Dashiell Hammett was an American writer of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He was also a screenwriter and political activist. Among the characters he created are Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man), The Continental Op (Red Harvest and The Dain Curse) and the comic strip character Secret Agent X-9.

In his obituary in The New York Times, he was described as “the dean of the… ‘hard-boiled’ school of detective fiction.” Time included Hammett’s 1929 novel Red Harvest on its list of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005. In 1990, the Crime Writers’ Association picked three of his five novels for their list of The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time. Five years later, The Maltese Falcon placed second on The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time as selected by the Mystery Writers of America; Red Harvest, The Glass Key and The Thin Man were also on the list. His novels and stories also had a significant influence on films, including the genres of private eye/detective fiction, mystery thrillers, and film noir.

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ELIZABETH HAND is the author of numerous award-winning novels and collections of short fiction, as well as a longtime reviewer and critic whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Salon, and many other publications.

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Hannah Greer’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in MetaStellar, The Dread Machine, and Radon Journal. She is a first reader for Fusion Fragment, hoards books, and competes in combat sports. She resides in North Carolina with her partner, a trio of cats, and a small flock of pigeons. Find her on Bluesky @hannahgreer.bsky.social or on her website, hannahgreer.carrd.co

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Sarah Hans is an author, teacher, and creepy doll collector who spends an entirely reasonable amount of time worrying about the future. To read more of her darkly fantastic stories, you can purchase her collection Dead Girls Don’t Love on Amazon, or back her Patreon at patreon.com/sarahhans. She can be found tweeting about writing, cats, and the worrying future on twitter as @steampunkpanda.

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Award-winning author Vinnie Hansen lives in Santa Cruz, California, the iconic seaside town serving as the backdrop for most of her Carol Sabala mystery series. Now published by misterio press, you can follow Carol’s latest adventure in book seven, Black Beans & Venom.

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Andre Harden is an author, screenwriter and director. He likes to mix humor and drama to create genre stories that drop identifiable characters into situations which test their relationships, desires, and ultimately, their own sense of who they are. He writes thrillers, fantasy, horror and science fiction.

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Thomas Hardy  (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain, such as those from his native South West England.

While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, therefore, he gained fame as the author of such novels as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). During his lifetime, Hardy’s poetry was acclaimed by younger poets (particularly the Georgians) who viewed him as a mentor.

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Richard Harland was born in England but now lives in Australia, sixty miles south of Sydney between the green Illawarra escarpment and a string of golden beaches. He has been a folk-rock musician, a university lecturer and a poet who once did a poetry reading at the Sydney Opera House. He has won six Aurealis Awards (Australia’s nearest equivalent to the Nebulas) for his horror and fantasy novels and his short stories; also the prestigious Tam Tam Je Bouquine Award for “Worldshaker” in France. His website is at www.richardharland.net

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