Guests
Featured Guests
We are extremely pleased to introduce our Guest of Honor for 2018!
Chiaki J. Konaka was born in Tokyo in 1961. At an early age, he began making independent movies. In 1989, he became the screenwriter for the original video movie Psychic Vision: Jaganrei (which means "Evil Spirit"). This work was one of the first films in the "J Horror" movement, and influenced Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Takashi Shimizu, and others. Chiaki continued to write horror screenplays (Scary True Stories: Ten Haunting Tales from the Japanese Underground, Evil Dead Trap 2, and more) and published several books, including two about J Horror 's methodology - Charmed by Fear: Fundamental Rules of Horror Films (2003), Etiquette of Fear: Horror Cinema Technology. His novel, Marebito, was adapted to screen in 2004. Konaka wrote the screenplay and the film was directed by Takashi Shimizu.
Since then, he has written more than 200 scripts encompassing horror, SF series, movies, TV dramas, and animation. He is well known as screenwriter for "Ultraman Gaia", "serial experiments lain", "TEXHNOLYZE", "Devil Lady", "Bubble Gum Crisis Tokyo 2040", "Ghost Hound", and "Mononoke". Konaka is a well known to fans for putting Lovecraftian and Mythos elements in many of his works (notably "Ultraman Tiga", "Digimon Adventure 02", "Digimon Tamers", "THE Big-O", "MAREBITO", "GR Giant Robo"). In 1992, he worked on the a Japanese film adaptation of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth". In 2002, he wrote the mythos novel Terror Rate, which was translated to English in the anthology Inverted Kingdom, edited by Ken Asamatsu. His vampire novella will be translated into English in 2019.
Formed in 2014 NECRONOMIDOL are the dark heroines of Japan's independent idol world. Playing songs in such diverse genres as darkwave, black metal and NWOBHM and featuring strong influence from the author H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, NECRONOMIDOL boasts legions of devoted fans around the world. Based in Tokyo but playing shows in Taiwan, Thailand, New Caledonia, England, Italy, France and the US, NECRONOMIDOL plans to further their quest of world domination in the name of the Great Old Ones to even more far-flung corners of the globe in 2018!
Richard Stanley made his feature film directing debut with 1990's acclaimed Hardware, starring Dylan McDermott and Fields of the Nephilim's frontman, Carl McCoy. His second feature, Dust Devil, was an unconventional story of an otherworldly serial killer in South Africa, and has a rabid cult following due to its striking visuals and beautiful landscape photography, plus its decidedly Weird taint. He also has created a number of independent, award-winning documentaries, an adaptation of Clarke Ashton-Smith's "Mother of Toads," and the upcoming The Colour Out of Space feature.
Guests
Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire has been writing Lovecraftian weird fiction since his days as a Mormon missionary in Omagh, Northern Ireland (1973). He has written for a number of anthologies (Black Wings, The Children Of Cthulhu) and last year had tales reprinted in such anthologies as The Book Of Cthuhlu and New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird. These past few years has seen him writing like an obsessed lunatic, and his many books include The Tangled Muse, Some Unknown Gulf Of Night, Gathered Dust And Others, and Uncommon Places, The Strange Dark One: Tales Of Nyarlathotep, and Encounters With Enoch Coffin (written in collaboration with Jeffrey Thomas).
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 Christy is a filmmaker and active member of the artist collective “Clarinet Marmalade”. After winning "Best Actor" and "Best Picture" for two of his films at AT&T's Nationwide Campus Moviefest in 2008, Adam relocated to Los Angeles to bring his projects to life. Since then Adam has written and directed several short films and specs for the large and small screen including two feature screenplays and one scripted series. Catch Adam's latest mind-bending thriller "Young Liars" at the HP Lovecraft Film Festival and CthuluCon.
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.
Alissa Filoramo is a graphic artist and actress in Los Angeles, CA. She has been performing since she got her hands on her family’s first camcorder and creating art since she turned her dolls in for art kits. Today, she creates everything from fashion apparel for celebrities and their fans, to candles and scents for the lovers of the unique and mysterious. Her latest work as lead actress in the cosmic thriller "Young Liars" is premiering at HP Lovecraft Film Festival & CthuluCon.
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.
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.
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.
Award winning filmmaker and stop motion animator Benjamin Capps came to Chicago after receiving his degree in Theatre from the University of Missouri, Columbia. While an undergraduate, Benjamin founded The Inner Below in order to produce his own experimental theatre, with an emphasis on expanding on Antonin Artaud's theories of Theatre of Cruelty. Having written, directed, produced and acted in numerous stage-productions, Benjamin transitioned to film-making, now having made nine short-films. Through character-driven, retro futurism and painstaking stop motion Benjamin creates surreal netherworlds which drag the viewer into another realm to face horrific creatures.
