Guests
Featured Guests
Paul was born and raised in New Jersey where he misspent his youth playing with matches, poring over Uncle Scrooge and E.C. comics, reading Lovecraft, Matheson, Bradbury, and Heinlein, listening to Chuck Berry and Alan Freed on the radio, and watching Soupy Sales and Shock Theatre with Zacherley.
He is the author of more than fifty books: science fiction (HEALER, WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS, AN ENEMY OF THE STATE, DYDEETOWN WORLD, THE TERY, SIMS), horror thrillers (THE KEEP, THE TOMB, THE TOUCH, REBORN, REPRISAL, NIGHTWORLD, BLACK WIND, SIBS, MIDNIGHT MASS), contemporary thrillers (THE SELECT, IMPLANT, DEEP AS THE MARROW), novels that defy categorization (THE FIFTH HARMONIC, VIRGIN) and a number of collaborations. In 1998 he resurrected his popular antihero, Repairman Jack, and has chronicled his adventures in twenty-three novels, following him to the near destruction of human civilization in NIGHTWORLD.
He has peeked into Jack’s teenage life in the young adult novels, JACK: SECRET HISTORIES, JACK: SECRET CIRCLES and JACK: SECRET VENGEANCE. THE EARLY YEARS TRILOGY recounts a young Jack’s efforts to establish himself in NYC.
Most of Paul’s short stories are collected in SOFT & OTHERS (1989), THE BARRENS & OTHERS (1998), and AFTERSHOCK & OTHERS, Plus, a collection of Repairman Jack short FICTION in QUICK FIXES. He has edited two anthologies: FREAK SHOW (1992) and DIAGNOSIS: TERMINAL (1996). He has written for stage, screen, and interactive media as well.
THE KEEP, THE TOMB, HARBINGERS, and BY THE SWORD, and NIGHTWORLD all appeared on the New York Times Bestsellers List. WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS won the first Prometheus Award in 1979; SIMS won another, THE TOMB received the Porgie Award from The West Coast Review of Books. His novelette “Aftershock” won the 1999 Bram Stoker Award for short fiction. DYDEETOWN WORLD was on the young adult recommended reading lists of the American Library Association and the New York Public Library, among others. He was awarded the prestigious Inkpot Award from the San Diego ComiCon and the Pioneer Award from the RT Booklovers Convention. He is listed in the 50th anniversary edition of Who’s Who in America.
His novel THE KEEP was made into a visually striking but otherwise incomprehensible movie (screenplay and direction by Michael Mann) by Paramount in 1983. THE TOMB is in development as “Repairman Jack” by Beacon Films and (we hope) will not suffer a similar fate. His original teleplay “Glim-Glim” aired on Monsters in 1989. An adaptation of his short story “Menage a Trois” was part of the pilot for The Hunger series that debuted on Showtime in July 1997. “Pelts” was adapted by Dario Argento for Masters of Horror.
Barbara Steele, born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England, originally studied to be a painter, but ultimately became one of the most iconic and beloved horror actresses of all time. Her first film role was in the British comedy, Bachelor of Hearts. Her breakout role was in Black Sunday, which was Mario Bava’s directorial debut. Steele continued to capture the hearts and minds of international audiences in Fellini’s 8½, and gothic films like The Pit and the Pendulum, Castle of Blood, Terror-Creatures From the Grave, An Angel for Satan, Nightmare Castle, and The Silent Scream. Lovecraft fans may remember her as Lavinia Morley in Curse of the Crimson Altar with Sir Christopher Lee, loosely based on Lovecraft’s “The Dreams in the Witch House.”
After a hiatus from horror film work, Barbara returned, much to the delight of her fans, in the 1991 mini-series revival of Dark Shadows as Dr. Julia Hoffman, and continues to pick her projects carefully. Her recent roles in Lost River (written and directed by Ryan Gosling), voiceover work in Kevin McTurk’s The Mill at Calder’s End, and most recently as the voice of Azathoth on the new Dreams in the Witch House Rock Opera’s “Fevered Dreams” EP, have cemented her place in the cosmos as the ultimate leading lady of horror.
