Is it any wonder that the works of authors like Edgar Allan Poe and Shirley Jackson are popular with students and can catch the imagination of potential authors at an early age? This panel explores how horror fiction can help turn readers into writers--and how teachers and well-meaning family can encourage the process. Horror fiction helps introduce us to techniques of atmosphere, suspense, and world-building, additionally lending itself well to the creative joys of imitation and parody. Panelists will discuss reading approaches and teaching strategies that have helped them mentor students to become successful horror writers.
Michael Arnzen holds four Bram Stoker Awards and an International Horror Guild Award for his disturbing (and often funny) fiction, poetry and literary experiments. He has been teaching as a Professor of English in the MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction at Seton Hill University sin... Read More →
Oh, god, another writer. This one has written a body of work that contains several short stories, including "The Boy in the Closet," which appeared as a selection in Ellen Datlow's The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 17. More recent stuff includes a novel, The Bloody Bucket, and a... Read More →
Educator, advocate, and 2nd generation horror aficionado (Thanks, Mom!) with deep, gnarled roots in horror fiction/literature from classic to contemporary.
Jonathan Kincade is a writer and photographer interested in mining the uncanny. His fiction and art appear or are forthcoming in FIYAH, Clarkesworld, and The Sun Magazine. When he's not investigating the hidden world, you'll find him gardening, playing guitar, or spending time with... Read More →
Cassandra O’Sullivan Sachar is a Pennsylvania writer, editor, and English professor who teaches creative writing, composition, and composition theory classes. A former secondary English teacher in Delaware public schools, she received her Doctorate of Education with a Literacy Specialization... Read More →
Saturday June 6, 2026 9:00am - 9:50am EDT Westmoreland
Join Rachel Harrison, Nat Cassidy, CJ Leede, and Agatha Andrews as they discuss Rachel’s craft of character driven narratives. They will deep dive into her voice, vulnerability, courage, and the appeal of her characters to fans from all genres, as well as the space she has carved for herself as a woman in Horror.
Rachel Harrison is the New York Times Bestselling author of PLAY NICE, SO THIRSTY, BLACK SHEEP, SUCH SHARP TEETH, CACKLE, and THE RETURN. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and in her debut story collection BAD DOLLS.
Her next novel,KISS SLAY REPLAY,is out this September from Berkley in the US and Titan in the UK... Read More →
Nat Cassidy is a bestselling and Bram Stoker Award-nominated author whose acclaimed works include Mary ("One of the Best Horror Novels of All Time" - Audible), Nestlings, and Rest Stop. Esquire described him as one "of the best horror writers of this generation" and among the writers "shaping horror's next golden age." His award-winning plays have been produced across the country, including Off-Broadway and the Kennedy Center. You've also maybe seen Nat guest-starring... Read More →
CJ Leede is a rescue dog mom, hiker, Trekkie, and author of USA-Today bestselling novels Maeve Fly and American Rapture. Her debut novel, Maeve Fly, won the Splatterpunk Award, the Golden Poppy Octavia E. Butler Award, and earned a Bram Stoker Award nomination. CJ's third book, Headlights... Read More →
Saturday June 6, 2026 10:00am - 10:50am EDT Westmoreland
Is it possible to write to the theme for a submission call, but maintain your own voice? In this panel, Lifetime Achievement Award winner Lisa Morton, Kate Maruyama, Jo Kaplan, and Rena Mason explore the art and nuance of crafting prose to a theme, whether in fiction or non-fiction, short story or essay, whether it be for a themed anthology or a full-length work-for-hire book.
Author of four novels and over 200 short stories, screenwriter, Halloween and paranormal expert, past President of the Horror Writers Association, and 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award winner.
Jo Kaplan is a Shirley Jackson Award nominated author whose work has been described as “immersive, chilling, and compelling” by Library Journal and “delightfully creepy” by Booklist. She is the author of It Will Just Be Us, When the Night Bells Ring, and The Midnight Muse... Read More →
Join Guest of Honor Billy Martin, Eric Larocca, Victoria Dalpe, and moderator Eric J. Guignard as they discuss the range of relationships in emotionally-resonant horror fiction—particularly in Billy’s own work—of longing, sexual exploration, intense romantic connections, tragic trysts, and abject loneliness in absence of it all.