BJ Verot in an award-winning Writer/Director based in Winnipeg, Canada. He has recently completed his first feature film, a sci-fi/horror entitled Homecoming (starring Richard Harmon). His most recent short film, Echoes in the Ice, has screened around the world, but most notably as part of the Telefilm: Not Short on Talent at Cannes Program at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, Toronto After Dark Film Festival, and Hollyshorts Film Festival. His National Screen Institute - Drama Prize film, Chopin's Heart also screened at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival with the Telefilm: NSOT Program, and he is the winner of the nationally televised CBC Short Film Face Off (2015) for his film Loss of Contact. When he is not producing his own projects, he is an award winning stunt performer in the film and television industry, having recently won Outstanding Stunt Performance for his work on the television show, The Pinkertons.
Cameron was born and raised in North Bay, Ontario where he grew up surrounded by a family of photographers and photo finishers. Early in his life he took a liking to photography and immediately started working for the family business. From that passion for photography grew an eye for film, which formed an obsession for the art. Driven by that obsession, Cameron picked up and moved out west to study film production. It was in Vancouver where he graduated and perfected his cinematography techniques. Cameron has since worked as a Director of Photography on several short films where he was able to put his techniques to the test. Cameron served as producer and director of photography on the feature film Black Mountain Side (winner Best Feature at the 2015 HPLFF), and on Hammer of The Gods, making its World Premiere at this year's festival.
Chris Heck is a filmmaker and storyteller from the green mountains of Vermont. A childhood in the harsh New England winters would often keep him pent up inside, fighting back cabin fever with scary tales and VHS tapes. This is where a love for stories, and the escape they provide, began to grow. For the past ten years, he has traveled the world collecting stories and characters for the films he creates.
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.
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.
Darin Coelho Spring lives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Northern California with his wife and two daughters. He is a bookseller with a passion for imaginative literature and an active presence in the local arts community. In his spare time over the last ten years, he has created several of what he terms “epic home movies” but his documentary on Clark Ashton Smith is his first film intended for a wider audience. It is nearly four years in the making.
David Barker's fiction and prose poetry appeared in many small press horror magazines in the 1980s and '90s. He was the founding editor of Midnight Shambler, and edited Ye Olde Lemurian and The Lovecrafter 100th Anniversary Issue before leaving the field in the late '90s. In 2012, David returned to horror with the ebook trilogy, Electro-Thrall Zombies. His work has recently appeared in Fungi, Cyaegha, Spectral Realms, and on Shoggoth.net. In collaboration with W. H. Pugmire, David has two books of Lovecraftian fiction out from Dark Renaissance Books: The Revenant of Rebecca Pascal (2014) and In the Gulfs of Dream & Other Lovecraftian Tales (2015). He is currently collaborating with Pugmire on a novel set in Lovecraft's Dreamlands, to be published by Dark Renaissance Books in 2016.
David grew up just outside the Lake District in rural northwest England, where he and his three brothers thrived on an upbringing of film watching and storytelling. Upon graduating from University College London he entered the film industry working for Revolution Films and has since worked on many productions in a number of roles, learning from top directors and producers from the British and American industries along the way. Collaborating with his brother Michael, "The Merciless Beauty" was David's producing debut, provocatively blending classic poetic literature with contemporary otherworldly magical realism in the short form.
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 400 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 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 . . . )
Edward Morris is a 2011 nominee for the Pushcart Prize in Literature, also nominated for the 2009 Rhysling Award and the 2005 British Science Fiction Association Award. His Cosmic Horror fiction has appeared in Dark Regions' THE CHILDREN OF GLA'AKI: TRIBUTE STORIES TO RAMSEY CAMPBELL and RETURN OF THE OLD ONES, as well as PS Publishing's THE STARRY WISDOM LIBRARY and Chaosium's LEGACY OF THE REANIMATOR, among many other fine and horrific collections.Mr. Morris also runs a local spoken-word event called The Hour That Stretches at the Clinton St. Theatre: http://the.hourthatstretches.com
Garrett Cook is an author with Deadite Press and an editor with Eraserhead Press. His work has appeared in A Breath from the Sky, DOA III, Giallo Fantastique, Best Bizarro Fiction of the Decade and more. His next book Crisis Boy comes out October 15th.
