Contributing Authors

The Consequences of Sin

JD Byrne was born and raised around Charleston, West Virginia, before spending seven years in Morgantown getting degrees in history and law from West Virginia University. He's practiced law for nearly 20 years, writing briefs where he has to stick to real facts and real law. In his fiction, he gets to make up the facts, take or leave the law, and let his imagination run wild. He is the author of six novels and numerous short stories. He lives outside Charleston with his wife and the two cutest Chihuahuas you’ve ever seen. Find out more at jdbyrne.net.

Tangled Web

Maureen Bowden is a Liverpudlian, living with her musician husband in North Wales. She has had 182 stories and poems accepted by paying markets and she was nominated for the 2015 International Pushcart Prize. In 2019, Hiraeth Books published an anthology of her stories, Whispers of Magic, and they will be publishing an anthology of her poems in the near future. She also writes song lyrics, mostly comic political satire, set to traditional melodies. Her husband has performed them in folk music clubs throughout the UK. She loves her family and friends, rock ‘n’ roll, Shakespeare, and cats.

Lemon Drops at Mermaid Lagoon

Leigh Calvin has loved to read since the 5th grade when she first read Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret by Judy Blume. She first tried her hand at writing for fun a few years ago when she created her blog, Donkeys To College. She had tens of followers and was well known among people who already knew her. Her biggest fan and biggest heckler was her mother. Leigh is married to this cute guy she met at college. They have two grown children who are not criminals (as far as she knows), so she feels pretty pleased with her parenting. It’s a low bar. Besides reading and writing, Leigh loves to play tennis, travel and spend time in Long Beach Island, NJ.

True Romantics

A past winner of the Alice Munro short fiction contest, Adrienne’s work has appeared in several publications including, New Plains Review, Silly Tree Anthologies, and in the e-zines The Devilfish Review, Rose Red Review, Carmina Magazine, and The Long Island Literary Journal. Her first YA novel, Losing Adam, garnered a silver medal in the 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards and was selected as a finalist in the Eric Hoffer Book Awards. You can find Adrienne on Instagram @clarke.adrienne

By the Blades of Grass and Knife

JM Cyrus is a speculative fiction writer living in London, England with a husband and two glorious smaller humans. She writes whenever there is a chance, and reads even when there isn’t one. She holds a master’s degree in Reception Theory, and wrote her thesis on the reader’s journey through their personal landscape. She usually writes fiction, but Calliope occasionally shoves her towards poetry. Her imaginary friends and places have appeared or are forthcoming in over a dozen magazines, websites and anthologies.

On Patrol at Copperhead Bridge

Ray Daley was born in Coventry & still lives there. He served 6 years in the RAF as a clerk & spent most of his time in a Hobbit hole in High Wycombe. He is a published poet & has been writing stories since he was ten. His current dream is to eventually finish the Hitch Hikers fanfic novel he's been writing since 1986.

The Wild Hunt

USA Today Bestselling author Claire Davon has written for most of her life, starting with fan fiction when she was very young. She writes across a wide range of genres, and does not consider any of it off limits. Her novels can be found in the paranormal romance and contemporary romance sections, while her short stories run the gamut. If a story calls to her, she
will write it. She currently lives in Los Angeles and spends her free time writing novels and short stories, as well as doing animal rescue and enjoying the sunshine.

Blueberry Bells, Concrete Soul

Ef Deal is a poet, an editor, a freelance video editor, and an author of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. She began writing at the age of 9, teaching herself to type on an Underwood Royal typewriter. Her short fiction has been published in numerous online zines and print anthologies including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Dangerous Waters from Brigid’s Gate, Beach Shorts from Speculation Publications, and Chris Ryan’s Soul Scream Antholozine. She is currently assistant fiction editor at Abyss&Apex magazine, and video editor for Strong Women ~ Strange Worlds. Her novel Esprit de Corpse from eSpec Books is the first in a steampunk paranormal romance series set in France, featuring the gifted Twins of Bellefées. Ef lives in Haddonfield, NJ, with her husband and her chow chow. She is a member of SFWA and HWA. www.efdeal.net efdeal.blogspot.com

Hannah’s Bridge

William J. Donahue is an editor, feature writer, and kitten foster. His novels include Burn, Beautiful Soul, Crawl on Your Belly All the Days of Your Life, and Only Monsters Remain (summer 2023). He lives in a small but well-guarded fortress in Pennsylvania, somewhere on the map between Philadelphia and Bethlehem. Although his home lacks a proper moat, it does have plenty of snakes.

