CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870) surely needs no introduction so let’s talk a little bit about his relationship to the horror genre. Nearly everything Dickens wrote contains elements of the grotesque – exaggeration (used for both comic and chilling effects) was one of the devices most natural to him. He had a steady interest in the supernatural, albeit with reservations. Several of his stories make fun of spiritualism (“The Lawyer & The Ghost”, “The Haunted House”, “Well-Authenticated Rappings”) but Dickens thought ghost stories were especially appropriate for the Christmas season and encouraged other writers to produce ghost stories for the holidays including Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Elizabeth Gaskell and Wilkie Collins. (more…)

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Christopher DiLeo inherited his love of horror stories from his father, who left him a coffin filled with Stephen King novels. Chris teaches high school English in New York, infecting many students with a love for the macabre. Chris is currently searching for an agent for his novel DARK HEART, a psychological thriller that explores treacherous deceit, violence, and love, where the strongest heart is often as dark as it is virtuous. 

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Spencer Disparti is a poet from Phoenix, Arizona. He loves narrating and writing music. You can find all his music on soundcloud.com under the name Descendants of Nyx.

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Divya is a lover of science, math, fiction, and the Oxford comma. She enjoys subverting expectations and breaking stereotypes whenever she can. Her novella ‘Runtime,’ was a Nebula Award finalist, and her short stories have been published at various magazines including Uncanny, Apex, and Tor.com.

She holds degrees in Computational Neuroscience and Signal Processing, and she worked for twenty years as an electrical engineer before becoming an author. You can find out more at www.eff-words.com or on Twitter @divyastweets.

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Buzz Dixon wrote a big hunk of your childhood, from Thundarr to Tiny Toons, G.I. Joe to Jem, Transformers to My Little Pony, Batman to Chip & Dale — and he ain’t done yet!

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John Dodds is a Scot, born on the Isle of Lewis. He is the author of numerous novels and short stories and his crime novel trilogy, The Kendrick Chronicles (“Bone Machines”, “Kali’s Kiss” and “Babylon Slide”) are published as audiobooks by Blackstone Audio, inc. USA. Michael Moorcock said of him: “One of the most promising new writers I have read for some time. I highly recommend his work.” Website: https://jakk1954.wixsite.com/johndodds

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HILLARY DODGE is a writer and editor based out of Santiago, Chile. She has a Masters degree in Library and Information Sciences which is probably one of the coolest degrees out there – no joke. She enjoys shooting zombies like a boss, reading over a cup of steaming coffee, goat cheese on everything, and supporting fellow authors and creators.

Last year, Hillary and her husband quit their jobs and relocated their family to South America to collaborate on a cookbook entitled The Chilean Family Table. Throughout the next year, they will travel the length of this thin country, exploring the food culture of Chile while researching their book.  She is also the nonfiction editor for Gamut Magazine and if you don’t know what that’s about yet, it’s about time you visited www.gamut.online, don’t you think?

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Sharon Dodge is an author and editor currently residing in the American Southwest.  She has previously lived on the American East Coast, in the Midwest, as well as East Asia and the Mediterranean. She heads north annually to hike with her father. She is currently working on several novels, including a fantasy trilogy.

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