Mike Allen
Mike Allen wears many creative hats, at least one of them tailor-made by his wife and partner-in-crime Anita. An author, editor and publisher of science fiction, fantasy and horror, Mike has written, edited, or co-edited thirty-nine books, among them his sidearms, sorcery, and zombies sequence The Black Fire Concerto and The Ghoulmaker’s Aria, his forthcoming dark fantasy novel Trail of Shadows, and his newest horror collection, Slow Burn.
Unseaming and Aftermath of an Industrial Accident, his first two volumes of horror tales, were both finalists for the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Story Collection, and his dark fable “The Button Bin” was a nominee for the Nebula Award for Best Short Story. Another collection, The Spider Tapestries, contains experiments in weird science fiction and fantasy.
As an editor and publisher, Mike has been nominated twice for the World Fantasy Award: first, for his anthology Clockwork Phoenix 5, the culmination of the Clockwork Phoenix series showcasing tales of beauty and strangeness that defy genre classification; and then, for Mythic Delirium, the magazine of poetry and fiction he edited for twenty years.
He’s a three-time winner of the Rhysling Award for poetry. His six poetry collections include Strange Wisdoms of the Dead, a Philadelphia Inquirer Editor’s Choice selection, and Hungry Constellations, a Suzette Haden Elgin Award nominee.
With Anita, he runs Mythic Delirium Books, based in Roanoke, Virginia. Their cat Pandora assists. You can find him on Instagram at @mythicdelirium and Bluesky at @mythicdelirium.bsky.social.
Jeffrey Somers
“Jeff Somers observes these amiable sociopaths with a funky wit …” — Bruce Allen, The New York Times
Jeff Somers (www.jeffreysomers.com) began writing by court order as an attempt to steer his creative impulses away from engineering genetic grotesqueries. From 1995 to 2014, he published The Inner Swine, a personal zine expressing his often alarmingly dumb opinions on everything under the sun, and several pieces were chosen for inclusion in The Zine Yearbook. He has published ten novels, including the Avery Cates series of dystopian sci-fi novels (avery-cates.com) published by Orbit Books, the dark urban fantasy The Ustari Cycle (wearenotgoodpeople.com) published by Gallery Books, and the standalone novels Lifers (Creative Arts Book Company), Chum (Tyrus Books), and Five Funerals (forthcoming from Ruadán Books). He’s also published more than sixty short stories, including “Ringing the Changes,” which was selected for inclusion in Best American Mystery Stories 2006 and “The Little Birds,” published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine in 2023. He writes about books for BookBub, the craft of writing for Writer’s Digest (which published his book Writing Without Rules), and everything else for Lifehacker. He lives in Hoboken with his wife, The Duchess, and their cats. He considers pants to always be optional. As a verified attention whore, he can be found lurking on Bluesky (jeffsomers.bsky.social), Threads, (@jeffsomersauthor), and occasionally on X (jeffreysomers), Facebook (jeffreydxsomers), and Instagram (jeffsomersauthor), where he posts more photos of whiskey bottles and cats than is probably healthy.
“Hefty and insistently entertaining … the story races along with an appealing balance of grimness and likability.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Soaked in blood and steeped in deadly power and desperation.” — Publishers Weekly
Xan van Rooyen
Climber, tattoo collector, and peanut-butter connoisseur, Xan van Rooyen is an autistic, non-binary storyteller from South Africa, currently living in Finland where the heavy metal is soothing and the cold, dark forests inspiring. Xan has a Master’s degree in music, and–when not teaching–enjoys conjuring strange worlds and creating quirky characters. You can find Xan’s stories in the likes of Three-Lobed Burning Eye, Daily Science Fiction, and Galaxy’s Edge among others. They have also written several novels including upcoming YA cyberpunk novel Second Soul, and adult aetherpunk novel Silver Helix. Xan is also part of the Sauútiverse, an African writer’s collective with their multi-award nominated anthology Mothersound out now from Android Press. Feel free to say hi on socials. Find all links here: https://linktr.ee/xanvanrooyen