Eric J. Guignard is a writer and anthologist of dark and speculative fiction in the Los Angeles area, where he also runs the small press Dark Moon Books. He’s twice won the Bram Stoker Award, won the Shirley Jackson Award, and been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award and Int... Read More →
Stephen King, John Kennedy Toole, cats, birds (wild ones, not pets), New Orleans, Jaws, Goodfellas, international food, travel, old music (mainly 1960s - 1980s)
Eric LaRocca (he/they) is a 3x Bram Stoker Award® finalist and Splatterpunk Award winner. He was named by Esquire as one of the “Writers Shaping Horror’s Next Golden Age” and praised by Locus as “one of the strongest and most unique voices in contemporary horror fict... Read More →
Victoria Dalpe is a Providence-based horror writer and painter. To date, her short fiction has appeared in over sixty anthologies. She has put out the collection Les Femmes Grotesques and the horror fantasy trilogy Selene Shade: Resurrectionist for Hire with CLASH Books. Book 2 Selene... Read More →
Saturday June 6, 2026 12:00pm - 12:50pm EDT Westmoreland
Horror is increasingly colliding with neighboring genres—thriller, romance, fantasy, and literary fiction—to create stories that are as emotionally intimate as they are terrifying. This panel explores why horror hybrids are dominating the current market, how writers balance multiple genre expectations, and what blending genres unlocks in terms of theme, audience, and tension. Panelists will discuss craft techniques, publishing trends, and how horror can amplify love stories, mysteries, and high-stakes suspense.
Maddison's debut EATING VERONICA is coming May 2027 from Grand Central in the US and Fontana in the UK. It's a feminist psychological horror novel about beauty standards and empowerment, following the bloody glow up of a young woman who spawns a carnivorous monster that feeds on her... Read More →
A.C. Wise's fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Apex, and several Year's Best anthologies, among other places. Her work has won the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, as well as twice being a finalist for the Sunburst Award, twice being a finalist... Read More →
Keith Rosson is the author of the novels The Devil by Name, Fever House, Smoke City, Road Seven, and The Mercy of the Tide, as well as the Shirley Jackson Award–winning story collection Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his partner and their two children. More can be found at keithrosson.com... Read More →
Caitlin Starling is the nationally bestselling author of The Starving Saints, the Bram Stoker-nominated The Luminous Dead, and the upcoming Milkteeth, among others. Her work showcases her love of genre-hopping horror; her bibliography spans besieged castles, alien caves, and haunted... Read More →
Rachel Harrison is the New York Times Bestselling author of PLAY NICE, SO THIRSTY, BLACK SHEEP, SUCH SHARP TEETH, CACKLE, and THE RETURN. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and in her debut story collection BAD DOLLS.
Her next novel,KISS SLAY REPLAY,is out this September from Berkley in the US and Titan in the UK... Read More →
I'm the author of Gypsy Kisses and Voodoo Wishes as well as the sequel, Enlightening of the Damned. Not only do I play a spicy vampire named Tasha on the YouTube show The Vamps Next Door, I am proud to be a member of the podcast Beef, Wine, and Shenanigans
Saturday June 6, 2026 1:00pm - 1:50pm EDT Westmoreland
Join Guest of Honor Ann VanderMeer, Ellen Datlow, Eric Guignard, and moderator John Langan for a deep dive into the weird and what goes into editing and publishing weird fiction.
John Langan is the author of two novels and five collections of stories. For his fiction, he has received the Bram Stoker and the This Is Horror awards. With Paul Tremblay, he co-edited Creatures: Thirty Years of Monsters (2011). He is one of the founders of the Shirley Jac... Read More →
editor/anthologist/writer, VanderMeer Creative, Inc.
