Maria Alexander
A former fundamentalist turned simple fatalist, Maria Alexander currently works at Disney as a Web copywriter. Lest anyone think her head is full of pixie dust, since 2000 a number of her dark fiction tales have been published to some acclaim, as well as a collection of horror poetry. Her credits include stories in Gothic.net, Chiaroscuro Magazine and Paradox Magazine, as well as a number of anthologies.
Almost all of her works have garnered either Honorable Mentions in the Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror anthologies, appearances on the Preliminary Ballot for the Bram Stoker Award, or both. Her story “The King of Shadows” was Finalist in the 2003 Moondance Short Fiction Competition sponsored by folks such as Oprah, Coppola and Variety magazine. The BBC radio occasionally invites her to talk about blasphemy, her favorite subject.
She lives in Los Angeles with a French boyfriend, a pervasive sense of doom and a purse called Trog.
For the full literary rap sheet, visit www.thehandlesspoet.com.
Jay Bonansinga
The national best-selling author of ten acclaimed books – both fiction and non-fiction – Jay Bonansinga is a rising star on the publishing and movie scenes. His novels have been translated into 9 different languages, and his 2004 non-fiction debut The Sinking of the Eastland was a Chicago Reader “Critics Choice Book” as well as the recipient of a Superior Achievement Award from the Illinois State Historical Society.
His debut novel The Black Mariah was a finalist for a Bram Stoker award, and his numerous short tales have been published in such magazines as Amazing Stories, Grue, Flesh & Blood and Cemetery Dance, as well as a number of anthologies.
Jay also proudly wears the hat of indie filmmaker: his music videos have been in heavy rotation on The Nashville Network and Public Television, and his short film City of Men was awarded the prestigious silver plaque at the Chicago International Film Festival. He is also a visiting professor at Northwestern University in their Creative Writing for the Media program.
Visit www.jaybonansinga.com.
Gary A. Braunbeck
Gary A. Braunbeck is the author of 10 novels and 10 short story collections, as well as nearly 200 published short stories in the fantasy, horror, science fiction, western, romance, mainstream, and mystery fields. A ravenous reader since childhood, he rarely ventures outside except when forced to at gunpoint (we exaggerate for effect…but not too much).
His novels include the critically-acclaimed Coffin County and Far Dark Fields (both set in his fictional town of Cedar Hill, Ohio), and among his short-story collections are Things Left Behind and the award-winning Destinations Unknown. His work has garnered 5 Bram Stoker Awards and an International Horror Guild Award.
He lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife, author Lucy A. Snyder, and 5 cats who hold him prisoner every day until they are fed.
Visit www.garybraunbeck.com.
Bill Breedlove
In addition to his short fiction collection Most Curious, Bill Breedlove‘s work has appeared in publications such as the Chicago Tribune, RedEye, InSider, The Fortune News, Restaurants & Institutions, Encyclopedia of Actuarial Science, Bluefood.cc and Playboy Online.
His stories can also be found in the books Tales of Forbidden Passion, Strange Creatures, Tails from the Pet Shop, Book of Dead Things, Cthulhu and the Coeds and Blood and Donuts.
In 2002, Bill’s horror film screenplay Last of the True Believers won a competition sponsored by DAILY VARIETY where the prize was a trip to the Cannes Film Festival to meet with Hollywood producers and executives.
Bill lives in Chicago with his dog, Maestro.
His website is www.curiousstories.com.
S. G. Browne
S. G. Browne is the author of five novels (Breathers, Fated, Lucky Bastard, Big Egos, and Less Than Hero), two short story collections (Lost Creatures and Shooting Monkeys in a Barrel), and the heartwarming holiday novella I Saw Zombies Eating Santa Claus. Reviewers have called his books “refreshingly original,” “riotously funny,” and “supernaturally themed social satire with a heart.”
He’s an ice cream connoisseur, beer aficionado, cat adoption volunteer, and a sucker for dark comedy. You can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or check out his website at www.sgbrowne.com. He lives in San Francisco.