BARBARA STEELE WILL BE APPEARING AT THE FESTIVAL ON SATURDAY, OCT 7th ONLY. She will introduce and take part in a Q&A for a special screening of Black Sunday at 1pm on Saturday. Due to very limited room, the auditorium will open to allow seating first to 2017 HPLFF VIP and Deluxe Kickstarter backers and other 3-day pass holders, while seats are available, before being opened to all festival attendees. Please arrive early. Barbara will also be signing in the lobby after the screening.
Philip Gelatt is a screenwriter, filmmaker and author of comic books. His first film, THE BLEEDING HOUSE, premiered at the 2010 Tribeca Film festival. He was the screenwriter on the Ray Bradbury Award nominated science-fiction film EUROPA REPORT, starring Sharlto Copley, Mikael Nyqvist, and Anna-Maria Marinca, released by Magnet Pictures in 2013.
His upcoming projects include THE SPINE OF NIGHT, a fantasy film epic starring Betty Gabriel (The Purge 3) on which he is both screenwriter and producer. And “-30-“, based on a short story by author Laird Barron, on which Gelatt is both screenwriter and director.
His comic book work ranges from the science-fiction series Pariah to the historical spy epic Petrograd.
Courtney Gains first achieved success during the 1980s with a variety of roles in films such Children of the Corn (1984), Back to the Future (1985), Can't Buy Me Love (1987), Colors (1988), The 'Burbs (1989) and Memphis Belle (1990). His most recent credits include Sweet Home Alabama (2002), Benny Bliss and the Disciples of Greatness (2009) (which he also produced), Faster (2010), L.A.Noir (video game) , _Field of Lost Shoes and Fun House Massacre. In addition to his film work, Gains has guest-starred on several notable television shows including Seinfeld (1989), Monk (2002), In the Heat of the Night (1988), Tales from the Crypt (1989), ER (1994), JAG (1995), Nash Bridges (1996), Charmed (1998), Alias (2001), The Guardian (2001) (recurring role), _"My Name Is Earl" (2005)_, Bones , The Middle, and Mini -Series Texas Rising. Gains has also worked as and acting coach and a musician. He once performed live on stage with Phish and has a solo album. He release an EP with his band Ripple Street in 2013 and a Full LP is coming out in 2016. With over 100 credits to his name in a wide variety of roles, Gains celebrates 30 + years in the film and television business.
Tim Uren is a theater artist and board game writer who has worked on a number of Lovecraftian projects. As an actor, he and Joseph Scrimshaw portrayed hapless cultists Chuck and Dexter in the short films “Cthulhu for President” and “It’s the Great Cthulhu Chuck & Dexter.” Killing Joke Films joined with Uren for a filmed adaptation of “The Curse of Yig” in 2011. His theater company, Ghoulish Delights, specializes in bringing tales of terror to the stage including “The Rats in the Walls” as well as “Trust and Obey” (based on Lovecraft’s “The Temple” and Stephen King-Hall’s “Diary of a U-Boat Commander”). He is one of the co-hosts of the Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society podcast, a discussion of the classic horror shows from the golden age of radio. Tim provided design and writing expansions to the Arkham Horror board game and writes for the Eldritch Horror board game and its expansions. Most recently, he has been writing for the Mythos Tales game from 8th Summit Games.
Andrew Leman is one of the founding members of the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, and has produced a number of literary, film, theatrical, music, prop and gaming projects there over the decades with his longtime friend and collaborator Sean Branney. He has written and produced more than 20 live-action Lovecraftian role-playing games. He wrote and directed the first HPLHS film, "The Testimony of Randolph Carter", directed "The Call of Cthulhu", and co-wrote and co-produced The Whisperer in Darkness. He co-wrote, produced, and appears in the "Dark Adventure Radio Theatre" series of Lovecraft adaptations. He co-created the HPLHS musical sensations "A Shoggoth on the Roof", two albums of Lovecraftian holiday music, "A Very Scary Solstice" and "An Even Scarier Solstice", "Ogham Waite: Live at the Gilman House", and "The Curious Sea Shanties of Innsmouth, Mass". Leman earned his MFA in acting from the University of Illinois, and has been seen on professional stages in Chicago and Los Angeles. He greatly enjoys reading for The H. P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast and being an occasional guest host. When not pursuing any of these many other occupations, Leman is a graphic and type designer, and his typographical work has been seen in books and on movie screens, Trader Joe’s products, and billboards nationwide.
