Alex Dally MacFarlane is a writer, editor, and historian. When not researching narrative maps in the legendary traditions of Alexander III of Macedon, she writes stories that can be found in Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Phantasm Japan, Solaris Rising 3, Heiresses of Russ 2013: The Year’s Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction, The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy: 2014, and other publications. Poetry can be found in Stone Telling, The Moment of Change, and Here, We Cross. She is the editor of Aliens: Recent Encounters (2013), and The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women (2014).
Maureen F. McHugh has lived in New York City; Shijiazhuang, China; Ohio; Austin, Texas; and now lives in Los Angeles. She is the author of two collections, Mothers & Other Monsters (a Story Prize finalist) and After the Apocalypse: Stories (a Publishers Weekly Top Ten Best of the Year) as well as four novels, including China Mountain Zhang (winner of the Tiptree Award) and Nekropolis (a New York Times Editor’s Choice). She received a Hugo Award for her short story “The Lincoln Train.” McHugh has also worked on alternate reality games for Halo 2, The Watchmen, and Nine Inch Nails, among others.
Joe McKinney has been a patrol officer for the San Antonio Police Department, a homicide detective, a disaster mitigation specialist, a patrol commander, and a successful novelist. His books include the four-part Dead World series, as well as Quarantined, Inheritance, Lost Girl of the Lake, The Savage Dead, Crooked House, and Dodging Bullets. His short fiction has been collected in The Red Empire and Other Stories and Dating in Dead World. His latest works include the werewolf thriller, Dog Days, set in the summer of 1983 in the little Texas town of Clear Lake, where the author grew up, and Plague of the Undead (Book One in the Deadlands Saga). In 2011, McKinney received the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel. For more information: joemckinney.wordpress.com.
Lisa Mannetti’s debut novel, The Gentling Box, garnered a Bram Stoker Award and she has since been nominated three times for the award in both the short and long fiction categories. Her story, “Everybody Wins,” was made into a short film released under the title Bye-Bye Sally. Her novella, “Dissolution,” is currently being adapted for the screen as a feature-length movie by writer/director, Paul Leyden. She has also authored The New Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn; two companion novellas in Deathwatch; a macabre gag book, 51 Fiendish Ways to Leave Your Lover; as well as nonfiction books and numerous nonfiction articles. Mannetti lives in New York. Visit her website lisamannetti.com and virtual haunted house: thechanceryhouse.com.
Tamsyn Muir is based in Auckland, New Zealand, where she divides her time between writing, teaching, and dogs. A graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop 2010, her work has previously appeared in Fantasy, Nightmare, and Weird Tales, as well as in anthologies such as Ellen Datlow’s The Best Horror of the Year (Volume 5) and Ann and Jeff VanderMeer’s The Time Traveler’s Almanac. She was a 2012 finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Short Fiction.
Holly Newstein’s short fiction has appeared in Cemetery Dance and the anthologies Borderlands 5, The New Dead, In Laymon’s Terms, Epitaphs: The Journal of the New England Horror Writers Association, and Evil Jester Digest, Volume 2. Her collaboration with Rick Hautala, “Trapper Boy” appeared in anthology Dark Duets, edited by Christopher Golden (Harper Voyager, 2014). Her story “Eight Minutes” was part of Anthology II (The Four Horsemen Press, 2013). She was the featured author in the June 2014 edition of LampLight Magazine, with her story “Shadows and Light.” She is also the coauthor of the novels Ashes and The Epicure with Ralph W. Bieber, published originally under the pen name H. R. Howland. She lives in Maine with her dogs, Keira and Remy.
Cat Rambo may be anywhere at a given time. Her two hundred-plus fiction publications include stories in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, and Tor.com. Her short story, “Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain,” from her story collection Near + Far (Hydra House Books), was a 2012 Nebula nominee. Her editorship of Fantasy Magazine earned her a World Fantasy Award nomination in 2012. For more about Rambo, as well as links to her fiction, see kittywumpus.net.
Carrie Ryan is the New York Times bestselling author of the critically acclaimed Forest of Hands and Teeth series, which has been translated into over eighteen languages and is in development as a major motion picture. She is also the editor of the anthology Foretold: 14 Tales of Prophecy and Prediction, as well as author of Infinity Ring: Divide and Conquer, the second book in Scholastic’s new multi-author/multi-platform series for middle grade readers. Her most recent book—co-written with her husband, JP Davis—is The Map to Everywhere, the first of a new middle grade series. Ryan is a graduate of Williams College and Duke University School of Law. A former litigator, she now writes full time. She lives with her writer/lawyer husband, two fat cats, and one large rescue mutt in Charlotte, North Carolina. You can find her online at carrieryan.com or @CarrieRyan.
Marge Simon’s works appear in publications such as Strange Horizons, Niteblade, DailySF Magazine, Pedestal, and Dreams & Nightmares. She edits a column for the HWA newsletter, “Blood & Spades: Poets of the Dark Side,” and serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees. She won the Strange Horizons Readers Choice Award 2010, and the SFPA’s Dwarf Stars Award 2012. In addition to her poetry, she has published two prose collections: Christina’s World (Sam’s Dot, 2008) and Like Birds in the Rain (Sam’s Dot, 2007). She won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Work in Poetry for Vectors: A Week in the Death of a Planet (Dark Regions Press, 2008) and again in 2013 for Vampires, Zombies & Wanton Souls (Elektrik Milk Bath Press).
Maggie Slater hails from the snow-crusted woods of New England where she lives with her husband and son. Her fiction has appeared in Fantastical Visions IV, Dark Futures: Tales of SF Dystopia, and Leading Edge Magazine, among others. She currently moonlights as an assistant editor for Apex Magazine, and formats books for Apex Publications. For more information about her and her current projects, visit her blog at maggiedot.wordpress.com.
Simon Strantzas is the author of the critically acclaimed short story collections Beneath the Surface (2008), Cold to the Touch (2009), Nightingale Songs (2011), and Burnt Black Suns—published in 2014 by Hippocampus Press. His fiction has been nominated for the British Fantasy Award, and has appeared in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, The Best Horror of the Year, The Year’s Best Weird Fiction, the Black Wings series, Nightmare, Postscripts, Cemetery Dance, and elsewhere. He was born in the cold darkness of the Canadian winter and has resided in Toronto, Canada ever since.