Stephanie Burgis grew up in East Lansing, Michigan, but now lives in Wales with her husband and two sons, surrounded by mountains, castles and coffee shops.

She has published over thirty short stories for adults and teens in various magazines and anthologies. Her trilogy of MG Regency fantasy novels was published in the US as the Kat, Incorrigible trilogy and in the UK as The Unladylike Adventures of Kat Stephenson. The first book in the trilogy won the Waverton Good Read Award for Best Début Children’s Novel by a British writer, and the full trilogy was recently re-released in the US as A Most Improper Boxed Set. Her first historical fantasy novel for adults, Masks and Shadows, will be published by Pyr Books in 2016, and her next MG fantasy series will be published by Bloomsbury Books, beginning with The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart in 2017.

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“For as long as I can remember my curiosity has gotten me into trouble. I am fascinated by us and the meaning of things. As a qualified Optometrist, I studied physics in depth. The more I learned the more I realized that the universe is way more magical than we realize (remember)! I also enjoy reading ancient texts including the bible (the Old Testament is a very interesting read!) I believe it is possible that stories and imagination, play an important role in our collective consciousness. So here I am, trying in my small way to pass on stories and stimulate the imagination and having some fun in the process.”

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TIM W. BURKE was raised within a mile of several US Federal Penitentiaries, was once a black belt in Aikido, and has a dark, satiric movie available worldwide called THE KIBBLES AND BITS OF HELLORAMA which FilmThreat.com called “Pee Wee’s Playhouse meets Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood on crack.” His fiction currently appears in the latest “Space And Time” magazine and an upcoming issue of “Stupendous Stories.” Look for him on his blog To Smother In Order To Sell The Body To Science.

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Alfred McLelland Burrage (1889–1956) was noted in his time as an author of fiction for boys which he published under the pseudonym Frank Lelland, including a popular series called “Tufty”. After his death, however, Burrage became best known for his ghost stories. After his father died in 1906, A. M. Burrage began writing fiction, partly to support his family. Burrage’s main market for his fiction were British pulp magazines, such as The Grand Magazine, The Novel Magazine, Cassell’s Magazine and The Weekly Tale-Teller.

He served in the Artists Rifles in the First World War, and published a memoir of his war experiences, War Is War, as “Ex-Private X”. Burrage is now remembered mainly for his horror fiction, some of which was originally collected in the books Some Ghost Stories (1927) and Someone in the Room (1931) – often under his “Ex-Private X” name. His work generally is on a spectrum somewhere between the ghost stories of M.R. James and H.R. Wakefield, neither as stuffily antiquarian as the former, nor as sensationalistic as the latter. He died at Edgware General Hospital at the age of sixty-seven on 18 December 1956.

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Marc Burrows is an author, critic, musician and occasional stand-up comic from London. His 2020 biography of Terry Pratchett won the Locus Award for Best Non-Fiction, and his second book, The London Boys: Bowie, Bolan and the Sixties Teenage Dream will be published in 2022. He is a member of the cult punk band The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing, and lives in North London with his wife, who deserves your sympathy, a small black cat called Princess (who doesn’t) and two tropical fish he suspects might be psychopaths.

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Preston Buttons hosted “Air Out My Shorts“, with The Word Whore, for a ten-year stint. The duo (REDACTED) unvetted works of listener-submitted short fiction —often absentmindedly, always drunkenly, and completely unencumbered by any relevant credentials— from 2005 through 2015. Rumors of a reboot of this ‘offbeat Canadian classic’ have been greatly (REDACTED). Preston Buttons also narrated Escape Pod 57: Chuckles Mulrooney, Attorney for the Damned.

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MICHAEL BYRNE a London based Writer/ Film Maker originally from Rochdale in Lancashire. He writes for his own blog, Static Culture and is currently seeking representation. He says he never truly sets out to write dark or subversive stories but for whatever reason they usually end up that way. His previous work, ‘Gast’, received wonderful reviews from readers of Scribble Magazine, coming second in their quarterly competition. ‘Gast’ can also be found at Static Culture. His film work people can be viewed at Cracked Films.

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Your reader this week – Joe Calarco – is an actor and sound designer living in Los Angeles. He’s also one of the founding members of Coeurage Theatre Company in Hollywood.

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