CODY GOODFELLOW has written five novels, and co-wrote three more with New York Times bestselling author John Skipp. His first two collections Silent Weapons For Quiet Wars and All-Monster Action, each received the Wonderland Book Award. His latest, Rapture Of The Deep & Other Lovecraftian Tales, is out now from Hippocampus Press. He wrote, co-produced and scored the short Lovecraftian hygiene film "Stay At Home Dad," which can be viewed on YouTube. As a bishop of the Esoteric Order of Dagon (San Pedro Chapter), he presides over several Cthulhu Prayer Breakfasts each year, from Comic-Con to the Queen Mary. He is also a cofounder of Perilous Press, an occasional micropublisher of modern cosmic horror, which recently published Mystery Meat, an underground horror graphic novel drawn by Mike Dubisch.
Sean is a producer, actor, director and writer with the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society which he runs with his nefarious colleague, Andrew Leman. He was intimately involved in the creation of the motion pictures The Call of Cthulhu and The Whisperer in Darkness, nineteen episodes of Dark Adventure Radio Theatre, and many other Lovecraftian projects. With his work at the HPLHS, he's created many other Lovecraftian entertainments. Sean also produces and directs live theatre in Los Angeles. He plays ice hockey and has four chinchillas.
Guests
After fifteen years as a freelance illustrator, Jim Pavelec decided to pursue his love of the grotesque full time. His Ars Goetia line is the culmination of his pursuit to merge beauty with the grotesque.
Rose O'Keefe is the owner/ publisher of Eraserhead Press, the leading publishing house of Bizarro Fiction since 1999. Eraserhead Press is comprised of one main line of books and four imprints: Deadite Press, Fungasm Press, Lazy Fascist Press and The New Bizarro Author Series. Under O’Keefe’s direction, Eraserhead Press has released over three hundred titles and developed an international cult following for its cutting-edge weird fiction which has been praised by The Guardian, Chuck Palahniuk, Jack Ketchum, Boing Boing, and Cracked.com, among others. As a leader in the Bizarro Fiction community, she hosts monthly writer's gatherings, writer's retreats on the Oregon Coast, and the annual convention/art event, BizarroCon. In addition to being a full-time publisher and editor, she’s also an avid homebrewer and Argentine tango dancer. She lives in Portland, OR.
Dominique Lamssies is obsessed with Batman, dead people and The King In Yellow (in that order). She was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, but has traveled throughout the United States, including stints in New Orleans and Boston, where she spent a lot of time roaming cemeteries. She has also lived abroad in places such as Ukraine and Japan, where she developed a deep and abiding love for Japanese ghosts and monsters. She strives constantly to have every story she writes involve some form of dead person and sound like it was written a hundred years ago. Her work has been featured in The Horror Zine, Non Binary Review, and Women in Horror Annual. She hopes to someday write a story worthy of having Peter Cushing star in the movie version, were he still with us. She hopes Sir Christopher Lee blesses and keeps all of you.
Adam Bolivar is a dark poet, weird fiction writer and marionettist whose work has appeared on the pages of Black Wings, Spectral Realms, the Lovecraft eZine, and in anthologies published by Hippocampus Press, Chaosium and Eraserhead Press. His first book, The Fall of the House of Drake, was published by Dunhams Manor in 2015. His second book, The Lay of Old Hex, a collection of spectral balladry, is forthcoming from Hippocampus Press. Bolivar’s poetry has received acclaim from leading Lovecraftian scholar and critic S. T. Joshi, who has stated that it ”creates a sense of cumulative terror and strangeness easily rivaling the best work of contemporary weird fiction writers.”