Gilbere Forté, is an artist turned film producer based in Los Angeles. A musician inspired by cinema, he has crossed the threshold beyond the performance stage to the film screen. The ominous psychological thriller, “Young Liars” is his latest work with creative partner Adam Christy, writer and director of “Young Liars”.
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.
Jess Gulbranson is an author, artist, critic, and composer. At his most recent appearance at The Hour That Stretches, he and coauthor Garrett Cook had an audience feed their mana to an egregore called "Tony Shrapnel". Current projects include children's books, a grimoire, and the unofficial Dark Souls manga. He lives in Portland with his wife and daughters.
Providence native Jonathan Thomas has persisted in writing weird fiction amidst (or despite) such diverse livelihoods as postal clerk, artist’s model, copyeditor, and percussionist. His collections include Stories From the Big Black House (Radio Void), Midnight Call, Tempting Providence, Thirteen Conjurations, Dreams of Ys and Other Invisible Worlds, and Naked Revenants and Other Fables of Old and New England (all from Hippocampus Press). His stories have also appeared in Vampirella (Warren), A Mountain Walked (Centipede Press), Innsmouth Nightmares (PS Publishing), Gothic Lovecraft (Cycatrix Press), and Nightmare’s Realm (Dark Regions). Hippocampus Press plans to reissue his novel The Color Over Occam.
Jordan Barnes-Crouse is a director, editor and cinematographer based in Vancouver, Canada. Graduated from Langara College’s Digital Film Production program in 2008, he’s since freelanced on various short film, music video and promo projects while continuing to work in independent shorts, features and documentaries. In 2014 he co-founded Off World Pictures with special effects makeup artist Carolyn Williams to pursue their passion for genre filmmaking. Recent directing credits include "Dancing in Ashes", part of Cineworks’s Back Down the Highway anthology; the documentary short "Rygo: The Shape of Shapes to Come", a semifinalist in the GE Focus Forward Filmmaker Challenge; "The Sleep of Endymion," one of ten projects awarded Telus Storyhive’s Music Video grant in 2015, and horror comedy "Ghost Can," winner of the 2016 Rio Theatre Dead on Film festival.
Josh Carley started his film-making career as all young filmmakers do - by coercing his friends into letting him cover them with homemade gore for his short films. Those short films led to experience, and Josh soon began getting work as an editor. Over the past seven years, he has edited hundreds of videos. Commercials, music videos, films, documentaries, web pieces - you name it, he's cut it. Now Josh is resuming work on his own content, aided by the many talented filmmakers he's met.
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.
As visual effects supervisor, Kolby Kember can tell you how long “fixing it in post” is actually going to take and how much it’s going to cost you. After graduating from Full Sail University in Winter Park, FL, Kolby moved across the US to work at VFX studios in Los Angeles. While there Kolby contributed to the effects in Captain America, John Carter, and The Avengers. Kolby returned to his home state of Louisiana once the film industry began to prosper locally. Upon returning, Kolby continued to use his skills in Compositing and 3D work to generate shots for Beautiful Creatures, Game of Thrones, MTVs Scream, NCIS: New Orleans, and more. Kolby has worked with notables in the VFX industry such as Richard Edlund the man behind the effects in the original Star Wars trilogy and David Beedon.
Lee Moyer blends classic painting, pop culture, and naturalist illustration - mixing intensity with impish humor.
His art has been exhibited at the Smithsonian and galleries in NYC, LA, and London. Among his acclaimed posters are world premieres for Stephen Sondheim, John Mellencamp, and Stephen King, as well as art for Tori Amos, Amanda Palmer, and the von Trapps. His work includes Laurel & Hardy films, Spider-Man 2, and Call of Cthulhu. In collaboration with Ray Bradbury, George RR Martin and Neil Gaiman, Moyer designed and painted three literary calendars that raised six figures for charity. His essay "The Elements of Illustration" and his Kickstarter White Paper are widely read. His work is featured in many illustration anthologies and annuals. Moyer's games The Doom That Came to Atlantic City and 13th Age are available now. His Small Gods series, a pop culture abecedarium, and several illustrated children's books are forthcoming.
Liz Tabish is an actress and filmmaker based in Austin, TX. Her style of filmmaking is guerilla, lo-fi arthouse inspired by 1960-70s European cinema. She received her BA in Film Theory and MA in Directing/Theater from Oklahoma State University. She co-produces at Maenad Films and is co-director of Austin Arthouse Film Festival. She's currently working on an anthology series of vintage horror short films focused on female archetypes entitled Tales From the Dancing Maenads.
Makan Talayeh is a writer and director living in Los Angeles. He completed two short films and is currently working on a feature film in the realm of a psychological thriller. He is influenced by dark humor and absurdism involving dysfunctional people. Most of his influence comes from 1970’s German and French New Wave cinema.
