Casey Aimer is a cyberpunk poet and editor who holds master’s degrees in both poetry and publishing. He works for Science publishing high-impact research articles, and is founder of Radon Journal, an anarchist science fiction publisher. His poetry has been featured in Strange Horizons, Space and Time Magazine, Apparition Lit, Star*Line, and many more. An SFWA and SFPA member, his work has been a Rhysling Award finalist and Soft Star Magazine contest winner. He can be found on Bluesky and CaseyAimer.com

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Multiple award-nominated and award-winning author Colleen Anderson has been widely published across seven countries, with works appearing in publications such as Weird Tales, Cemetery Dance, and Amazing. Her Rhysling Award-winning poem “Machine (r)Evolution” is featured in Tenebrous Press’s Brave New Weird, and she is a two-time winner of the SFPA’s dwarf poetry contest. Colleen is the author of several poetry collections, including The Lore of Inscrutable Dreams, I Dreamed a World, and Weird Worlds. Her fourth poetry book, Vellum Leaves and Lettered Skins, is slated for publication by Raw Dog Screaming Press in late 2025.

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Sydnie Beaupré is more than just a girl: they're an openly LQBTQ2IA author that lives in their own imagination: a post-apocalyptic, zombie-inhabited world, where magical creatures and supernatural occurrences are simply the mundane.

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Joel Bisaillon of Umbra Ludus (shadow play) focuses on illustrating dark, dramatic, bold, and colourful imagery with a flair for the fantastical. With years of tabletop gaming and delving into Hitchcock, Baum, and Lovecraft at an early age, he led his creative focus towards the dark fantasy, cosmic and American gothic horror genres.
His art has graced the pages of Aurealis Science Fiction & Fantasy Magazine, BYU’s Leading Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine, New Myths E-Zine, Electric Spec Magazine, Expanded Horizons Speculative Fiction Magazine, Hyphenpunk, Penumbric Speculative Fiction Magazine, and The British Fantasy Society's Horizons Magazine. As well as several renowned roleplaying, tabletop gaming, and publishing companies, including New Comet Games, Vermin Games, Blasphemy Press, Jester’s Hand Publishing, Kelestia Games, Lostlorn Games, and Legendary Games.

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A 2015 Nebula finalist, Beth Cato is the author of the cozy mystery Cheddar Luck Next Time as well as fantasy-like A Thousand Recipes for Revenge. She’s a Hanford, California native now moored in Red Wing, Minnesota. She usually has one or two cats in close orbit. Find out more at BethCato.com; follow her on BlueSky at @BethCato and Instagram at @catocatsandcheese.

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Ray Daley was born in Coventry & still lives there. He served 6 yrs 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 10. His current dream is to eventually finish the Hitch Hikers fanfic novel he's been writing since 1986. Tweet him @RayDaleyWriter or @raydaleywriter.bsky.social

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Arvee Fantilagan was raised in the Philippines, lives in Japan, and can be found at sites.google.com/view/arveef. He hopes to write a better bio someday.


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Janis Butler Holm served as Associate Editor for Wide Angle, the film journal, and currently works as a writer and editor in sunny Los Angeles. Her prose, poems, art, and performance pieces have appeared in small-press, national, and international magazines. Her plays have been produced in the U.S., Canada, Russia, and the U.K.

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Mary Soon Lee is a Grand Master of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association, and winner of the AnLab Readers' Award, Dwarf Stars Award, Elgin Award, Rhysling Award, and Utopia Award. An illustrated edition of her epic fantasy "The Sign of the Dragon" was published in January 2025. She hides behind a cryptically named website (marysoonlee.com) and BlueSky account (@marysoonlee.bsky.social).

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Avra Margariti is a queer author, Greek sea monster, and Pushcart-nominated poet with a fondness for the dark and the darling. Avra’s work haunts publications such as Vastarien, Asimov’s, Liminality, Arsenika, The Future Fire, Space and Time, Eye to the Telescope, and Glittership. The Saint of Witches, Avra’s debut collection of horror poetry, is available from Weasel Press. You can find Avra on twitter (@avramargariti).

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Lauren McBride is author of the chapbook Aliens, Magic, and Monsters (Hiraeth, 2023). Nominated for the Best of the Net, Pushcart, Rhysling, and Dwarf Stars Awards, her poetry has appeared internationally in speculative and main­stream publications including Asimov's, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Utopia Science Fiction's 5th Anniversary Anthology. She enjoys swimming, gardening, baking, reading, writing, and knitting scarves for U.S. troops.

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Amanda Mitzel writes horror and free verse poetry in a cabin in the woods. She has had work featured in Strange Horizons, Suburban Witchcraft Magazine, Weird Lit Magazine, and more. Her poetry chapbook “We Are All Made of Glory & Soft, White Light" was published by Bottlecap Press. She is hard at work on her first screenplay, and can be found at amandamitzel.com and on IG @amanda.mitzel.