In 1998 Scott Glancy left a perfectly functional career as an attorney to join up with the role-playing game publisher Pagan Publishing, the nerd equivalent of running away to join the Foreign Legion. Today Scott is the man in charge of Pagan Publishing (much in the same sense that the last surviving legionnaire can be said to be in command of Fort Zinderhoff). Pagan’s most recent project is “Horrors of War,” an anthology of scenarios set during the Great War for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game. Scott is a contributing author on the award-winning Delta Green series of Call of Cthulhu rpg supplements and has had Lovecraftian fiction published in several short story collections including the recent "Book of Cthulhu II," "Shotguns v. Cthulhu," and the upcoming “Swords v. Cthulhu.” You can hear his recorded games sessions on Role-Playing Public Radio, and listen to him bloviate on the Unspeakable Podcast and Podcast at Ground Zero.
Andrew S. Fuller writes and edits horror, fantasy, and science fiction. His work appears in magazines On Spec, Crossed Genres, The Pedestal, anthologies FISH, Swords v Cthulhu, and several short films, including an HPLFF award-winner "Effulgence." Since 1999, he's edited the fiction magazine Three-Lobed Burning Eye. Once from the Midwest, he dabbled in heavy metal and theater, and now lives in Portland, Oregon between a volcano and two rivers, where he commits archery, design, and cocktail quaffery. Visit him online at andrewsfuller.com and Twitter @andrewsfuller.
Antti Laakso is a Finnish film director. He graduated from Turku Arts Academy's animation department in 2008. He has written, directed, and animated several award-winning short films and also works in commercials and as a digital FX artist. In addition to freelance jobs, Laakso teaches stop-motion at Turku Arts Academy. Laakso's main interest is to tell stories, regardless of the technique. He focuses on stop-motion because it is grounded in the real world and its limitations, but also allows to mix in fantastical elements and effects. In many of his films, the real world collides with strange and surprising events. Mystery, horror, and weirdness are his favorite themes. Sound from the Deep (2017) is his first live-action film as a director.
Anya Martin has always rooted for the monster and regrets abandoning her earliest career aspiration--paleontology. She's also half-Finnish, still likes punk rock though now with a heavy side of blues and experimental jazz, has a bachelor's degree in anthropology, cooks dangerously hot curries, earns her living as a journalist and abides in Atlanta. Her fiction appears in such anthologies and magazines as the upcoming Eternal Frankenstein, Cthulhu Fhtagn!, Giallo Fantastique, Cassilda's Song, Xnoybis #2, Borderlands 6, Resonator: New Lovecraftian Tales From Beyond, and Womanthology: Heroic. She is also associate producer of The Outer Dark podcast, which interviews weird fiction creators and was awarded Best Podcast for 2015 by This Is Horror. She grew up with Weird as the daughter of William C. Martin, First Fandom member and one of the world's most prominent H.P. Lovecraft collectors.
Ashley Dioses is a poet of dark fantasy and horror from southern California. She is currently working on her first book of dark traditional poetry to be out from Hippocampus Press. Her poetry has appeared in Weird Fiction Review, Spectral Realms, Weirdbook Magazine, Omnium Gatherum Media, Eye to the Telescope, Xnoybis, Skelos, Gothic Blue Book, and elsewhere. Her poem, “Carathis”, published in Spectral Realms No. 1, is mentioned in Ellen Datlow's full recommended Best Horror of the Year Volume Seven list. She blogs at fiendlover.blogspot.com.
Chance White was born in Nashville, TN, the fifth son of music industry legend Bergen White. The son of a musician and an artist, White gravitated towards film at an early age, inspired by films like Star Wars, ET, Indiana Jones, and later the work of Ridley Scott and Stanley Kubrick. As a child White directed his own action films with action figures and drew his own comic books, spending hours dreaming of telling his own stories. White moved to Atlanta in 1997 to study Computer Animation and has resided there since as a Director, Cinematographer, Editor and Animator. He's directed multiple award winning short films, music videos, and commercials. White has several feature film projects underway as well as an explosive growing career in autobiographical writing in the third person.
