Ben Leonberg is a film maker and creative director for Virtual Reality. Despite living in NYC, Ben makes movies that feature exciting outdoor locations like caves, deserts, and distant lands. He's also a cinematographer and special-effects enthusiast. After learning his technical craft in the New Zealand film world, Ben worked as a DP/Producer in commercial advertising and independent film.
Marcos Esteves is an incredibly talented actor, writer, musician and father. "In Lucidity" is Marcos's second collaboration with director Kays Al-Atrakchi after starring in the award-winning short film Appntmnt. Marcos' next role is in the film "How to Start a War" where he plays an Italian/American from the heart of Boston who accidentally stirs the wrong hornets nest, setting the lives of his family and friends on an irreversible path.
J. Xavier Velasco is an award-winning Mexican writer/director based in Brooklyn, NY. His work is defined by the exploration of the otherly, set in an unsettling alternate reality and told through highly stylized visuals and emotional acting. His short film "Juan & La Borrega" (2011) got a Mexican Academy Ariel Award nomination in 2012 for Best Short Fiction Film and screened at more than thirty international film festivals like the AFI Fest.
Rion Smith is a bi-pedal mammal with an odd obsession with watery monsters and telling their sad and tragic stories. He lives in Tacoma.
Nick Spooner directs commercials, short films and other things, which occasionally win awards. Born in Boston and raised all around New England, he draws his own shooting boards, writes his own treatments and is proudly represented worldwide by The Sweet Shop. He was President of the Harvard Lampoon, wrote, produced and directed at Comedy Central, and once fronted a hardcore band in New York City. His new dark comedy short, “The Call of Charlie” can now be seen at a film festival near you.
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, hopefully this year. Her poetry has appeared in Weird Fiction Review, Spectral Realms, Weirdbook Magazine, Omnium Gatherum Media, Eye to the Telescope, Xnoybis, Necronomicum, Gothic Blue Book, and elsewhere. Her poem, “Carathis”, published inSpectral 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.
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.
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.
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.
Frank Walls is an artist and sculptor that has worked in the book and board game publishing industries for over 10 years. During this time he has created numerous illustrations for and designs for games like Talisman, Dungeons & Dragons, and Game of Thrones, as well as covers for Jeffrey Thomas, Jeff Strand, Shane McKenzie, and many others. He has tried to do nice art that matches people’s couches, but this just upsets him and causes him to create even weirder art. After years of doing solely digital art he has recently re-discovered the paint brush and that colored stuff in tubes.