Cullen Bunn
Cullen Bunn grew up in rural North Carolina, but now lives in the St. Louis area. The first collection of his noir/horror comic, The Damned, was published in 2007 by Oni Press. The follow-up, Prodigal Sons, will be released in 2008.
His fiction and non-fiction have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies.
Somewhere along the way, he founded Undaunted Press and edited the small press horror magazine, Whispers from the Shattered Forum.
All writers must pay their dues, and Cullen has worked various odd jobs, including Alien Autopsy Specialist, Rodeo Clown, Professional Wrestler Manager (during which time his rivalry with Jim Cornette grew to epic porportions), and Sasquatch Wrangler.
Visit his website at www.cullenbunn.com.
Mort Castle
Mort Castle has over 600 publications to his credit: You’ll find his work in classic men’s cheesecake mags like Cavalier and Mr. to literary publications like Riverside Quarterly and Bombay Gin, from the confessions magazines True Secrets and Intimate Romances to agricultural publications such as Hog Farm Management, from … Eclectic, okay? You get the idea.
He’s published seven novels, with Cursed Be the Child having sales of near 100,000 and The Strangers optioned for film. Castle’s been nominated for a number of awards, including the Bram Stoker (six times), the Pushcart Prize (four times) and the International Horror Guild award (only once). Cited as one of “21 Leaders in the Arts for the 21st Century in Chicago’s Southland” by the Sun-Times Newspaper Group, Castle is finding new success in Poland (You like me, Mr. Walesa, you really …) where two of his books were among the “Best of 2008” according to Newsweek magazine.
Writer-in-residence for Chicago Heights (IL) High School District 206 and a teacher in the fiction writing department of Columbia College Chicago, Castle has 12 feet of book shelf filled with the published work of his students and former students. Married to Jane for 38 years, Castle lives in Crete, Illinois, plays acoustic guitar like an un-reconstructed (if balding) folky, and has no plans to buy any digital book device until, like a real book, it can be dropped in the bathtub and easily if wavily set right with a microwave or clothes dryer.
Joseph D’Lacey
Joseph D’Lacey was born in London and has spent most of his life in the midlands. He is the author of MEAT, Garbage Man and The Kill Crew.
“My mother warned me never to tell stories that aren’t true. It’s been great fun ignoring her advice.”
By day he runs an acupuncture practice – sticking needles into people and making little dolls scream. Between victims he writes all manner of disturbing fiction.
He lives in Northamptonshire with his wife and daughter.
John Everson
John Everson is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Covenant, The Pumpkin Man and a dozen other novels, including NightWhere, The House by the Cemetery, Voodoo Heart and the giallo tribute Five Deaths for Seven Songbirds. His short fiction has been compiled in four horror and dark fantasy short story collections – Sacrificing Virgins (Samhain, 2015), Needles & Sins (Necro Publications, 2007), Vigilantes of Love (Twilight Tales, 2003) and Cage of Bones & Other Deadly Obsessions (Delirium Books, 2000).
John also writes music, served for almost 20 years as the music columnist for The Star Newspapers, and served for several years as a copyeditor for Necro Publications, Earthling Publications and Cemetery Dance. He also did a stint as a fiction editor for Dark Regions Magazine and did book layout, book cover and web design for Twilight Tales, Bad Moon Books and Delirium Books. All this ancillary activity conspired to convince him to found his own press, Dark Arts Books.
For more info, art, music and fiction, visit www.johneverson.com.
Christa Faust
Christa Faust is the author of nine novels, including Control Freak, Triads (with Poppy Z. Brite), Hoodtown and her latest, Money Shot from Hard Case Crime.
Christa has done movie tie-in novelizations for Twilight Zone, Final Destination, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street, and she won a Scribe Award for her novelization of the movie Snakes On A Plane.
Want more?
Visit www.christafaust.com
Gemma Files
Born in England and raised in Toronto, Canada, Gemma Files has been a film critic, teacher and screenwriter, and is currently a wife and mother. She won the 1999 International Horror Guild Best Short Fiction award for her story “The Emperor’s Old Bones”, and the 2006 ChiZine/Leisure Books Short Story Contest for her story “Spectral Evidence”.
