Susan King was born in Merseyside and now lives in County Durham. She has won numerous awards, including the Women Writers’ Network Award, the London Writers’ Competition and the
Southampton Writers’ Conference Prize. She was one of 12 finalists in the London Independent Story Prize in 2022, shortlisted for the New Writing North Finchale Award in 2024 and recently
shortlisted in the New2totheScene Flash Fiction 2025 competition. She is currently on the shortlist for the Bridport Short Story Competition 2025. Her short stories have been published online, in women’s magazines, and featured in two anthologies by The Women’s Press. She has a master’s degree in creative writing from Newcastle University, graduating in 2023 with a distinction. Her debut YA Fantasy novel is doing the rounds of agents and publishers. At present, she is working on a crime novel set in the North East of England.

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Gillian King-Cargile earned her BA in film production and an MFA in creative writing from Southern Illinois University. She has worked with schools, libraries, universities, and national labs to create exciting stories, games, events, and even stand-up comedy routines that spark a love of reading and learning.

A member of the Horror Writers Association and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Gillian has published picture books, middle-grade nonfiction books, and longer work for readers of all ages. Her short stories have appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendencies, Carve Magazine, Everyday Fiction, River Styx, 3 Elements, Hello Horror, and other publications. She is the 2022 winner of the Horror Writers Association’s Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship for Non-Fiction.

Learn more at gilliankingcargile.com and follow her on Twitter @gkingcargile

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Lindsay King-Miller is the author of Ask a Queer Chick: A Guide to Sex, Love, and Life for Girls who Dig Girls (Plume, 2016) and The Z Word (Quirk, 2024). Her second novel This Is My Body is forthcoming from Quirk Books in August 2025. She lives in Denver, CO with her partner and their two children.

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Kenny Kinlund is a musician from Lincoln, NE. His band Warbonnet has a self-titled album out on iTunes with Tremulant Records, but he would rather you send your money to the ACLU or the Electronic Frontier Foundation right now. His twitter handle is @svenskjaevel.

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(JOSEPH) RUDYARD KIPLING (1865–1936) was an English short-story writer, poet, and novelist chiefly remembered for his tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. He was born in Bombay, and was taken by his family to England when he was five years old. Kipling is best known for his works of fiction, including THE JUNGLE BOOK (which includes “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”), JUST SO STORIES (1902), KIM (1901) and many short stories, including “The Man Who Would Be King” and his poems, including “Mandalay”, “Gunga Din”, and “If—”. He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story, his children’s books are enduring classics of children’s literature and his best works are said to exhibit “a versatile and luminous narrative gift”. Kipling’s ghostly tales evince a powerful interest in the psychological, and their subtlety and indirection can be very impressive.

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Marianne Kirby writes about bodies both real and imagined. She plays with the liminal space between vanishing and visibility. She authored Dust Bath Revival and its sequel Hogtown Market; she co-authored Lessons from the Fatosphere: Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce with Your Body.

A long-time writer, editor, and activist, Marianne has contributed to women’s interest publications, news outlets, and tv shows that require people to have opinions. She has been published by the Guardian, xoJane, the Daily Dot, Bitch Magazine, Time, and others. She has appeared on tv and radio programs ranging from the Dr. Phil Show to Radio New Zealand.

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David Barr Kirtley is the host of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxypodcast on Wired.com, for which he’s interviewed well over 300 guests, including Neil Gaiman, George R. R. Martin, Margaret Atwood, Richard Dawkins, Paul Krugman, Simon Pegg, Joyce Carol Oates, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Ursula K. Le Guin.

His short fiction appears in magazines such as Realms of Fantasy, Weird Tales, Lightspeed, and Intergalactic Medicine Show, on podcasts such as Escape Pod and Pseudopod, and in books such as The Living Dead, New Cthulhu, The Way of the Wizard, and New Voices in Science Fiction. His story “Save Me Plz” was picked by editor Rich Horton for the 2008 edition of the anthology series Fantasy: The Best of the Year.

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Gwendolyn Kiste is the three-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens, Reluctant Immortals, Boneset & Feathers, Pretty Marys All in a Row, and The Haunting of Velkwood. Her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in outlets including Lit Hub, Nightmare, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, Vastarien, Tor Nightfire, Titan Books, and The Dark. She’s a Lambda Literary Award winner, and her fiction has also received the This Is Horror award for Novel of the Year as well as nominations for the Premios Kelvin and Ignotus awards. Originally from Ohio, she now resides on an abandoned horse farm outside of Pittsburgh with her husband, their excitable calico cat, and not nearly enough ghosts. Find her online at gwendolynkiste.com

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