Marko Kattilakoski had been a musician/songwriter for over 20 years, when an old friend confronted him with the question: “Marko, shouldn’t we make films?” The question resulted in the 17th century lovecraftian horror/drama "Forlorn Hope" screened at the HPLFF in Portland 2009. Director/writer/producer Marko Kattilakoski began writing the script for "The Music of John Low" three years ago, involved actors and crew, many of them previously involved in the two award winning films, "Coffee Break" (2012) and "The Terrible Typewriter" (2015).
Music has a central part in this story and all music is original music written for this film and is performed by internationally renowned Gävle Symphony Orchestra. Used to working with very, very small budgets we realized this film would be a challenge and we have pulled every string could find to raise money and find sponsors. Finally, after long and hard work, this twisted noir/horror/drama is finished.
“The Music of John Low is a very personal story that I had to tell, and I am so proud and happy it has been selected for the HPLFF. I am very curios about how it will work on a hardcore lovecraftian audience. Whatever you do, don't stop playing."
Matt S. Bell started his career as a stills photographer, winning a number of awards and quickly gaining a reputation for his unique, impactful and filmic work. After completing a residency program in Paris, Matt transitioned into moving pictures. He has photographed numerous feature films, commercials, and music videos. His feature projects include Sawyer Hartman's The Parallax Theory, Sony's Santa Jaws, and the documentary Bending Lines: The Sculpture of Robert Wiggs.
Maurice has a Bachelor's degree from the VJTI School of Engineering of the University of Mumbai and an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has enjoyed successful careers in mechanical/fluid engineering, investment banking, and software entrepreneurship. In 2014, Maurice decided to pursue his fourth career (and first love) - storytelling and filmmaking. After taking a few online and evening classes, he wrote the screenplay for Chimera, and collaborated with former investors and business partners to raise the capital for the project. Chimera was shot in Fitchburg, MA and will be completing post-production by early 2018. Chimera is Maurice's first feature film. He continues to be enthralled by advancements in biotechnology, the extension of human lifespans, and the science/ fiction of immortality and transhumanism. He has begun development on his second feature (The Archetype) which further explores these themes and their impact on the human experience.
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.
Mike Dalager is a hybrid mish-mash of talents and nationalities, born and raised at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. A childhood spent half on land and half at sea in the Pacific Ocean raises questions of possible cohabitation with Deep Ones. This link to the sea continues today, as he serves the Nation as a member of the Coast Guard Reserve. For the past ten years, Mike has collaborated and contributed to the HP Lovecraft Historical Society's mission of creating solid Lovecraftian content, appearing in The Call of Cthulhu and The Whisperer in Darkness, and producing conceptual Mythos music as Ogham Waite in "Live at the Gilman House Lounge", and most recently as Executive Producer of "Dreams in the Witch House: A Lovecraftian Rock Opera."
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.”
Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Nick began his filmmaking career at a young age. He began writing screenplays at the early age of thirteen. Shortly afterwards, he invested in a cheap camera and began directing his scripts. After high school, Nick went to The University of Calgary where he studied film studies and creative writing. After two years he moved to Vancouver where he graduated in film production. Immediately after film school, Nick began working in the industry. To date, Nick has worked on over 150 films in the sound, camera, grip, post and art departments. In 2013, Nick wrote, directed and produced Black Mountain Side. His newest feature film, Hammer of the Gods is making its World Premiere at this year's festival.
Philip Fracassi, an author and screenwriter, lives in Los Angeles.
His debut collection of stories, BEHOLD THE VOID, was published by JournalStone on March 10, 2017. BEHOLD THE VOID received positive reviews from The New York Times, LOCUS Magazine and Rue Morgue, and recently won the award for Story Collection of the Year by This Is Horror. His novellas include SHILOH, FRAGILE DREAMS and SACCULINA. His work has appeared in several current and upcoming publications, including Strange Aeons, Lovecraft eZine, Ravenwood Quarterly, Dark Discoveries Magazine and Best Horror of the Year Volume Ten. See his completely bibliography here.
He has worked in the entertainment industry for over 20 years and was the founder of Equator Books, a publishing house and rare, out-of-print bookstore in Venice, CA. Prior to publishing, he spent seven years as a live music producer for House of Blues Entertainment, producing concert DVD’s for The Psychedelic Furs and Public Enemy and more than 3,000 live internet broadcasts with bands such as The Cure, Motley Crue and Depeche Mode. He also produced the first live streaming concert ever broadcast over the internet.