Tea Leaves

Natalie Zellat Dyen began writing humor pieces and essays for newspapers while working as a technical writer. Since turning to fiction, her work has appeared in a number of publications including, Philadelphia Stories, The MacGuffin, the Schuylkill Valley Journal, Willow Review, Alternative Truths: Endgame, Jewish Writing Project, Damselfly, CERASUS Magazine, Every Day Fiction, and Neshaminy:The Bucks County Historical and Literary Journal. Her short story collection, Finding Her Voice, was published in 2019. Her historical fiction novel, Locked in Silence, will be released in February 2024.

Find her on Twitter @NonnyZD
or www.nataliewrites.com

Motherhood Changes You

Lifelong collector, re-teller and occasional inventor of fantasy tales. He has published over 40 short stories, plus various pieces of poetry, drabble and flash fiction. He needs air, food, water and stories in order to survive, not necessarily in that order. His lifelong love of written words has manifested as a devotion to the English language almost exclusively, which is probably just as well because if he were to master any of the dead tongues that conceal ancient mysteries and invoke malevolent forces, we’d all be in trouble. He currently lives in Virginia with his wife, their three children, and a rotating roster of pets. Six to eight is a good estimate of how many animals cohabit with the family at any given time. He can be found online at https://dalewglaser.wordpress.com

Holy Harvest, Ultimate Timeshare

Jocelyne Gregory lives on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia and writes speculative fiction and poetry. As a child, she'd search libraries for stories she wanted to read and when she couldn't find them, she'd write them herself. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC's School of Creative Writing, and a writing certificate from Simon Fraser University's The Writer's Studio. She works as a manuscript consultant with The Writer's Studio and community libraries. She’s written reviews for Young Adulting. Her work has appeared in 50-Word Stories, Emerge16, New Zealand’s Flash Fiction, The Dancing Plague: A Collection of Utter Speculation, Zooscape (2023), and BraveNewGirls (2023). Two of her short science fiction stories received honourable mentions for the L. R. Hubbard Writer's of the Future Contest in the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2022. A trailer she made won Best Trailer at the Swedish International Film Festival in 2023. She lives on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast.

Interdisciplinary

Elizabeth Guilt lives in London, UK, where history lurks alongside plate glass office buildings and stories spring out of the street names. She dances at any and every opportunity. Her fiction has appeared most recently in Cosmic Horror Monthly, Luna Station Quarterly and The Colored Lens. You can find her at www.elizabethguilt.com, or on Twitter as @elizabethguilt.

Time and the Bear

Derek Heath is a British horror author whose stories have appeared in anthologies from Eerie River, Wicked Shadow Press, Skywatcher Press, and Voices From The Mausoleum, as well as Illustrated Worlds Magazine. His first non-fiction piece is soon to be published in HauntedMagazine. Derek's first two novellas are available now and he plans to release two more—Endless Living Organ Massacre and Drop Bear—before the end of 2023.

The Spider Whisperer: A Tale of Plague Dances, Peacock Spiders and Pumpkins

Deborah Henley is a geeky hippy living in regional NSW, Australia. She enjoys laughing at life's absurdities with her history buff husband. Deborah's writing can be found in various publications including mumlifestories.com, Mindfood magazine and Furious Fiction. She is currently working on a middle grade fantasy novel. You can follow her writing journey at www.facebook.com/Deborah-Henley-Australian-Author-104523378825463

Famine

Sydney Hodges spent her formative years bouncing between the East and West Coasts as a military brat. This made for a memorable childhood, during which she picked up hobbies like collecting bones and shed snakeskin in the Nevada desert. Growing up on a steady diet of horror movies gave her the gift of fear as well as a deep appreciation for monsters and the supernatural, which inform much of her writing today. Sydney is currently a gamer and emerging writer living in Washington, D.C. with her wonderful significant other and their sweet dog, Stella, who often comforts her during scary movies.

Wildwood

Valerie Hunter teaches high school English and has had stories and poems in publications including Room, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Sonder, as well as multiple anthologies.

Underneath

Jean Jentilet was born in Annapolis, Maryland and currently resides in North Carolina at the whims of a miniature pinscher and a Shih Tzu. They occasionally grant her leave to write dark fiction and take long walks. Jean attended law school next to Edgar Allan Poe’s grave, which was her favorite thing about law school. She has short stories featured or forthcoming in ParABnormal Magazine and the anthology The Monsters Next Door.

