Roxane Gay’s writing has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, West Branch, Virginia Quarterly Review, NOON, The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Time, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Rumpus, Salon, The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy culture blog, and many others. She is the co-editor of PANK and essays editor for The Rumpus. She teaches writing at Eastern Illinois University. Her novel, An Untamed State, was recently published (Grove Atlantic) as was her essay collection, Bad Feminist (Harper Perennial).
Ron Goulart has been a professional author for several decades and has over one hundred-eighty books to his credit, including more than fifty science fiction novels and twenty-some mystery novels. He is considered a leading authority on comic books, comic strips, and pulp fiction—subjects about which he has written extensively. Goulart’s After Things Fell Apart (1970) is the only science-fiction novel to ever win an Edgar Award.
Eric Gregory lives in Carrboro, North Carolina. His stories have appeared in Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, Interzone, Shine: An Anthology of Optimistic Science Fiction, and elsewhere. Find him online at ericmg.comor and on Twitter at @ericgregory.
William Jablonsky’s first collection of short fiction, The Indestructible Man: Stories, was published by Livingston Press in April 2005. His second book, the novel The Clockwork Man, was released by Medallion Press in September 2010, and republished by Grey Oak (India) in the summer of 2012. His short stories have appeared in many literary journals and magazines, including Asimov’s, Shimmer, Phoebe, and The Florida Review. He teaches at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa.
Shaun Jeffrey was brought up in a house in a cemetery, so it was only natural for his prose to stray towards the dark side when he started writing. Among his writing credits are stories published in Surreal Magazine, Dark Discoveries, Shadowed Realms, and Cemetery Dance. He has had two collections published, The Mutilation Machination and Voyeurs of Death, as well as five novels: The Kult, Killers, Deadfall, Fangtooth, and Evilution. The Kult has been filmed by Gharial Productions. When not spending time with his family or writing, he works out at the gym, jogs, does Krav Maga, and is a Taekwondo black belt.
Matthew Johnson lives with his wife and two sons in Ottawa, where he works as Director of Education for MediaSmarts, Canada’s center for digital and media literacy. Irregular Verbs and Other Stories, a collection of his short fiction, was published in 2014 by ChiZine Publications. You can follow his work at irregularverbs.ca or on Twitter at @irregularverbal.
Stephen Graham Jones is the author of twenty novels, five story collections, and over two hundred short stories. His most recent novels are Not for Nothing and The Gospel of Z; his latest collections are: After the People Lights Have Gone Off and Zombie Sharks With Metal Teeth. Jones has been a Stoker finalist, a Shirley Jackson Award finalist, an NEA fellow, and won the Texas Institute of Letters Award for fiction. He teaches in the MFA program at CU Boulder and UCR-Palm Desert.
Joy Kennedy-O’Neill teaches English at Brazosport College on the Texas coast. Her works have appeared in Strange Horizons, The New Orleans Review, and anthologies such as What Wildness is This: Women Write the Southwest.
The New York Times recently hailed Caitlín R. Kiernan as “one of our essential writers of dark fiction.” Her novels include The Red Tree (nominated for the Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy awards) and The Drowning Girclass="underline" A Memoir (winner of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award and the Bram Stoker Award, nominated for the Nebula, Locus, Jackson, World Fantasy, British Fantasy, and Mythopoeic awards). To date, her short fiction has been collected in thirteen volumes, most recently Two Worlds and In Between: The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan (Volume One), and The Ape’s Wife and Other Stories. A fourteenth, Beneath An Oil-Dark Sea: The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan (Volume Two) is forthcoming. Currently, she’s writing the graphic novel series Alabaster for Dark Horse Comics and has just finished her next novel, Cherry Bomb.
Nicole Kornher-Stace lives in New Paltz, NY. Her short fiction and poetry has appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies, including Best American Fantasy, Clockwork Phoenix 3 and 4, The Mammoth Book of Steampunk, Apex, and Fantasy Magazine. She is the author of Desideria, Demon Lovers and Other Difficulties, and The Winter Triptych. Her latest novel, Archivist Wasp, is forthcoming from Big Mouth House, Small Beer Press’s YA imprint, in late 2014. She can be found online at nicolekornherstace.com.
Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over forty novels and numerous short stories. His novella, Bubba Ho-tep, was made into an award-winning film, as was Incident On and Off a Mountain Road. His mystery classic Cold in July inspired the recent major motion picture of the same name starring Michael C. Hall, Sam Shepard, and Don Johnson. Novel The Bottoms will soon be filmed, directed by Bill Paxton. His works have received numerous recognitions, including the Edgar, eight Bram Stoker awards, the Grinzane Cavour Prize for Literature, American Mystery Award, International Horror Guild Award, British Fantasy Award, and many others. His most recent novel for adults, The Thicket, was published last fall.
Shira Lipkin’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, Stone Telling, Clockwork Phoenix 4, and other wonderful magazines and anthologies; two of her stories have been recognized as Million Writers Award Notable Stories, and she has won the Rhysling Award for best short poem. She lives in Boston and, in her spare time, fights crime with the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. Her cat is bigger than her dog.
David Liss is the author of eight novels, most recently The Day of Atonement. His previous bestselling books include The Coffee Trader and The Ethical Assassin, both of which are being developed as films, and A Conspiracy of Paper, which is now being developed for television. Liss has written for numerous comics series including Mystery Men, Sherlock Holmes: Moriarty Lives, and Angelica Tomorrow. His website is davidliss.com.
Jonathan Maberry is a Bram Stoker Award-winning author, writing teacher, and motivational speaker. Among his novels are Ghost Road Blues, Dead Man’s Song, Bad Moon Rising, and Patient Zero. Fire & Ash, fourth in the Benny Imura series, was published last year; Fall of Night, sequel to Dead of Night, was has just been released. His seventh Joe Ledger novel, Predator One, will be out spring 2015. He is co-editor of the anthology Redneck Zombies From Outer Space and editor of the forthcoming dark fantasy anthology, Out of Tune. His has written comics and non-fiction works as well.