Her fiction has been published in two collections (Kissing Carrion and The Worm in Every Heart, both from Prime Books), and five of her stories were adapted into episodes of The Hunger, an anthology TV show produced by Ridley and Tony Scott’s Scot Free Productions.
She has also published two chapbooks of poetry. In 2009, her short story “Marya Nox” will appear in Lovecraft Unbound, a new Lovecraft-themed anthology edited by Ellen Datlow, while her story “each thing I show you is a piece of my death” will appear in Clockwork Phoenix 2, from Norilana Books.
Cody Goodfellow
Cody Goodfellow has written three and a half novels: Radiant Dawn, Ravenous Dusk and Perfect Union, and Jake’s Wake with John Skipp.
His award-shunning short fiction has appeared in Cemetery Dance, Black Static, Dark Discoveries and (with Skipp) in Whispers V and Hellboy: Oddest Jobs.
He lives in Los Angeles.
Visit his website at www.perilouspress.com.
Gary McMahon
Gary McMahon’s fiction has appeared in magazines and anthologies in the U.K. and U.S and has been reprinted in both The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror and The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror.
He is the British-Fantasy-Award-nominated author of Rough Cut, All Your Gods Are Dead, Dirty Prayers, How to Make Monsters, Rain Dogs, Different Skins, Pieces of Midnight, The Harm, Hungry Hearts, and has edited an anthology of original novelettes titled We Fade to Grey.
Current and forthcoming are several reprints in “Best of” anthologies, a story in the mass market anthology The End of the Line, the novels Pretty Little Dead Things and Dead Bad Things from Angry Robot/Osprey and The Concrete Grove trilogy from Solaris.
Website: www.garymcmahon.com
Martin Mundt
Martin Mundt has published a collection of short stories called The Crawling Abattoir through Twilight Tales.
His second collection, The Dark Underbelly of Hymns, was published by Delirium Books in March 2006. His third collection, Synchronized Sleepwalking, debuted on Dark Arts Books in 2015.
He has published recent stories in Bone Ballet, Spooks!, and Masque of the Small Town Oddball.
His play, The Jackie Sexknife Show, was produced in Chicago in 2003.
His website is www.MartinMundt.com.
Nate Kenyon
Nate Kenyon grew up in a small town in Maine. His debut novel, Bloodstone, was a Bram Stoker Award Finalist and P&E Horror Novel of the Year award winner. The Reach was also a Stoker Award Finalist, received a starred Publishers Weekly review, and is in development as a major feature film. His third novel, The Bone Factory, was called “masterful” by Booklist. His fourth novel, Sparrow Rock, will be released in limited edition by Bad Moon Books and in paperback by Leisure Books in May 2010, and his novel StarCraft Ghost: Spectres, based on the bestselling videogame franchise by Blizzard Entertainment, will be released by Pocket Books around the end of the year. Kenyon’s sci-fi novella Prime was released from Apex in July 2009.
He has had stories published in a number of magazines and anthologies including Terminal Frights, Shroud Magazine, Northern Haunts, Monstrous, and Legends of the Mountain State 2. He lives in New England with his children and their ferocious dog, Bailey, where he is at work on his next novel.
Visit Nate online at www.natekenyon.com.
David Thomas Lord
David Thomas Lord is the author of the bestselling vampire novel Bound In Blood, a Lambda Literary Award finalist.
In 2006, he released the sequel, Bound In Flesh, and the novella, “The Secrets of the Fey”, both nominees for the Lambda and the Spectrum Awards.
He is currently working on his first non-horror novel.
He is not the member of any organization.
He has nothing tattooed but his memory, nothing pierced but his heart.
David Thomas Lord passed away in 2016… but left a legacy of amazing stories. Dark Arts Books is proud to have been a part in presenting some of them.
JA Konrath
JA Konrath writes the Lt. Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels thrillers, the latest of which is Fuzzy Navel, which is a lot more hardcore than the sissy title hints at.
He’s also the editor of the hitman anthology These Guns For Hire and the author of the horror novel Afraid under the pen name Jack Kilborn, coming spring 2009. He promises that Afraid will scare the shit out of you.