After watching Invaders from Mars at the age of three, Chris has been a lifelong horror/scifi/fantasy fan. In 2010, he started The Shadow Over Portland, a blog with reviews, opinion pieces and news concerning events in the Pacific Northwest. He's appeared at Wonder Northwest, the Living Dead Horror Convention and past H.P. Lovecraft Film Festivals, as been a frequent guest on the Monster Kid Radio podcast. Currently, he continues writing on his blog and is expanding into fiction writing.
Michelle had been making costumes for herself and for friends for a few years when she had the crazy idea to try to create for herself a Cthulhu costume. After a journey to the fabric temple with only a vague idea she returned home with some green, mottled, scaled stretch velour and a bodysuit pattern. After reusing some old fairy wings and some stuffing she managed to create a costume that was looked upon with horror when Cthulhu Girl ventured out into Portland one Halloween. A brief appearance at Orycon won her some awards and much more favorable looks than the previous appearance but Cthulhu Girl went back into the closet soon after. Michelle has been attending the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival since some students took her along shortly after she moved to Portland, OR to work at Reed College in 2000. But it was a few years and festivals before she was brave enough to don the costume at the HPLFF and once again become Cthulhu Girl. She has since made many appearances at the HPLFF, welcoming the crowds, posing for pictures, and handing out awards. The first year Cthulhu Girl appeared at the festival was immortalized in the documentary Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown.
DB Spitzer is a Podcaster and Portland native. Co host, editor and producer of 'People's Guide to the Cthulhu Mythos'. Spitzer's podcast focuses on small press weird fiction and information about the Cthulhu Mythos including writers and creatures.
D. L. Myers is a writer of Weird poetry in the vein of H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard. His work has appeared in Spectral Realms, Halloween Howlings and K. A. Opperman's The Crimson Tome. He also is an accomplished reader of poetry, and he does a weekly video poetry reading of contemporary and classic Weird poets, as well as his own work, which he posts on his blog vulravin.blogspot.com. He also had his debut live poetry reading at the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival, San Pedro. He lives in the mist-shrouded Skagit Valley of the Pacific Northwest.
Some say Derek M. Koch was born 30 years too late. Some say he spends too much time watching classic monster and science fiction movie trailers on YouTube. And some just want him to take off his luchador mask and stop talking about fighting monsters. Since 2013, Derek has been producing Monster Kid Radio , the weekly podcast devoted to the classic, and sometimes not-so-classic, genre cinema of yesteryear. After nearly 300 episodes, Derek has interviewed classic monster icons like Julie Adams and scions like Victoria Price and Sara Karloff, horror hosts like Dr. Gangrene, and indie filmmakers like Christopher R. Mihm. Derek loves his classic monster movies so much that in 2016, he launched MonsterKidWriter.com as his home for all his writing in the classic and retro monster vein. As he says in the introduction of his _Fifty Shades of Monster Movies_, as far as he's concerned, vampires, aliens, mutants, mad scientists, and monsters of all kinds all look better in black and white. (Unless it's a color movie is by Hammer Films . . . or American International . . . or Toho . . . or Universal . . . or . . . )
Born in Boston, Elias moved to New York to study filmmaking at the School of Visual Arts. Ayla is his second feature film as a director and is the followup to his directorial debut, Gut, which screened in thirty international film festivals and earned seven awards. Other previous work includes “Dark,” which he wrote and produced and “Phobia,” which he produced. He lives and works in Los Angeles.
Gabriel Gettman is a young British-American director, whose award-winning work explores the power of femininity as a gateway to the dark realms of the unconscious. Signed at age twenty-three to one of the world's most renowned production companies, he began his career shooting fashion commercials in Paris. This commercial work was featured by Vogue, Purple, Elle, W, Hunger, Wonderland, 1883, Volt and Sunday Times Style, at London Fashion Week, ASVOFF, Cannes, TIFF, Bokeh and the La Jolla Fashion Film Festival, and in live performances by CocoRosie. Now, after three years classical directing training at the Drama Centre at Central Saint Martins, for which he received first class honours, Gabriel has moved into narrative cinema, enlivening his richly aesthetic worlds with intensely skilful performances and a distinctively dark poetic voice. He is currently developing his next fiction film: a post-apocalyptic story of madness, addiction and witchcraft starring three real-life sisters.