Philip currently works full-time in the film industry and on his writing. His screenplay credits include “Girl Missing,” distributed by Mar Vista Entertainment (2015) for Lifetime Television and “Santa Paws 2: The Santa Pups,” distributed by Disney Home Entertainment (2012). Films in development include “Observe,” “Escape the Night,” “The Boys in the Valley,” “Gothic,” and “Vintage.” Visit his IMDB page for more on his film projects.
His debut horror novelettes, “Altar,” and “Mother” are currently available as individual Kindle eBooks via Amazon.com. (NOTE: Both of these stories are included in BEHOLD THE VOID)
Ray Garton has been writing novels, novellas, short stories, and essays for more than 30 years. His work spans the genres of horror (Live Girls, The New Neighbor), crime (Loveless, Murder was My Alibi), suspense (Trade Secrets, Meds), and even comedy (Sex and Violence in Hollywood). His short stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies, and have been collected in books like Methods of Madness, Pieces of Hate, and Slivers of Bone. He was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Live Girls and received the Grand Master of Horror Award at the 2006 World Horror Convention. He lives in northern California with his wife, where he is currently at work on a few different projects, including a new novel. Visit his website at RayGartonOnline.com.
As composer for the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society’s Dark Adventure Radio Theatre Reber, Clark has composed music for Dagon: War of Worlds, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and Herbert West: Reanimator. His movie, Lovecraft Paragraphs, premiered at the 2009 H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival. His music is featured on The H. P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast. His music for wind ensemble is published worldwide by C. Alan Publications, Columbia Pictures Publications and Warner Brothers Music Publications.
Most recent work includes music for Chris Lackey and Greig Johnson’s Lovecraft video trilogy of The Ordeal of Randolph Carter, From Beyond the Beyond, and Pickman’s Guest, The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society’s Dark Adventure Radio Theatre production of Dagon: War of Worlds, Hassan & Lavender’s film productions of Walk Away and Dark Chocolate, Christoph Angehrn’s animated short INVASION! Robert Cappelletto’s film The Last Man After the War, original music and orchestrations for the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society’s The Curious Sea Shanties of Innsmouth, Mass., reorchestrating the prelude to Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Sinfonia Antartica for wind ensemble, fulfilling a commission for the Concordia University of Chicago Wind Symphony. He has many music and movie projects in active development.
He currently resides in suburban Chicago.
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.
Sarah Walker is a Portland-based author and glass artist. Her work has appeared in Lovecraft Ezine Press, Audient Void, Test Patterns Anthology, and Ladies and Gentlemen of Fantasy.
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 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.
Stephen Costantino is a Producer, Musician and Creature Suit Actor, widely known as the Gamorrean Guard on Jabba the Hutt's barge in Return of the Jedi. In the early 1980s, he formed the band, "Atmosphere" with funk bassist and friend, Corey Dee Williams, son of and stand-in for Lando Calrissian actor, Billy Dee Williams. As a session guitarist, Stephen has played for New Edition, Bel Biv Devoe and The Black Eyed Peas. As a producing engineer and session player for his recording studio, "Gamorrean Sound", Stephen has collaborated on this year's Witch House Rocks release, "Azathoth 1922" with lead guitarist, Douglas Blair of W.A.S.P. He is also a member of The Walakeas, whose debut 3 track EP "Kanakies" releases exclusively for this year's festival. A veteran of the Sci-Fi Convention circuit, Stephen is pleased to make the HP Lovecraft Film Festival his first foray into Lovecraftian waters. "Ia Y'ha -nthlei!"
Performing at the VIP Party on Thursday 10/4 and appearing at the festival on Friday only.
Thomas Nicol is an indie filmmaking enthusiast from the flyover zone; when he's not making movies, he develops power grid simulation software. He heads up the local filmmakers networking group, Champaign Movie Makers, serves on the board of the Champaign Urbana Film Society, and helps program late night shenanigans at the local Art Theater Co-op. Past HPLFF offerings include "The Window Into Time" and "Bedtime For Timmy", and he's excited to bring a small share of madness to the screen again this year with "Irreparable".
Zeshaan Younus is a writer/director/producer based in Orange County, CA. As a life-long cinephile, he has a true passion for all things horror, science fiction, and paranormal. His first short film, Grey Canyon, follows a couple as they experience an otherworldly presence in the wilderness. He would say that the best movie of all-time is Ridley Scott’s 1979 masterpiece, ALIEN (not the Director’s Cut and not up for discussion). Outside of filmmaking, Zeshaan has a career in government relations and serves in a leadership role for a few local non-profit organizations.
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.”