The Third Ministration

C. Owen Loftus is a writer, teacher, and actor based in Salt Lake City. He's a graduate of the University of Utah, and is married to a strange and lovely ocean spirit. He has a background in educational, journalistic, and business writing, and is proud to release his first work of fiction with Speculation Publications. He believes in aliens, but not Bigfoot, and is on the fence about daemons. Keep up with his projects at coloftus.com.

Aggrieved

Writer, filmmaker and film critic based in Columbus, Ohio. Her poetry and short fiction have appeared in numerous journals including Wild Good Poetry Review as well as Z Publishing’s Best Emerging Poets: An Anthology. Her first feature film, Obstacle Corpse, was completed in 2022. Her first novella, Roost, also saw its first light in 2022, publishing in March of that year from Off Limits Press.

The New Wife

A.R.C. Mitra writes gothic horror, ghost stories and retold fairy tales and folklore. Originally from California, she spent years living in New Zealand and is currently based in New York City. She holds degrees in English, History and Law. Her work has recently been published in Dark Moon Digest. She enjoys writing at 2am in the morning, video-calling her mother’s cats and the smell of old books. Find her on Twitter @ARCMitra.

The Dogs

Maureen O’Leary lives in California. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Black Spot Books’ Under Her Skin, Flame Tree Press' Alternate History, The Esopus Reader, Passengers Journal, Reckon Review, Bourbon Penn, Penumbric Speculative Fiction, Tales To Terrify, Occulum, Sequestrum, Nightmare, and Sycamore Review among others. She is a graduate of Ashland MFA and managing editor of The Black Fork Review.

Carolyn and the Girl Under the Bridge

Dori Lumpkin is a queer writer and storytelling enthusiast from South Alabama. Their work has appeared in Diet Milk Magazine, Ram Eye Press, and is forthcoming in many other places. They love all things speculative and weird, and strive to make fiction writing a more inclusive place.

A Race to Finish

Melanie Mulrooney lives in Nova Scotia with her husband and a gaggle of kids. When not herding children or writing stories, she can be found with her nose in a book, researching her latest special interest, or begging her family to play a board game. She loves the smell of wood smoke, that first sip of tea in the morning, and the sound of laughing babies. You can find her online at melmulrooney.com.

Home Sweet Home

Daksha Patel is a financial consultant, artist, and freelance writer currently living in Costa Rica. She spends her time travelling the world, while cultivating a decent caffeine addiction.

The Legend of Ghost Boy Bridge

Jeff Provine is an English prof in Oklahoma, where his research focuses on folklore. He has published several collections, including Haunted Oklahoma and the worldwide Compendium of Creeps, and leads ghost tours to relate spooky history. In addition to nonfiction, Jeff writes speculative fiction and comics. In 2023, Jeff's story "Stealing Buttons" won "Most Badass Steampunk Heroine" in the University of Maryland Quantum Steampunk competition.

Muffins and Meet-Cutes

Simon Quinn is a proud graduate of Northern Arizona University. He delighted in studying subjects that could help him tell better puns: English, Creative Writing, and Geology. As a disabled, queer writer, he focuses on representing people like him in his works. In his free time, he enjoys making his own tea blends, playing with his extremely fluffy cat, painting various sharks, and collecting heart shaped rocks. You can find him on Instagram at spellboundqueer.

Shark Out of Water

Janice Rider (she/her) has always loved the natural world and resides in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, close to the Rocky Mountains. She has a BSc in Zoology with a minor in English Literature and a BEd degree with a science teaching specialty. Janice directs The Chameleon Drama Club for children and youth. Three of her plays for youth have been published through Eldridge Plays and Musicals. As well, a nonfiction piece of hers on snakes was published in Honeyguide Literary Magazine. Two of Janice’s short stories have been published. One story about a giant millipede was released in the anthology, Beware the Bugs, through Word Balloon Books. The other story is in the North American Jules Verne Society’s anthology, Extraordinary Visions.

Other People’s Tsunamis

Jennifer Lee Rossman (they/them) is a queer, disabled, and autistic author and editor from the land of carousels and Rod Serling. Follow them on Twitter @JenLRossman and find more of their work on their website jenniferleerossman.blogspot.com

Skinning Bone

Brent Salish is the author of the techno-thriller First Tuesday. After a long and successful career in technology and law, he now writes full-time in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. He has published three business books under another name.

Mermaid and Coyote

Rose Strickman is a speculative fiction author living in Seattle, Washington. Her work has appeared in anthologies such as Sword and Sorceress 32, Gilded Glass, The Devil You Know Better and Still of Winter. She has also been published in several e-zines, and self-published several novellas. Check out her Amazon page.