Heather Hudson has been a professional illustrator since 1994, working in the fantasy and hobby gaming genres. As the owner of Studio Wondercabinet, she creates traditionally-inspired artwork in traditional and digital media. Heather Hudson received degrees from San Jose State University and the University of Washington in the area of Theatrical Design and production. Subsequently she pursued art studies at the Gage School (formerly the School of Realist Art), Seattle's School of Visual Concepts, and TLC workshops. She is a member of ArtPACT and the Women In Fantastical Illustration on-line community. During her career, Heather Hudson has created artwork for game companies including Wizards of the Coast, AEG, Chaosium and Beamdog. Her work for the game Magic; the Gathering extended to nearly 200 cards. Today she focuses largely on personal projects, including the successful "Cthulhu Christmas Greeting Card" Kickstarter project of winter 2015. Heather is currently working on a Mythos-inspired illustration project and a personal project involving faeries. She lives in Seattle, Washington.
Jamie Gower is an award winning writer, filmmaker, and podcaster, who strives to tell stories using unique narrative techniques and technologies. See more of his work at onenewmess.com and jamiegower.com.
JEFF BURK is the cult favorite author of SHATNERQUAKE, SUPER GIANT MONSTER TIME, CRIPPLE WOLF, and SHATNERQUEST. Like the literary equivalent to a cult B-Horror movie, Burk writes violent, absurd, and funny stories about punks, monsters, gore, and trash culture. Everyone normally dies at the end. He is also the the Head Editor of ERASERHEAD PRESS’ horror imprint, DEADITE PRESS and the host of the JEFF ATTACKS podcast. Born in the Pennsylvania backwoods, he was raised on a steady diet of Godzilla, Star Trek, and EC Comics. He now resides in Portland, Oregon. His influences include: Sleep deprivation, comic books, drugs, magick, and kittens.
John Shirley is an author, screenwriter, television writer, comics writer, singer, and songwriter. He is the author of more than forty novels and eight story collections. He won the Bram Stoker Award for the horror collection Black Butterflies: A Flock on the Dark Side. His novels include DEMONS, CELLARS, IN DARKNESS WAITING, CRAWLERS, BLEAK HISTORY, A SONG CALLED YOUTH, and CITY COME A-WALKIN'. He wrote the first four drafts of the screenplay for the movie THE CROW, and is co-writer with David Schow. He has written TV scripts for Poltergeist: The Legacy, Deep Space Nine, Sinbad, VR5 and other shows. He has written animation for Iron Man Armored Adventures and was nominated an Emmy for a recent episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He is a former Guest of Honor at the World Horror Convention. His most recent story collections are Living Shadows, In Extremis, and Lovecraft Alive (his Lovecraftian stories collected by Hippocampus Press). He also wrote the first novel based on the TV show GRIMM entitled GRIMM: THE ICY TOUCH, and the game tie-in novels Bioshock: Rapture and Halo: Broken Circle. Black October Records has brought out an album of John Shirley's own recordings, BROKEN MIRROR GLASS. He performs with his band, THE SCREAMING GEEZERS.
Although he's been acting professionally in Los Angeles for the last decade Jude considers his main role to be Jesus (from 5th grade), which he's reprised 4 times in the theatre. Most recently, Jude has been creating comedic characters that poke fun at Los Angeles and himself. He'll be the guru in the coming revolution.
A native southern Californian, K. A. Opperman is a poet of horror and fantasy writing in the Weird tradition of H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. His work has appeared in such notable publications as Spectral Realms, Weird Fiction Review, Weirdbook, Skelos, Gothic Blue Book, the Horror Writers Association's Horror Poetry Showcase, and many other magazines. His debut book-length verse collection The Crimson Tome was released by Hippocampus Press in August 2015, and he has a second collection well underway. Against the fashion of the times, he writes solely in careful rhyme and meter, whether it be for a magazine, or for a wine label for Lovecraft Wines.
