Our Staff Alumni

An incomplete list of folks we’re proud to have served with us in one capacity or another over the last decade (we’ll add more as we continue to update the website):

Mur Lafferty, Founder and Editor

Mur Lafferty is an author and pioneer podcaster who has been involved with Escape Artists since nearly the beginning (after Serah Eley Fed-Ex’d brownies to her as a bribe to spread the word about this new podcast magazine format). She was, until July 2007, the host and co-editor of Pseudopod. She was the editor and host of Escape Pod from 2010 until 2012, when she stepped down and was replaced by Norm Sherman in order to focus on her writing. In 2015, she edited Mothership Zeta the quarterly ezine for Escape Artists, Inc. She has returned in 2017 to co-edit Escape Pod with S.B. Divya.

Mur is the 2013 winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. She was a finalist for the 2016 Hugo for Best Fancast. She was a finalist for the 2017 Hugo for Best Novel and as an editor of the Best Semiprozine. Her years of podcasting were recognized with her with the 2017 win of the Hugo for Best Fancast for Ditch Diggers with Matt Wallace.

Ben Phillips

Ben Phillips, Founder and Editor

Ben Phillips is a programmer and musician living in New Orleans. He was a chief editor of Pseudopod from 2006 to 2010.

Karen Bovenmyer, Assistant Editor 

Karen Bovenmyer earned an MFA in Creative Writing: Popular Fiction from the University of Southern Maine. She teaches and mentors students at Iowa State University and Western Technical College. She is the 2016 recipient of the Horror Writers Association Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Scholarship. Her poems, short stories and novellas appear in more than 40 publications and her first novel, SWIFT FOR THE SUN, debuted from Dreamspinner Press March 27, 2017.  Karen’s website is at http://karenbovenmyer.com/.

Karen was an assistant editor of PseudoPod team from 2018 to 2021.

Pseudopumpkin

Moaner T. Lawrence, Assistant Editor

Moaner T. Lawrence is the face of Rue Morgue’s German branch for over five years, and a regular contributor to Germany’s largest horror magazine, Virus. To date Moaner has two tales published on Pseudopod: “Bad Newes from New England,” a colorful re-imagining of the first American Thanksgiving; and “The Great American Nightmare,” a Lovecraftian yarn where C’thulhu is inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States of America. He’s also an active member of the HWA. You can follow Moaner on TheHorrorInBlog, and his Twitter can be found here. Moaner became an Associate Editor in 2014 and was Assistant Editor from 2015 to 2018.

Dagny Paul, Assistant Editor

Dagny Paul is a teacher, writer, failed artist, comic book geek, and assistant editor/occasional host of Pseudopod. She is guest editor for Pseudopod’s Artemis Rising 3 event in 2017. She lives in the middle of nowhere, Louisiana with her husband, son, and cat. Follow her on Twitter for no good reason. Listen to her stories “There is No Road Through the Woods” and “Standard Procedure“. Dagny became an Associate Editor in 2015 and was Assistant Editor in 2017.

Marty Perrett, Audio Producer and Associate Editor

Marty Perrett has dabbled in the podcasting/narrating/production world for around 10 years now and likes to fumble his way around manipulating audio for best results. An office manager by day, he lives with his partner and their ridiculous cat in London. His local pub knows him by name and starts pouring his drink before he’s even stepped in the door.

Marty is also perpetually in the middle of writing a four-part comedy sci-fi novella series called Space Danger, under the name Doug Strider. His belief is that if one day he should finish it then all other prophecies will come to pass (in time for tea, it is believed). So it’s like a huge responsibility. Marty was part of the team from 2017 to 2022.

Cliff E., Associate Editor

Cliff avoids social media by diving into short fiction and can be bribed with interesting beers. He was an Associate Editor from 2017 to 2018.

Jaq Evans, Associate Editor

Jaq Evans lurks in the Pacific Northwest while earning an MFA in Popular Fiction from the University of Southern Maine. When not writing, reading, or thinking about monsters (both supernatural and human), Jaq writes about enterprise security and manages content strategy for a tech startup. Her work has appeared in The SFF Del Sol Review and Barking Sycamores. She was an Associate Editor from 2018 to 2020.

Joe FitzPatrick, Associate Editor

Joe FitzPatrick is a lawyer specializing in family and criminal law living on the East Coast of Canada with a golden retriever in a house full of books. Avid reader of science fiction, horror and presidential biography. Nice guy, but remote and obtuse.  He was an Associate Editor from 2009 to 2015, and Assistant Editor from 2011 to 2013.

Britany Hancock

Britany Hancock, Associate Editor

Britany has the picture perfect family. Loving husband. Two wonderful, beautiful girls. But deep down inside, she’s a pessimist that hates the world and loves horror (she has a spot-on RBF so it’s probably not THAT deep down). It’s in her blood. Her mother, who was a huge Stephen King fan in the 80s, introduced her when she was very young. She watched Pet Sematary when she was 7 and it was the first movie that gave her nightmares. She loved it. The rush of adrenaline just couldn’t be ignored. She was the weird kid in elementary school that kept the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark collection checked out. Her favorite film was a B-movie called Waxwork. One of the greatest joys of her life was in college when her husband, then boyfriend, found Waxwork on DVD and bought it for her. Oh, memories… She was an Associate Editor from 2016 to 2018.

