Blaine D. Arden is an EPIC Award-winning author of Romantic Speculative Fiction and Suspense who sings her way through life in platform boots.

For most of her sheltered youth, Blaine read, daydreamed, and made up stories. As she grew up, she slowly transitioned from telling them to her favourite doll and acting them out with her Barbies, to putting pen to paper. Her motto is *Our Difference is our Strength*, and her stories are often set in worlds where gender fluidity and sexual diversity are woven into the bare bones of society.

When not writing or reading, Blaine has singing lessons and hopes to be in a band someday.

Scott inhabits the space between the "here and now" and the "what could be". He was shepherded into his love affair with fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine, and soon read her entire library. But as he grew up and read more, he wondered where all the gays were.

He came out as gay at 23, and decided to create the stories he couldn't find at his local bookstore. He reimagined his favorite genres, subverting them and remaking them to his own ends with a universe of diverse characters. And every now and then he hopes someone finds and enjoys them.

His friends say Scott's mind works a little differently - he sees connections between things that many people miss, and accomplishes more in a day than many people do in three.

Scott's fiction subverts expectations and transforms traditional science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary life into something fresh and unexpected. He manages both Queer Sci Fi and QueeRomance Ink with his husband Mark to promote and celebrate fiction that reflects their worldview, and is an associate member of the Science Fiction Writer's Association (SFWA).

He infuses his work with love, beauty and power, making them soar, and hopes they will change the world, just a little.

Scott was recognized as one of the top new gay authors in the 2017 Rainbow Awards, and his debut novel "Skythane" received two awards and an honorable mention.

Scott lives with his husband of 25 years in Sacramento, California, in a small yellow house with two pink flamingoes in front.

Sheryl R. Hayes can be found untangling plot threads or the yarn her cats have been playing with. In addition to writing, she is a cosplayer focusing on knit and crochet costumes and works full time at a Bay Area water company.

Minerva Cerridwen (1991) is a Belgian writer and pharmacist. She is mainly found in the realms of Fairy Tales, Fantasy, and Science Fiction, with a fondness for dragons and diverse characters. Since 2013 she has been writing for Paranatellonta, a project combining photography and flash fiction. Her first published work was the queer fairy tale ‘Match Sticks’ in the Unburied Fables anthology (2016).

When she isn't writing, she enjoys baking, yoga, drawing and handlettering.

With a penchant for pieces that fall broadly within the gothic fantasy realm, Rainie Zenith's work has been published in numerous literary journals and short story anthologies.

An Australian writer, Rainie was the winner of the 2020 Monash Short Story Competition and the Fountain 2020-2021 Essay Contest. Her work was also shortlisted in the 2021 Wyndham Writing Awards and highly commended in the 2021 Monash Short Story Competition.

Rainie acted as a guest judge for Iron Faerie Publishing's 2021 Betwixt Writing Competition, which revolved around a mythical creatures theme. Her own stories often feature the esoteric and supernatural, and she enjoys blurring the boundaries between reality and perception.

Her current project is a New Adult psychedelic horror novel on track for completion in 2023.

I am a queer poet and horror & crime fiction writer in shadow-haunted Kennesaw, Georgia, where I live with two cats and way too many books. My stories have been published in Shotgun Honey, Daily Science Fiction, Mad Scientist Journal, Near To The Knuckle, Eldritch Tales, and Story & Grit: Southern Fried Crime. My Southern Gothic graveyard story “Under the Blood” was published in October 2020 in Skelos 4: The Journal of Weird Fiction and Dark Fantasy. I am a former parole officer, now working as a Licensed Professional Counselor in private practice.