Kenneth Hite has designed, written, or co-authored over 80 roleplaying games and supplements, including GURPS Horror, The Day After Ragnarok, Trail of Cthulhu, Bookhounds of London, Qelong, The Dracula Dossier, The Delta Green RPG and Night’s Black Agents. Outside gaming, his works include Tour de Lovecraft: the Tales, Cthulhu 101, The Nazi Occult and The Cthulhu Wars for Osprey Publishing, and a series of Lovecraftian children’s books. He has several published Cthulhu Mythos short stories, writes the “Lost in Lovecraft” column for Weird Tales, and covered the High Strangeness for ten years in his “Suppressed Transmission” column in Pyramid. Half the podcasting team behind Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff and an Artistic Associate at Chicago’s WildClaw Theatre, he lives in Chicago with two Lovecraftian cats and his non-Lovecraftian wife, Sheila.
Liv Rainey-Smith was introduced to the art of printmaking at Oregon College of Art and Craft where she received her BFA in 2008. Since graduation, she has worked full time as a xylographic printmaker in Portland, Oregon. In 2013 she took the business name Xylographilia, which translates as “Love of Woodcut,” to reflect her passion for the art form. She is inspired by early European prints, folklore, fiction, and the natural world. In addition to her self-directed work, Rainey-Smith enjoys collaborating with writers and publishers.
Michael Griffin has released a novel, Hieroglyphs of Blood and Bone (Journalstone, 2017), and a short fiction collection, The Lure of Devouring Light (Word Horde, 2016), and the novella "An Ideal Retreat" (Dim Shores, 2016). His short stories have appeared in magazines like Apex, Black Static, Lovecraft eZine and Strange Aeons, and the anthologies The Madness of Dr. Caligari, Autumn Cthulhu, the Shirley Jackson Award winner The Grimscribe's Puppets, The Children of Old Leech and Eternal Frankenstein. He's an ambient musician and founder of Hypnos Recordings, an ambient record label he operates with his wife in Portland, Oregon. Michael blogs at griffinwords.com. On Twitter, he posts as @mgsoundvisions.
Nathan Carson is a musician, writer, and Moth StorySlam champion from Portland, OR. He is widely known as co-founder and drummer of the internationally touring doom metal band Witch Mountain, host of the XRAY FM radio show The Heavy Metal Sewïng Cïrcle, and owner of the boutique music booking agency Nanotear. His byline can be found in the Willamette Week and the Oregonian. A regular on the weird fiction convention circuit, he has published many short stories and novelettes in critically acclaimed horror anthologies. His first standalone novella, Starr Creek, was recently released by Lazy Fascist Press and currently sits at #1 on the Goodreads list of “Books Like Stranger Things.”
Nick Zweig is an animator who recently graduated from RIT, where he made his thesis film screening at HPLFF, Eon. Nick loves telling oddball stories and creating strange characters, and bringing them to life through animation. Though primarily a 2D animator, he has skills in 3D and stop motion animation, primarily character animation.
Born in the frigid foothills of northern Alberta, Noah Van Buhren spent most of his childhood drawing monsters, and searching the neighboring fields for either UFOS or Dinosaur bones. He started the Design program at the University of Alberta, but craving more adventure, he left after the first year to back pack around the world in search strange sights and places to photograph and draw. Upon returning to Canada, Noah began doing freelance work as a concept artist and storyboard artist for independent film projects which would lead him to the Emily Carr Animation Program.
He now lives a life of mischief in Vancouver as an animator and film maker.
Noah is an escapee from Hollywood, where he worked on films you've all seen but which he isn't supposed to talk about. Noah also made a number of films he'd be happy to talk about but which you've never seen -- including a feature-length Georgia noir that no one involved is permitted to show you. He is no longer an active Private Investigator and fervently denies creating an underground filmmaking cult that worships Pixelvision. Noah works in a cigar shop in San Francisco.