Kate Kastelein, Associate Editor

Kate Kastelein has an MFA from the University of Maine: Stonecoast, where she concentrated on dark fiction and horror. While there she was able to work with luminary horror writers Nancy Holder and Liz Hand. Her story “The Nightingale Incident” appeared in NonBinary Review issue #14: The Tales of Hans Christen Andersen, which put a post-apocalyptic twist on the classic tale “The Nightingale”. NonBinary Review also published her story “Rose” in issue #16: The Little Prince. “The Rose” imagines a darker, more selfish Little Prince told from the Rose’s perspective. Her flash piece “Keep US Healthy” is included in Medusa’s Laugh anthology, Masques. This faux press release extols the virtues of a health-tracker mandated by the government. While at Stonecoast, she was a reader for The Stonecoast Review, and recently read slush for Diabolical Plots. She was an Associate Editor from 2018 to 2019.

Kim Lieberman, Associate Editor

When she’s not touring the catacombs of PseudoPod towers, Kim Lieberman can be found crocheting something adorable, learning something new, or re-reading Harry Potter. She lives in Columbia, Maryland, with her husband and way too many stuffed animals. You can find her online at foxnmoose.com where she blogs and practices her crafts. She was an Associate Editor from 2017 to 2018.

Austin Malone, Associate Editor

Austin Malone is a short-fiction author who lives in New Orleans, and is the coordinator of the Crescent City Critters writer’s group. Those who are curious about his work and would like to use their personal summoning-circle to conjure his presence for further discourse are urged to use vanilla-scented black candles and only top-shelf rum. Seriously. If you even think about using Bacardi he’ll rip your soul out through your nostrils. Just don’t. For those who would prefer to enjoy his words at a safe distance, he invites you to visit sippinghemlocktea.com.  He was an Associate Editor from 2017 to 2020.

Donna J.W. Munro

Donna J.W. Munro, Associate Editor

Donna J.W. Munro has an MA in popular fiction from Seton Hill and has published 38 horror or dark fiction stories to date. Donna worked with the team in 2018.

S. Kay Nash, Associate Editor

S. Kay Nash is a writer, editor, and bibliophile. Raised by a cabal of university professors, anthropologists, and irritated librarians, she holds two degrees as magical wards to protect her from being hauled back into the ivory tower. Her short fiction has appeared in See the Elephant, Wicked Words Quarterly, and Road Kill 2: Texas Horror by Texas Writers. Her nonfiction appears at Horror-writers.com and Buzzymag.com.  She lives in Texas with a Mad Scientist and a peaceful contingent of cats and dogs.  Kay joined the team in 2020.

Otter

Otter, Associate Editor

Otter lives in Atlanta, GA. She works as a software engineer. Some day she will probably embed SETI on your thermostat and in your car assuming someone else doesn’t beat her to the punch. In the meantime, her hobbies include drinking and knowing things and making pop culture references. She also enjoys long walks after dark and seeking out Eldritch abominations in an alternate reality known as “pocket monsters”. She was an Associate Editor from 2015 to 2017.

Erin Roberts, Associate Editor

Erin Roberts is a writer and communicator-for-hire who managed to find a way to be a storyteller when she grew up. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in PodCastle, Clarkesworld, The Dark, and Asimov’s, and her non-fiction has appeared in places from Tor.com to People of Colo(u)r Destroy Fantasy.  She is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop and Stonecoast MFA program, an Associate Editor for Escape Pod, and the winner of the Speculative Literature Foundation’s 2017 Diverse Worlds and Diverse Writers Grants. When not writing stories or reading slush, she spends time singing karaoke, working on game writing projects, and musing about life, the universe, and all things writing at writingwonder.com and on Twitter at @nirele.  She was an Associate Editor from 2017 to 2018.

Elizabeth Rogers, Associate Editor

Elizabeth Rogers has an MSc in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh and now lives near San Francisco, California, where she’s a writer amongst the techies. When not writing fiction, she writes for a nature magazine and takes photos of cats. She also writes about life with cystic fibrosis and chronic illness for the internet in her spare time.  She was an Associate Editor from 2018 to 2019.

 

Jesse Scherer, Associate Editor

Jesse Scherer is a professional curmudgeon, holistic detective, and cyborg. Acting at the fulcrum of cosmic horror and programing to save the world from bad design. Jesse prefers clear logic to decoration. He was an Associate Editor from 2015 to 2017.

Nicole Suddeth, Associate Editor

Nicole Suddeth had been the submissions editor for the Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine. When she is not listening to speculative fiction, she works for one of the “big six” as an editorial assistant and project manager for the humanities and social sciences department. She has been working in the publishing industry for nine years, and she is looking to expand her horizons.  She slaved away in the fiction mines at Pseudopod as an associate editor from 2013 to 2015.

Pseudopumpkin

Victoria Winnick , Associate Editor
Victoria Winnick is a writer, editor, and chef, living in Calgary, Alberta. When she’s not doing one of those things, she’s usually making plans about the next time she can. In the past, she’s written educational books for children, and magazine articles on sex, culture, and music. She has been an Associate Editor with Pseudopod since the Aughts, and some of her favourite episodes are “The Greatest Adventure of All” by Ian McHugh, “Corps Cadavres” by Neil John Buchanan, “Venice Burning” by A.C. Wise, and “The Box Wife” by Emma Osborne. Her own submissions to the podcast can be heard as episode 467, “Doc” and part of episode 532: Flash On The Borderlands XXXVI: Artemis Rising Showcase “Us, Here.” She was an Associate Editor from 2011 to 2019 and in 2020.