Jude Wright writes horror, dark fantasy, and magical realism. He is currently making the transition from Boston to Elsewhere, along with his wife and cat. He holds a Master's degree in literature from Boston College and is scheduled to begin his Ph.D at an undisclosed university in the fall of 2008.

“Cask” marks his professional writing debut.

Jan Vander Laenen lives in Brussels, Belgium, where he works as an art historian and translator (Dutch, French and Italian). He is also the author of eight collections of short stories, plays, and screenplays which have attracted keen interest abroad. A romantic comedy, Oscar Divo, and a thriller, The Card Game, are presently in the hands of a competent producer in Hollywood, while his short fiction collections The Butler and Poète maudit are eliciting the requisite accolades in Italy. He credits Karen Blixen and Edgar Allan Poe as his literary influences.

“Epistle of the Sleeping Beauty” makes its English-language debut in the Unspeakable Horror anthology, having appeared in Dutch under the title “De schone slaper” and in French as “Le bel au bois dormant.”

Lee Thomas is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Stained, Parish Damned, and Damage. His most recent novel, The Dust of Wonderland (Alyson), won the prestigious Lambda Literary Award in the Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror category. In addition to numerous magazines, his short fiction has appeared in the anthologies A Walk on the Darkside, The Book of Final Flesh, and Inferno, among others.

Writing as Thomas Pendleton, he is the co-author (with Stefan Petrucha) of Wicked Dead (HarperTeen), a series of edgy horror novels for the young adult market. His novels, Mason, Blood Runs Cold, and Demon Unleashed are also forthcoming from HarperCollins.

Lee currently lives in Austin, Texas, where he’s working on a number of projects, including the novels Ash Street, The German, and an urban fantasy trilogy titled, Exiled (HarperTeen).

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Michelle Scalise's fiction has appeared in such anthologies as The Darker Side, Dark Arts, Best Women’s Erotica, Best Bisexual Women’s Erotica, The Big Book of Erotic Ghost Stories, Wicked Words, Dead Cat’s Traveling Circus and such magazines as Cemetery Dance, Dark Discoveries and Crimewave. Intervals of Horrible Sanity, her first collection, was published in 2003 from Medium Rare Books.

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Rick R. Reed is the author of eight published novels, which have been variously categorized as mysteries, thrillers, horror, and/or suspense. These include Obsessed, Penance, A Face Without a Heart, IM, In the Blood, Deadly Vision, High Risk, and Orientation. He is also the author of a short story collection, Twisted: Tales of Obsession and Terror and his short fiction has appeared in more than twenty anthologies.

Upcoming titles include Dead End Street, a young adult horror novel; and Dignity Takes a Holiday, a novel of twisted humor that reveals, once and for all, that Rick R. Reed belongs in a mental institution. He lives in Miami with his partner, who endures incessant complaining about the humidity and the traffic.

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Kevin W. Reardon’s work has appeared in The James White Review, Lambda Book Report and in the anthologies ParaSpheres and Fresh Men: New Voices in Gay Fiction. His short story “Teamwork” was the 2003 winner of the Richard Hall Memorial Short Story Contest, sponsored by the Lambda Literary Foundation.

He is a graduate of Brandeis University and the Sarah Lawrence College M.F.A. program in writing.

Scott Nicholson is the author of seven novels, including The Skull Ring, They Hunger, and The Farm. He’s also written five screenplays, 60 short stories, and dozens of articles.

A Taoist living in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, he works as a journalist and freelance editor and his hobbies include organic gardening, swimming, and guitar playing.

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Lisa Morton is a screenwriter and the author of three nonfiction books, including 2008’s A Hallowe’en Anthology. As a fiction writer, her work has appeared in more than two dozen books and magazines, including Dark Delicacies, Mondo Zombie, Midnight Premiere, The Museum of Horrors, and Cemetery Dance.

She is the winner of the 2006 Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction, and lives in North Hollywood, California.

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Dark Scribe Press is pleased to announce the inclusion of "The Shallows," an original work of short fiction by Gary McMahon, in the Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet anthology.

Gary McMahon lives, works, and writes in West Yorkshire, England, where he shares a home with an understanding wife and their weird and wonderful boy-child. McMahon’s fiction has appeared in venues in both the UK and US, and he has had a story selected for reprint in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror #21.

Other books include the British Fantasy Award-nominated novella Rough Cut , another novella titled All Your Gods Are Dead , and the short fiction collection Dirty Prayers . A novel, Rain Dogs , is due out from UK publisher Humdrumming in mid-2008. Also forthcoming, from Screaming Dreams, is a double-novella collection called Different Skins . In 2009, Pendragon Press will publish To Usher, the Dead .

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Joy Marchand holds a B.A. in Classical Studies from the University of the Pacific. In the summer of 2004, she packed her bags and moved across the country to Salem, Massachusetts, where she lives happily in the bittersweet echoes of history. Joy's poems and short stories have been featured in Bare Bone, the Elastic Book of Numbers, Modern Magic, Time for Bedlam, Polyphony 5, and Interfictions. Look for more short stories in Talebones, Apex Digest, and Interzone.

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