On the evening of October 19, 2023, at the Monongahela Area Library in Monongahela, PA, I will be joining these heavy-hitting talents for an evening of live readings:
• Gwendolyn Kiste is the three-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens, Reluctant Immortals, And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe, Pretty Marys All in a Row, The Invention of Ghosts, and Boneset & Feathers. Her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in outlets including Lit Hub, Nightmare, Tor Nightfire, Titan Books, Vastarien, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, and The Dark among others. She's a Lambda Literary Award winner, and her fiction has also received the This Is Horror award for Novel of the Year as well as nominations for the Premios Kelvin and Ignotus awards.
Originally from Ohio, she now resides on an abandoned horse farm outside of Pittsburgh with her husband, their calico cat, and not nearly enough ghosts. You can also find her online at Facebook and Instagram.
• Michael A. Arnzen is a four-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author and winner of International Horror Guild Award. He has authored Play Dead, Grave Markings, Proverbs for Monsters, the Gorelets Omnibus: Collected Poems 2001-2011, and many more. He is a Professor of English in the Writing Popular Fiction MFA program at Seton Hill University. He can be found at Gorelets.com
• Sara Tantlinger is the author of the Bram Stoker Award-winning The Devil’s Dreamland: Poetry Inspired by H.H. Holmes, and the Stoker-nominated works To Be Devoured and Cradleland of Parasites. She is an active HWA member and participates in the HWA Pittsburgh Chapter. She embraces all things macabre and can be found lurking in graveyards or at saratantlinger.com
• Michelle Renee Lane is a dark speculative fiction writer born and raised in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania. She spent her youth obsessing over the occult, consuming vampire fiction, climbing into strangers’ cars, exploring abandoned buildings, reading Tarot cards, dropping acid, befriending skaters and skinheads, and consulting the dead with a Ouija board. Michelle writes cautionary tales about the perils of falling in love with monsters. She holds an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. Her short fiction appears in several anthologies, and her Bram Stoker Award nominated debut novel, Invisible Chains (2019), is available from Haverhill House Publishing.
• Bram Stoker Award nominated author and editor Douglas Gwilym has been known to compose a weird-fiction rock opera or two. His short story "Year Six" is on Ellen Datlow's recommended reading list for Best Horror #14. He co-edits The Midnight Zone—forthcoming edition, Novus Monstrum, a collection of never-before-seen monsters, featuring greats of strange, dark fiction. He reads classics of the proto-Weird on YouTube and has been guest staff at Alpha Young Writers workshop. His short fiction appears in LampLight, Lucent Dreaming, Dark Horses, Shelter of Daylight, Tales from the Moonlit Path, Penumbric, Creepy podcast, and Tales to Terrify.
• Nelson W. Pyles is an author, musician, podcast creator and voice actor living in Pittsburgh. He has written two novels and is currently working on his third. His second collection of short stories, essays and articles All These Steps Lead Down will be released on Halloween of this year from Cold War Radio Press. He is a member of the HWA. You can find Nelson at https://whatnelsonwrites.com/
• Ronald J. Murray is an Elgin Award-nominated and Bram Stoker Award-shortlisted author of Cries to Kill the Corpse Flower and Lost Letters to a Lover’s Carcass. His short fiction and poetry has appeared on The Wicked Library Podcast, in Space & Time Magazine, Lustcraftian Horror: Erotic Stories Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, and more. He curated and co-edited Verse Infernal: Poetry Inspired by the Satanic Religion, and poetry from Lost Letters to a Lover’s Carcass appeared on Ellen Datlow’s recommended reading list for Best Horror #14. He can be found at RonaldJMurray.com
• Michael McGovern received a BFA in Theatre from Point Park College and an MFA in Playwriting from Carnegie-Mellon University. His plays have been performed in Pittsburgh and NYC. Blood Ending is his first novel.
The show begins at 8:00 PM EST, with entry being an encouraged donation of $8, and The Hooded Figures will be providing a live dark ambient set to set the mood during the festivities.
All updates will be posted here.