Ann VanderMeer is an award-winning editor & anthologist. She currently serves as an acquiring editor for Reactormag.com. She was the editor-in-chief for Weird Tales, during which time she won the Hugo Award. Along with multiple other nominations, she has won a World Fantasy Award... Read More →
Ellen Datlow has been editing sf/f/h, short fiction for more than forty years. She currently acquires short fiction and novellas for Tor.com. She’s edited more than one hundred anthologies, including the annual The Best Horror of the Year series and has won multiple awards for her work. Her most recent original anthology is Night and Day published by Saga Press. She has won the Karl Edward Wagner (special) award given by the British Fantasy Convention, and Life Achievement Awards given by the Horror Writers Association... Read More →
Eric J. Guignard is a writer and anthologist of dark and speculative fiction in the Los Angeles area, where he also runs the small press Dark Moon Books. He’s twice won the Bram Stoker Award, won the Shirley Jackson Award, and been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award and Int... Read More →
Saturday June 6, 2026 2:00pm - 2:50pm EDT Westmoreland
Cosmic horror is often thought of as the darkest sub-genre, of deep, existential, looming doom. However, the most dread-filled stories can serve as a vehicle for themes of love, hope, and joy. This panel will spotlight the fullest possibilities of the booming sub-genre.
James Chambers is the Bram Stoker Award® and Scribe Award-winning editor and author of A Bright and Beautiful Eternal World, On the Night Border, On the Hierophant Road, the graphic novel, Kolchak the Night Stalker: The Forgotten Lore of Edgar Allan Poe, and editor of Under Twin... Read More →
I love quiet horror, weird fiction, and cosmic horror! More about me: Bram Stoker Award® recipient and World Fantasy Award finalist Carol Gyzander writes and edits horror, weird fiction, and science fiction—with strong women in twisted tales that touch your heart. She has a stor... Read More →
Vaughn A. Jackson is an Horror Writers Association affiliated author, editor, and sometimes poet of dark speculative fiction. His work generally focuses one one of three categories: Creatures, Kaiju, or Cosmic Horror. Often blending elements of fantasy, science fiction, and horror... Read More →
Hailey Piper is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth, A Game in Yellow, A Light Most Hateful, Teenage Girls Can Be Demons, The Worm and His Kings, and other books of horror. She is also the author of over 120 short stories appearing in Weird Tales, Pseudopod... Read More →
editor/anthologist/writer, VanderMeer Creative, Inc.
Ann VanderMeer is an award-winning editor & anthologist. She currently serves as an acquiring editor for Reactormag.com. She was the editor-in-chief for Weird Tales, during which time she won the Hugo Award. Along with multiple other nominations, she has won a World Fantasy Award... Read More →
Saturday June 6, 2026 3:00pm - 3:50pm EDT Westmoreland
How do today’s writers engage with folk and gothic traditions we grew up loving, while forging our own paths? From conventional tales to transcendent modern expressions, these subgenres have created frameworks for discourse from many perspectives and experiences, including worldwide storytelling that predate categorizations. This panel will explore how these subgenres have been understood, how they have evolved, and how modern authors continue to enrich and redefine these traditions.
Kristy Park Kulski is a Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award nominated, Korean-American author and editor. Her work includes Silk & Sinew: A Collection of Folk Horror from the Asian Diaspora, the novel Fairest Flesh, and novella House of Pungsu. Born in Honolulu, she now lives in... Read More →
Pauline Chow is a writer, coach, and ancestral magic practitioner, crafting alternative histories and optimistic futures. She is a Pushcart Prize nominated author with words in Cosmic Monthly Horror, Space and Time Magazine, Apocalypse Confidential, and more. Not your average data... Read More →
Cynthia Pelayo is an International Latino Book Award winning poet and author.
She is the author of Loteria, Santa Muerte, The Missing, Poems of My Night, Into the Forest and All the Way Through, Children of Chicago, Crime Scene, The Shoemaker’s Magician, as well as dozens of sta... Read More →
Writer, Lecturer, Producer and Journalist, NightTide Magazine/Mourning Manor Media
Mo Moshaty is a multi-award-winning horror writer, producer, and international lecturer whose work explores trauma, folklore, and the boundaries of fear through a diverse and inclusive lens. She is the author of Maddalena – 206 Word Stories (2022), Henry – A Quaint and Curious... Read More →
Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. is the author of Chicago-set award-winning story collections Sacred Smokes, Sacred City; and Sacred Folks as well as Pour One for the Devil. He is the co-editor of the bestselling Never Whistle at Night from Vintage/Penguin Random House. His debut novel... Read More →
Saturday June 6, 2026 4:00pm - 4:50pm EDT Westmoreland