Orrin Grey is a skeleton who likes monsters, not to mention a writer, editor, and amateur film scholar who was born on the night before Halloween. His stories have appeared in dozens of anthologies, including Ellen Datlow's Best Horror of the Year, and he's the author of Never Bet the Devil & Other Warnings and Painted Monsters & Other Strange Beasts, as well as Monsters from the Vault, a collection of columns on vintage horror films. As a freelancer, he has worked extensively with Privateer Press on their Warmachine and Hordes gaming universe, including the release of his first licensed novel earlier this year.
Rion Smith is a ER nurse at an inner city hospital in Denver. When not working, he's filming and stumbled upon H.P. Lovecraft's work a few years ago and has been hooked ever since.
ROSS E. LOCKHART is an author, anthologist, editor, and publisher. A lifelong fan of supernatural, fantastic, speculative, and weird fiction, Lockhart is a veteran of small-press publishing, having edited scores of well-regarded novels of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. He edited the anthologies The Book of Cthulhu I and II, Tales of Jack the Ripper, The Children of Old Leech (with Justin Steele), Giallo Fantastique, Cthulhu Fhtagn!, Eternal Frankenstein, and the forthcoming Tales from a Talking Board (October 2017). He is the author of Chick Bassist. Lockhart lives in Petaluma, California, with his wife Jennifer, hundreds of books, and Elinor Phantom, a Shih Tzu moonlighting as his editorial assistant.
Scott Connors is an independent scholar living in northern California who specializes in the life and work of Clark Ashton Smith, H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and other writers of weird fiction. Recently his five volume edition of Smith's Collected Fantasies was reprinted in trade paperback by Night Shade Books. His latest book, In the Realm of Mystery and Wonder, a collection of Smith's artwork and prose poems, was published this year by Centipede Press. Connors has twice been nominated for the International Horror Guild Award, and he received the Founders Award at the 2015 HPLFF. His work has been translated into both French and German. Les Editions Mnémos, the foremost publisher of fantasy works in France, asked him to write the introductions to their three volume set of Smith's work. His work has been published in Skelos, Lovecraft Annual, Weird Tales, Weird Fiction Review, All Hallows, Studies in Weird Fiction, Publishers Weekly, The Explicator, and academic books published by Rowman and Littlefield and Greenwood Press.
Sean Blau is an independent filmmaker, originally from the southern California desert where he made a series of surreal short films with fellow filmmaker and VFX artist Adam Petke. This culminated in their first feature Exile, which Sean wrote and co-directed. It screened at last year's HPLFF&CC to some acclaim. He works in Los Angeles where he recently co-produced the upcoming indie drama Chemical Cut. "God's Cellar" is Sean's fourth film entry to the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival®.
Sean Hoade is a fiction coach and the author of 17 books. He has written thrillers, literary novels, horror, and Penny Dreadful novelettes. He taught creative writing at the university level for almost a decade before he even realized what was going on. He lives in Las Vegas. Sean is always eager to hear from readers and other writers, or just people who want to talk about cool stuff. He is easily locatable and friend-able as hoadewriter on Facebook; always saying strange things on Twitter (@SeanHoade); On Instagram, he’s seanhoadewriter; and on Pinterest, somewhat lazily, he’s once again seanhoadewriter.
Ward Crockett is a Digital Cinema MFA candidate at DePaul University. His short horror film “There Is No Door” has screened at the 41st Cleveland International Film Festival and Premiere Film Festival, where it won Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, and the Jury Award for Best Film. His short horror film "Between" screened at the 40th Cleveland International Film Festival, the Grossman Fantastic Film and Wine Festival, the Puerto Rico Horror Film Festival, the MiddleCoast Film Festival, and the Chicago Horror Festival, where lead actress Holly Bittinger picked up a Best Actress award. He is currently working on his next short horror film, which he describes as Vertigo meets Jacob’s Ladder.
Whitney Ellis, was raised in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas. At a very young age she discovered her affinity for the visual arts when she picked up her father’s Pentax SLR camera and took a picture. In 2011, she graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a BA in Film Studies and a BFA in Film & Video Production. She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York where she works as a full-time TV producer and runs her own production company. She plans to make her first feature film in 2018.