A Hole Where your Back Should Be

Writer and curator from Indonesia whose works have appeared or are forthcoming in various literary magazines, such as A Coup of Owls, Neuro Logical and Samjoko. In addition, she also writes for Glides, the magazine of her university's English department. She can be found on Instagram @sofias.writing and her blog sofiatantono.wordpress.com

Searching for the Perfect Beat

Allison Thurman was raised on a diet of Star Wars, Monty Python, and In Search Of and makes a lot of things, lately out of words. Her writing has appeared on Tall Tale TV and in the Washington Independent Review of Books. She lives in the metro DC area with too many books and not enough swords and is currently working on her first novel.

allisonthurman.com

Shake, Rattle and Roll

David L. Updike’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Journ-E: The Journal of Imaginative Literature, Hobart Magazine, Philadelphia Stories, Daily Science Fiction, 365 Tomorrows, and Grimoire, among other venues. His story “Feral Wives” was a winner of the 2020 Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction. He lives in Philadelphia, where he runs the publications program at an art museum. Find him at www.thejackal.org

What Sort of Woman

Cat Voleur is the author of Revenge Arc, and a full-time horror journalist. She lives with a small army of rescue felines who encourage her to create and consume morbid content. In her free time, you can most likely find her pursuing her passion for fictional languages.

This Way Lies Madness

Romy Tara Wenzel is a writer on Melukerdee country, Tasmania, passionate about folk horror and weird history. Her preoccupation is with liminal states: the spaces between becoming and unbecoming, wildness and refuge, inter-species communication and ecstatic transformation. Recent publications include short stories in Dark Mountain, Folklore for Resistance and Folkloric, and shortlistings for the Speculate and the Tasmanian Writers’ Prize. Instagram @the_quiet_wilds

This Longest Winter’s Night

Paul Wilson lives in a suburban neighborhood much like the one he turned into a horror playground in his novel Hostage. He lives with his wife, kids, and a moody cat. He has worked a spectacular list of jobs including retail district manager, a 911 operator, and the head of a college security department.

The Changeling

Melissa Woods is an author, Spanish teacher, and self-proclaimed language dork from southeastern Kentucky (US). She lives with her husband and daughter where the Appalachian mountains just begin to melt into foothills. She loves fantasy, world mythologies, and glimpsing the magic hiding within the everyday (like the wooded area along her driveway, which she's certain is an enchanted forest).

Tidepool Dreams

When she isn't playing around in fictional worlds, C.N. Wheaton can often be found teaching science to recalcitrant teens or doing beach clean-ups. She also sporadically blogs about storytelling on beyondthebookshelveswithcn.wordpress.com. Her writing has appeared in The Fantastic Other, Humour Me, and Daily Science Fiction.

Goodwife Dare, Seeking Monsters, Selene in White, The Town Bike

Cat Person. Dog Person. Rock Person.

http://lcwallingham.com

Nokomis, The Unspoiled Harmonious Wilderness, The Stillness of Time, Perfect, This Too Shall Pass, An Turas

River Eno is vegan, a pagan, an editor and writer of urban fantasy, alternate history and pagan themed stories. River is part owner and managing editor of Speculation Publications. River lives on the East Coast with people she loves, rescue dogs and turtles.

www.riverenoauthor.com

History Lessons, The Secret, What the Lake Knows, The Best Man

Susan Tulio enjoys reading and writing romances for their optimistic outlook and charm. She lives near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is currently working on her first novel.

@SusanTulio on Twitter

Road Trip

Maintained a desk in Central Bucks County, PA where he chronicaled the near future. His story “Road Trip” was a spin-off of his novel THE BRIDGES, currently available on Amazon.

Land of Hope and Dreams, Waitin’ Round the Bend

Melissa D. Sullivan is a former lawyer, current indie bookseller and mother of two. She has been published in The Coil, Sum Journal, Nightingale & Sparrow and elsewhere, and her short story "Waiting on the Queen" was a finalist in the 2022 J.F. Powers Prize for Short Fiction from Dappled Things Magazine. In her free time, she reads romance novels, edits a local historical and literary journal, and hopes that Taco Bell is bringing back the 7-layer burrito. Check out her latest news at www.melissadsullivan.com.

The Girls of Blackthorn

Psychotherapist and peer counselor who’s worked in numerous psych hospitals including Norristown State — a modern version of Blackthorn from her story in LADY IN WHITE. In her checkered past she’s been a police dispatcher, Paris cabaret hostess, and a palmist at Fisherman’s Wharf. She has two children and a neurotic cat who resists all attempts to be psychoanalyzed.