Kelley Armstrong believes experience is the best teacher, though she’s been told this shouldn’t apply to writing her murder scenes. To craft her books, she has studied aikido, archery and fencing. She sucks at all of them. She has also crawled through very shallow cave systems and climbed half a mountain before chickening out. She is however an expert coffee drinker and a true connoisseur of chocolate-chip cookies.

Elise Forier Edie is an author of horror and speculative fiction. She has also written several popular stage plays, produced in the US and Canada.

She is a member of the Horror Writers of America (HWA), and the Authors Guild. She has taught writing and arts classes at Central Washington University, Northland Pioneer College, Fountain Valley School and the Arizona Commission on the Arts. She currently teaches playwriting and theater arts at West Los Angeles College.

Elise is married to actor Keith Edie and lives in southern California with their two dogs, Krypto and Jubilee. When she is not writing, she likes to make quilts and soup, but rarely at the same time. You can find out more about her at her website www.eliseforieredie.com

Joanna Parypinski is a college English instructor by day and a writer of the dark and strange by night. Her work has appeared in Black Static, Nightmare Magazine, Haunted Nights (ed. Ellen Datlow and Lisa Morton), The Beauty of Death 2: Death by Water, Nightscript IV, Tales from the Lake 5, Vastarien, and elsewhere. Her novel, Dark Carnival, was released by Bram Stoker Award winning press Independent Legions in 2019. Living in the shadow of an old church that sits atop a hilly cemetery north of Los Angeles, she writes, grades essays, and plays her cello surrounded by the sounds of screaming neighbor children. See more at joannaparypinski.com.

Lisa Morton is a screenwriter, author of non-fiction books, award-winning prose writer, and Halloween expert whose work was described by the American Library Association's READERS' ADVISORY GUIDE TO HORROR as "consistently dark, unsettling, and frightening". She began her career in Hollywood, co-writing the cult favorite MEET THE HOLLOWHEADS (on which she also served as Associate Producer), but soon made a successful transition into writing short works of horror. After appearing in dozens of anthologies and magazines, including THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF DRACULA, DARK DELICACIES, THE MUSEUM OF HORRORS, and CEMETERY DANCE Magazine, in 2010 her first novel, THE CASTLE OF LOS ANGELES, was published to critical acclaim, appearing on numerous "Best of the Year" lists. Her book THE HALLOWEEN ENCYCLOPEDIA (now in an expanded second edition) was described by REFERENCE & RESEARCH BOOK NEWS as "the most complete reference to the holiday available," and Lisa has been interviewed on The History Channel and in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL as a Halloween authority. She is a six-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award®, a recipient of the Black Quill Award, and winner of the 2012 Grand Prize from the Halloween Book Festival. A lifelong Californian, she lives in North Hills, California, and can be found online at www.lisamorton.com.

Eric J. Guignard has twice won the Bram Stoker Award, been a finalist for the International Thriller Writers Award, and is a multi-nominee of the Pushcart Prize for his works of dark and speculative fiction. He has over 100 stories and non-fiction author credits appearing in publications around the world; has edited multiple anthologies (including the current series, The Horror Writers Association’s HAUNTED LIBRARY OF HORROR CLASSICS, through SourceBooks, with co-editor Leslie S. Klinger); and has created an ongoing series of author primers championing modern masters of the dark and macabre, EXPLORING DARK SHORT FICTION through his press, Dark Moon Books. He is also publisher and acquisitions editor for the renowned +HORROR LIBRARY+ anthology series. His latest books are LAST CASE AT A BAGGAGE AUCTION; DOORWAYS TO THE DEADEYE; and short story collection THAT WHICH GROWS WILD: 16 TALES OF DARK FICTION (Cemetery Dance). Visit Eric at: www.ericjguignard.com, his blog: ericjguignard.blogspot.com, or Twitter: @ericjguignard.