William Ledbetter is a Nebula Award winning author with two novels and more than seventy speculative fiction short stories and non-fiction articles published in five languages, in markets such as Asimov’s, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Analog, Escape Pod and the SFWA blog. He’s been a space and technology geek since childhood and spent most of his non-writing career in the aerospace industry. He is a member of SFWA, the National Space Society of North Texas, and a Launch Pad Astronomy workshop graduate. He lives near Dallas with his wife, a needy dog and three spoiled cats. | ||
Bill McCurry blends action, humor, and vivid characters in his dark fantasy novels. They are largely about the ridiculousness of being human, but with swords because swords are cool. He suggests that anyone who wants to write novels should write and finish some bad novels first. You learn a lot. Although Dallas is a city that smells like credit cards and despair, Bill and his wife still live there with their five cats. He maintains that the maximum number of cats should actually be three, because if you have four, then one of them can always get behind you. | ||
Morgan Chalut has been writing since she learned that anyone was allowed to do that; it wasn’t illegal or anything! While it didn’t slow down her talking, it at least gave her parents and six older siblings (and her poor, sweet teachers) a break once in a while. She hopes to continue to discover characters and worlds she can plot and explore and share. Check out her trilogy at Water Dragon Publishing. Morgan lives in Dallas, Texas with her delightfully handsome and silly, charming, supportive, and lovely husband, Philip. They have two dogs together: Caramel, who absolutely wants to be your friend, and Sammie, who very definitely does not. | ||
Michelle Muenzler, known at local science fiction and fantasy conventions as “the Cookie Lady”, writes fiction both dark and strange to counterbalance the sweetness of her baking. Her short fiction and poetry can be read in magazines such as Daily Science Fiction, Liminality, and Fireside, and she takes immense joy in crinkling words like little foil puppets. If you are feeling especially brave, take a peek at her novella The Hills of Meat, the Forest of Bone on Amazon. She promises it won’t bite. Much. | ||
L.J. Keys grew up in Western New York and moved to Texas in 2017. She began writing seriously in 2018 and published her first book of poetry, Before I Sleep: Poetry, Prose, and Peculiarity, in January 2022. Her poem “Divorce” was selected for The Writer’s Garret Common Language Project: Passages in 2022 and L.J. continues to use her writing as a route to healing. #therapeutichorror | ||
Sam Nash is a playwright and performer, currently focusing on educational presentations in schools and libraries. A Play on Swords is a theatrical company providing educational entertainment to educational venues. Costumed characters for historical and educational presentations. | ||
Mark A. Nobles has written one nonfiction book, Fort Worth’s Rock & Roll Roots, for Arcadia Press, and his first novel, We’re for Smoke, was published by TCU Press in the Fall of 2021. Mark’s novella, Chalk Mountain Stories, will be published by D&M Press in the spring of 2024. He is a Pushcart nominee, and his short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Cowboy Jamboree, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Gimmick Press, Road Kill Vol. 4, Not One of Us, The Esthetic Apostle, Curating Alexandria, and Cleaver. Mark is a sixth-generation Texan born on Fort Worth’s infamous Jacksboro Highway and proudly claims blood and kinship with Thunder Road’s gamblers, outlaws, and wastrels. He lives in Fort Worth but hopes to die in the desert. | ||
Rook Riley is an army vet, former government contractor, author, and game writer who recently quit teaching middle school to focus on writing and running a small editing business. They are a member of the Horror Writers Association, Lost in America, and the PTA. Hobbies include binge-watching streaming services, and collecting tattoos. Joy and the Patchwork Lady, their newest short story, will appear in the Horror Zone: An Anthology for Women Veterans this March. | ||
D.G. Swain is an artist and writer in Fort Worth, Texas. She’s been writing almost nonstop since she was 14 years old, which explains her massive forearms. She specializes in neurodiversity research, speculative fiction, and exploring under-represented groups in media. The first novel in the Void of Course series, Middle of Nowhere, is currently available to read for free on Inkitt. It’s a post-apocalyptic tale that features a strong female lead character, lots of diversity, and a little light cannibalism. | ||
Richard J. Gonzales wrote non-fiction Raza Rising: Chicanos in North Texas, released in March 2016, (University of North Texas Press) and historical fiction, Deer Dancer, July 2107 (Sleeping Panther Press). He penned a Fort Worth Star-Telegram op-ed column for six years. Currently he writes a monthly column about Fort Worth Latino history. Two short stories appeared in the Americas Review, literary journal of the University of Houston. His play Pauline and Louis was staged in 2021 at the Louis Zapata Theater in Fort Worth, Texas. LatinoAuthor.Com listed Gonzales as the number one author for non-fiction in 2016. He currently is a member of the All Writers Online Workshop and Hispanic Organization for Genealogy and Research (HOGAR). | ||
Chris Irby began his storytelling career at the age of 12, when he collaborated with his childhood friend Sean Freeman to produce a number of epic Super-8 movies, most of which featured robots, wizards, and/or prodigious amounts of bloodspray. He and Sean would go on to collaborate on writing plays for The Pocket Sandwich Theater. Their first effort, the Great Escape from Stalag 18, hit the stage in 2006. Together, they’ve written a total of 8 plays for the Pocket, including the Legend of Deadeye Mary (which was nominated for several Column Awards in 2019, including the Steve Lovett Award for Outstanding New Work by a Local Playwright). When he’s not writing plays, Chris enjoys drinking bourbon and patiently explaining to people on the internet why they’re wrong. | ||
Minadora Macheret is the Herbert Postdoctoral Fellow at the University Tennessee, Knoxville and received her Ph.D. from the University of North Texas. She received the James Merrill Poetry Fellowship from Vermont Studio Center. Her work has appeared in Brevity, Salamander, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She is the author of Love Me, Anyway (Porkbelly Press, 2018). | ||
Lucas and Bethany Tucker are the co-owners of Scribal Work Shop, a company focusing on recreation of historic products and materials using historic methods and and leveraging some modern methods to produce historic products. Lucas has taught workshops with Texas A&M, the Folger Shakespeare library, the Museum of the Bible, and has his degree and career outside of the business in chemistry with a special interest in historic chemistry and alchemy. Bethany has her M.A. in English literature and particular interest and specialty in historic fiber arts tools and techniques |