In the past few years, Joe has had over fifty short stories published in various mags and anthologies.
Visit Joe www.jakonrath.com.
Adam Pepper
Adam Pepper’s debut novel, Memoria received rave reviews from Cemetery Dance, Chronicle and Chizine.
He’s drawn praise from genre veterans F. Paul Wilson, Thomas Monteleone and Tom Piccirilli for his unique brand of dark fiction.
Pepper’s short stories have appeared in Scars, Decadence and Best of Horrorfind, Vol. 2.
Adam heads up the New York City chapter of the Horror Writers Association.
Learn more about Adam at www.AdamPepper.com.
Sarah Pinborough
Sarah Pinborough lives in Milton Keynes, England and is the author of several novels, including The Hidden, The Reckoning, Breeding Ground and The Taken.
She is currently working on a TV screenplay, two novels and a novella and has short stories coming out during 2007 in anthologies from Carrol and Graf and Cemetery Dance.
You can find out more about Sarah’s work at
www.sarahpinborough.com or at
www.myspace.com/sarahpinborough.
Brian Pinkerton
Brian Pinkerton is an American author of fiction in the suspense, thriller, mystery and horror genres. His novels include Abducted, Vengeance, Killer’s Diary, Bender, Rough Cut, Anatomy of Evil, The Gemini Effect and How I Started the Apocalypse. Select titles have also been released as audio books and in foreign languages.
Brian’s short stories have appeared in anthologies including Chicago Blues, PULP!, The Horror Zine and Zombie Zoology. His screenplays have finished in the top 100 of Project Greenlight and top two percent of the Nicholl Fellowship of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Brian received his B.A. from the University of Iowa and Master’s Degree from Northwestern University.
Visit him on the web at www.brianpinkerton.com
Rick R. Reed
Rick R. Reed is an award-winning and bestselling author of more than fifty works of published fiction. He is a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Entertainment Weekly has described his work as “heartrending and sensitive.” Lambda Literary has called him: “A writer that doesn’t disappoint…”
Rick lives in Palm Springs, CA, with his husband, Bruce, and their fierce Chihuahua/Shiba Inu mix, Kodi.
Find him at www.rickrreedreality.blogspot.com.
Loren Rhoads
Loren Rhoads is the author of a space opera trilogy and co-author of a dark (very dark) duet about the succubus Lorelei and her angel Azaziel called As Above, So Below. Loren’s short stories have appeared in Best New Horror, Cemetery Dance, Fright Mare: Women Write Horror, Strange California, and more, but most recently in the four Wily Writers Presents anthologies. Unsafe Words, the first full-length collection of Loren’s short fiction, came out in 2020.
Visit her on the web at www.lorenrhoads.com.
Michael Marshall Smith
Michael Marshall Smith is a novelist and screenwriter. Under this name he has published seventy short stories and three novels – Only Forward, Spares and One of Us – in the process winning the Philip K. Dick Award, International Horror Guild, August Derleth and the Prix Bob Morane in France.
He has won the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction four times, more than any other author. Writing as Michael Marshall, he has also published five internationally- bestselling thrillers, including The Straw Men, The Intruders and Bad Things. The Intruders is currently under series development with BBC Television. 2009 also saw the publication of The Servants, under the further name M. M. SMITH.
He is currently involved in screenwriting projects, including a television pilot set in New York, and an animated horror movie for children. His new Michael Marshall novel Killer Move will be published in the US and UK in July 2011. He lives in North London with his wife, son, and two cats.
Visit him on the web at: www.michaelmarshallsmith.com.
Jeff Strand
Jeff Strand is the creator of Andrew Mayhem, whose demented adventures appear in the novels Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary), Single White Psychopath Seeks Same, Casket For Sale (Only Used Once), and also in the hit-man anthology These Guns For Hire.
His other novels include the giant-killer-ants-on-a-rampage extravaganza Mandibles, the feel-good zombie novel The Sinister Mr. Corpse, and his first “serious” novel Pressure, which Publishers Weekly and other fine critics said did not suck at all.
