Luis is an actor and stunt performer from International Stunt School currently residing in Tacoma Washington. He developed an interest in acting and costumed performance after watching Nick Castle in Halloween when he was 7 years old. Luis plays the lifeless corpse in Rion Smith's "Too Dry."
Maxwell I. Gold is a Jewish American multiple award nominated author who writes prose poetry and short stories in weird and cosmic fiction. His work has appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines including Weirdbook Magazine, Space and Time Magazine, Startling Stories, Strange Horizons, Tales from OmniPark Anthology, Shadow Atlas: Dark Landscapes of the Americas and more. He’s the author of Oblivion in Flux: A Collection of Cyber Prose from Crystal Lake Publishing.
Valentina Battorti was born in Belluno, Italy, in 1983. Her dad watched made her watch all types of movies from Gremlins to Pretty Woman. When her love for films was complete, and she discovered her favorite genre, she longed to be part of it!! Valentina loves to draw, read, sing, write, listen to music, watch Tv series, theatre, films of all kinds and has always wanted to find a way to reunite all of these media to tell stories, so.. films!!
Emily Flummox uses 18 names (including An-Sisa, Gandalfina Face-and-Heart, & Tristissima) competed on two National Poetry Slam teams over a decade-long slam career. E also designs & streams TTRPG content, writes fiction, and edits anthologies. Much of eir poetry, notably “Sacred Purification Ritual Using Your Own Urine Instead of Water”, focuses on identifying with the divinity of the disgusting. Skunkheart performed that poem during the San Francisco Leather Cultural District’s Erotic Storytelling Hour; it was published in Scry of Lust.
Gretchen has volunteered at Portland Horror Film Festival and the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival since 2016, and helps judge films for both. As a lifelong fan of horror movies, she loves found footage films and exorcism movies. She is a co-host for Gwen & Gretchen Watch Movies, Check The Gate podcast, co-hosted the Kaijucast podcast, and was a frequent guest on Horror Brew podcast.
Did HP Lovecraft go to the movies? Yes, and sometimes he even enjoyed it! Join us as we discuss some of the movies that left an impression on the writer.
Moderator Derek M. Koch, Panelists Chris McMillan, Ken Hite, Adam Scott Glancy, Andrew Migliore
The fear of dark water, otherworldly creatures that lurk within, and the mutation or change that water affects are pre-Lovecraftian concepts used by Lovecraft in his stories. How do modern writers bend the ancient fear of water into new stories?
Moderator Sumiko Saulson, Panelists Francis Pai, Angel Yuriko Smith, Roni Stinger, Emily Flummox
For years the Cthulhu Mythos has been appearing in comics, DC, Marvel and independent titles. If you think America mythos is weird wait till you see what in Japan. The secret origin of Arkam Asylum, The Necronomicon in comics, that time Wolverine took on Abdul Alhazarad and much more.
Moderator David Heath, Panelists Gretchen Martin, Derek M Koch, D B Spitzer
The influence of weird fiction is seen in many 90s-era horror/survival games such as Alone in the Dark (1992), Doom (1993), Resident Evil (1996), Diablo (1997) and Silent Hill (1999). Devil May Cry (2001) also centered around an Eldritch Knight. The Resident Evil and Silent Hill franchises spawned films, and dominated the landscape for the next decade, with newer titles like Geist (2005) having a hard time competing. After the release of the visually stunning but critically panned Silent Hill movie sequel, Silent Hill: Revelation (2012) something interesting happened.
Get sugared up and listen to some of the best new authors in the Weird Fiction and Cosmic Horror genre read their work! This group reading event is taking place in the Meeting Room at the Hollywood Public Library, 4040 NE Tillamook St, Portland, OR 97212 ((just two blocks north of the Hollywood Theatre on the corner of NE 41st and Tillamook)
10:30 am: Adam Bolivar, Wade German, Sarah Walker, Scott Nicolay
11:30 am: Craig Laurance Gidney, Cody Goodfellow, Sumiko Saulson
12:15 pm: Andrew Fuller, Anya Martin, Nathan Carson, Wendy Wagner