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Amuri Morris is an artist based in Richmond, Va. She recently graduated from painting and printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University. Throughout the years she has acquired several artistic accolades such as a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship. She aims to promote diversity in the art canon, specifically focusing on the black experience. You can find more of her work at www.murisart.com.

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Sophia-Maria Nicolopoulos works as an Editor-in-Chief for a romance publishing house during the day. At night, she writes whimsical horrors, uncanny desires, and fever dreams inspired by Greek folklore and myths. Her short fiction has appeared in The Deadlands, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Seaside Gothic, Hexagon MYRIAD, and others. Her two poetry books explore intergenerational trauma and mental health stigma in dark fantasy settings. She's an Apex Slush reader and part of the Edinburgh SFF writing community.

To follow her updates and read her manifesto about how felines surpass us all, stop by her BlueSky profile @sophiamweaves.bsky.social.

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When she is not tumbling rocks, playing D&D or cheering on the Edmonton Oilers, Rhonda Parrish is creating shiny new poems and stories. She hoards them, like a magpie dragon, at https://www.patreon.com/RhondaParrish—the only place in the multiverse many of them can be found.

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C. J. Peterson is a writer of science articles and science fiction.

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Jennifer Lee Rossman (she/they) is a queer, disabled, and autistic author and editor from the land of carousels and Rod Serling. Their work has been featured in dozens of anthologies, and their queer reincarnation novel Blue Incarnations is available now. Find more of their work on their website http://jenniferleerossman.blogspot.com and follow them on Twitter @JenLRossman

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A freelance journalist and photographer, Sonali Roy wears several other hats including painter, 3-D art designer, music composer, and singer though the sudden demise of her 8-yr old canine friend Fuchoo baffled her. Devoted to vegan diet, Sonali enjoys brainstorming healthy recipes in the kitchen. She also loves creative writing.

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Kasia Runté is in her third year at the University of Lethbridge in the Indigenous Health program. She loves art, but resists making it her career because she not interested in compromising her art to be commercial. Instead, she wants art to be the passion that keeps her balanced at the end of the workday in a field such as palliative care. She is often drawn to darker themes and images, partly as a form of catharsis, and partly to balance her super-cheerful pieces.

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Vekhan Sametyaza [AKA Desmond Rhae] is a transmutative artist, author, and musician with a deep interest in promoting dark awakening through authentic self-expression. An enduring love for sci-fi and fantasy themes has inspired his work for publications like Cosmic Horror Monthly, Burning Light Press, and Florida Roots Press. You can find out more at www.theinksphere.com.

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Carl Scharwath has appeared globally with 180+ journals selecting his writing or art. Carl has published four poetry books and his latest book is The World Went Dark, published by Alien Buddha Press. Carl has four photography books, published with Praxis and CreatiVingenuitiy. His photography was exhibited in the Mount Dora and Leesburg Centers for the Arts. Carl is currently an art editor at Glitterati and former editor for Minute Magazine. He was nominated for four The Best of the Net Awards (2022-25) and two different 2023 Pushcart Nominations for poetry and a short story.

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Irina Tall (Novikova) is an artist, graphic artist, illustrator. She graduated from the State Academy of Slavic Cultures with a degree in art, and also has a bachelor's degree in design.

The first personal exhibition "My soul is like a wild hawk" (2002) was held in the museum of Maxim Bagdanovich. In her works, she raises themes of ecology, in 2005 she devoted a series of works to the Chernobyl disaster, draws on anti-war topics. The first big series she drew was The Red Book, dedicated to rare and endangered species of animals and birds. Writes fairy tales and poems, illustrates short stories. She draws various fantastic creatures: unicorns, animals with human faces, she especially likes the image of a man - a bird - Siren. In 2020, she took part in Poznań Art Week. Her work has been published in magazines: Gupsophila, Harpy Hybrid Review, Little Literary Living Room and others. In 2022, her short story was included in the collection The 50 Best Short Stories, and her poem was published in the collection of poetry The wonders of winter.

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Yuliia Vereta (she/her) is a Polish writer of Ukrainian origin who is now living her third life in Katowice, where she works as a translator and is a poet on a good day and a disaster-maker on a bad one. Her speculative works have been published in print and online, among others in Star*Line, Dreams and Nightmares, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Leading Edge, Penumbric, Kaleidotrope, and ParSec. She is a 2022 Best of the Net Nominee.

When she isn't working, writing or cooking, she tries to remake her stationary time machine into a smaller portable model, since the one she currently owns does not fit into the elevator of the 12-story building where she lives and constantly becomes the source of strange questions at airport customs.

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Celeste Wakefield writes feminist horror and gothic fantasy, often centering the pregnant and postpartum experience. Her work appears in Short and Twisted, Veil: Journal of Darker Musings, and on her Patreon, where she holds monthly salons and spotlights great fiction.

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Shiwei Zhou is a Chinese-American writer of speculative fiction; her short stories can be found in Asimov’s, khoreo, and Diabolical Plots. She lives in the Midwest with her family and a golden retriever named Mango. Find her on Bluesky @shiweizhou.bsky.social‬