Rayne Hall MA is the author of over 100 books, mostly Dark Fantasy and Gothic Horror, e.g. The Bride’s Curse: Bulgarian Gothic Ghost and Horror Stories. She is also the acclaimed editor of Gothic, Fantasy and Horror anthologies (e.g. Among the Headstones: Creepy Tales from the Graveyard) and author of the bestselling Writer’s Craft series for advanced-level writers, including and the bestselling Writer’s Craft series e.g. Writing Gothic Fiction Writing Scary Scenes, Writing Vivid Settings, Writing Vivid Dialogue, Writing Vivid Characters, Writing Deep Point of View.

Born and raised in Germany, Rayne Hall has lived in China, Mongolia, Nepal and Britain. Now she resides in a village in Bulgaria, where men perform the annual demon dance, ghosts and sirens beckon, and abandoned decaying houses hold memories of a glorious past.

Her lucky black rescue cat Sulu often accompanies her when she explores spooky derelict buildings. He delights in walking across shattered roof tiles, scratching charred timbers and sniffing at long-abandoned hearths. He even senses the presence of ghosts… but that’s another story.

Rayne has worked as an investigative journalist, development aid worker, museum guide, apple picker, tarot reader, adult education teacher, belly dancer, magazine editor, publishing manager and more, and now writes full time.

David D. Levine is the author of Andre Norton Award winning novel Arabella of Mars (Tor 2016), sequels Arabella and the Battle of Venus (Tor 2017) and Arabella the Traitor of Mars (Tor 2018), and over fifty SF and fantasy stories. His story "Tk'Tk'Tk" won the Hugo Award, and he has been shortlisted for awards including the Hugo, Nebula, and Campbell. Stories have appeared in Asimov's, Analog, F&SF, Tor.com, five Year's Best anthologies, and his award-winning collection Space Magic from Wheatland Press.

David is a contributor to George R. R. Martin's bestselling shared-world series Wild Cards. He is also a member of publishing cooperative Book View Cafe and nonprofit Oregon Science Fiction Conventions Inc. He has narrated podcasts for Escape Pod, PodCastle, and StarShipSofa, and his video "Dr. Talon's Letter to the Editor" was a finalist for the Parsec Award. In 2010 he spent two weeks at a simulated Mars base in the Utah desert.

David lives in a hundred-year-old bungalow in Portland, Oregon. His web site is www.daviddlevine.com.

Pamela Turner writes urban fantasy and paranormal suspense. She's also an award-winning screenplay writer. Previous jobs include administrative assistant, artist model, freelance magazine writer, security guard, and substitute teacher.

Originally from Wisconsin, Pamela now lives in Louisville, Kentucky with her daughter and four rescue cats. Besides writing, she enjoys Hidden Object games, manga and anime, cemeteries, and abandoned buildings.

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Douglas Kolacki has lived in Australia and in Naples, Italy, where he began writing. His specialty is creating fantasy worlds out of everyday modern life. He currently lives and writes in Providence, Rhode Island.

Jeff Hargett is a grandfather from North Carolina with an imagination full of magic and dragons. He stays young and fit by dining on epic fantasy whenever possible. He is currently writing an epic fantasy series that he hopes to publish while he can still wield a pen. He's a firm believer that when this world doesn't suit you, you should write a world that does. He enjoys interacting with readers and other writers and spends far too much time loitering around his blog.

Cherie Reich has more books than she can ever read and more ideas than she can ever write, but that doesn’t stop this bookworm from trying, even if it means curbing her TV obsession. She is a speculative fiction writer and library assistant living in Virginia.

Ciara Ballintyne was born in 1981 in Sydney, Australia, where she lives with her husband, two daughters, one masochistic cat, and one cat with a god complex. She holds degrees in law and accounting, and has been a practising financial services lawyer since 2004. She is both an idealist and a cynic.

She started reading epic fantasy at the age of nine, when she kidnapped Castle of Wizardry by David Eddings from her father. Another two years passed before she began her first attempts at the craft of writing. Confronting the Demon is her debut book.

She enjoys horse-riding, and speculation about taking over the world. If she could choose to be anything it would be a dragon, but instead she shares more in common with Dr. Gregory House of House. M.D.