He’s also responsible for a trio of comedy novels where nobody gets dismembered: Out of Whack, Elrod McBugle on the Loose, and How to Rescue a Dead Princess. His short story collection Gleefully Macabre Tales is coming soon. Or, depending when you’re reading this, is already out. Or, depending on his career trajectory, has just been canceled by the publisher in a momentarily fit of rational thought.
Visit his Seriously Whacked website at www.jeffstrand.com.
Jeffrey Thomas
Jeffrey Thomas is the author of the novels Deadstock, A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Dealers, Letters From Hades, Boneland, The Sea of Flesh and Ash (with Scott Thomas), Everybody Scream! and Monstrocity, which was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award. His collections include Punktown, Doomsdays, Unholy Dimensions, AAAIIIEEE!!! and Thirteen Specimens.
Jeff’s fiction has appeared in the anthologies The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror #14, A Walk on the Darkside, Lost on the Darkside and The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction.
Find him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jeffrey.thomas.71.
Lee Thomas
Lee Thomas is the Lambda Literary Award and Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Stained, Parish Damned, The Dust of Wonderland, and In the Closet, Under the Bed.
His novel, The German, was released by Lethe Press in March 2011.
You can find him on the web at www.leethomasauthor.com.
Bev Vincent
Bev Vincent‘s books include The Road to the Dark Tower and Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life and Influences. He has published over 120 short stories, including appearances in Ellery Queen’s, Alfred Hitchcock’s and Black Cat Mystery Magazines. His work has been translated into over 20 languages and he’s been nominated for the Stoker (twice), Edgar, Ignotus and ITW Thriller Awards. Since 2001 he has been a contributing editor with Cemetery Dance, where he writes the column “News from the Dead Zone.” In 2018, he co-edited the anthology Flight or Fright with Stephen King. Recent longer works of fiction include the novellas “The Ogilvy Affair” and “The Dead of Winter,” the latter found in Dissonant Harmonies with Brian Keene. Originally from eastern Canada, he has lived in Texas for over thirty years.
Follow him on Twitter @BevVincent or visit www.bevvincent.com.
Bob Weinberg
Bob Weinberg was the author of 17 novels, two short story collections, and 16 non-fiction books. He also edited over 150 anthologies. His most popular novels are the three books that make up the trilogy known as the Masquerade of the Red Death, published by White Wolf Books. His most popular character is detective, Sid Taine, nicknamed “the psychic detective” who appears in the novel, The Black Lodge. Taine also stars in a series of short horror-mystery stories, many of which were collected in the book, The Occult Detective.
In non-fiction he’s best known for The Weird Tales Story; A Biographical Dictionary of SF/Fantasy Authors; and Horror of the Twentieth Century. Bob also collaborated with the talented Lois H. Gresh on a series of pop-science books including the best-selling The Science of James Bond. In 2000, Bob began scripting comic book stories for Marvel Comics. He later worked for DC/Wildstorm and Moonstone Comics.
Bob was a two-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award; a two-time winner of the World Fantasy Award; and a winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association. In 2005, Bob was Guest of Honor at the World Fantasy Convention in Madison, Wisconsin. He served as Chairman of the 1983 and 1990 World Fantasy Conventions and was co-chairman of the Chicago Comicon from 1976-1996.
Bob Weinberg passed away in 2016, leaving an amazing legacy that Dark Arts Books is proud to have been a tiny part in.
Mehitobel Wilson
Mehitobel Wilson has been publishing horror fiction since 1999. She is a Bram Stoker Award nominee, and many of her stories have been granted Honorable Mentions in the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror series.
If you can’t pronounce her name, call her “Bel.”
Bel’s been a dog groomer, an industrial painter, a runway model, a belt worker in a factory, a cigarette girl at a movie theater, an audio/visual technician, a Latin tutor, a truck dispatcher, and a waitress, among other things. She’s lived in the backwoods and on the streets. Now she lives (in a house) in the Deep South, prefers Jack, beer, and Marlboros, and inflicts Hong Kong rap music on the unwary.
Visit her on the web at www.mehitobelwilson.com.
