. He has poems published in GNU Journal, Mochilla Review, Sheila-Na-Gig Online and Eunoia Review. He lives in Findlay, OH with his two beautiful daughters, Felicity and Leona.
As a writer, Rachel Unger is a determined optimist. After all, something even more horrifying is lurking just around the next corner–or under the bed. And then there are the nematodes. Her fiction has been published in places like Disturbed Digest, Broadswords and Blasters, Devilfish Review, Polar Borealis, Unfading Daydream, and The Pale Leaves.
Angelica Vaccaro is an emerging poet and essayist who lives and works in Metro Detroit, and has been writing for over two decades.
Erin Emily Ann Vance’s work has appeared in numerous journals, including Contemporary Verse 2 and filling station. She was a 2017 recipient of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Young Artist Prize and a 2018 Finalist for the Alberta Magazine Awards in Fiction. She has work forthcoming in The Occulum, Revue Post, Plentitude, and The Warren Review. Find her at www.erinvance.ca and @erinemilyann on instagram and twitter.
Sharon J. Wishnow is a writer from Northern Virginia. Her work has appeared in The Grief Diaries, UC Denver -The Human Touch Journal, Everyday Fiction, and forthcoming in Chroma. She has an MFA from George Mason University and has completed her first novel. You can find her online at www.sharonwishnow.com and on Twitter @sjwishnow.
Jane Yolen is the author of over 370 published books including 10 books of poetry for adults. She has won two Nebulas, a World Fantasy Award, a Caldecott, three Mythopoeic awards, two Christopher Medals, a nomination for the National Book Award, the Jewish Book Award, the Kerlan Award, the Catholic Library’s Regina Medal, a nomination for the National Book Award, as well as six honorary doctorates. She was the first writer to win a New England Public Radio’s Arts & Humanities Award. Despite her many awards, she has this warning: Don’t go chasing fame. Just write. One of her awards set her good coat on fire.