J. L. Royce (@authorJLRoyce) is an author of science fiction and macabre stories who strays (when left unattended) into noir, horror, and non-genre fiction. He resides in the United States upper Midwest, where he listens for inspiration from the coyotes and owls. Follow him on Twitter (@authorJLRoyce) or Facebook.

Tim Mendees is a rather odd chap. He's a horror writer from Macclesfield in the North-West of England that specialises in cosmic horror and weird fiction. A lifelong fan of classic weird tales, Tim set out to bring the pulp horror of yesteryear into the 21st Century and give it a distinctly British flavour. His work has been described as the love-child of H.P. Lovecraft and P.G. Wodehouse and is often peppered with a wry sense of humour that acts as a counterpoint to the unnerving, and often disturbing, narratives.

Tim is the author of over one hundred published short stories and novelettes, seven novellas, and two short story collections. He has also curated and edited several cosmic horror-themed anthologies.

When he is not arguing with the spellchecker, Tim is a goth DJ with a weekly radio show on The Feelgood Station, and the co-presenter of the Innsmouth Book Club Podcast & Strange Shadows: The Clark Ashton Smith Podcast. He currently lives in Brighton & Hove with his pet crab, Gerald, and an ever-increasing army of stuffed octopods.

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‘Chris Durston refuses to be dull … He doesn’t see the point of writing a story if he can’t take full advantage of the medium and do things within that medium that can’t be done in any other.’

From Devon, in the South West of England, Chris Durston has always wanted to be a writer and only just got around to doing anything about it. Each Little Universe is his debut novel, initially conceived while studying English literature and philosophy at Cardiff University and finally published five years later.

He is now working on too many projects and hopes to have some of them finished before too long; in the meantime, shorter pieces can be found in a range of anthologies and collections. He's also somehow become a founding member of Skullgate Media, an independent writers' collective cum indie publisher.

Community leader. Particle physicist. International Assassin. Mark J. Schultis is none of these. He wrote his first story in elementary school and has spent a lifetime keeping that childhood passion of storytelling alive, studying theatre and filmmaking before eventually earning his writing degree from the University of Pittsburgh. A perpetual night owl and pizza connoisseur, Mark was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where he lives with his family.

B.K. Bass is the author of over a dozen works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror inspired by the pulp fiction magazines of the early 20th century and classic speculative fiction. He is also a freelance editor with experience both as a publisher and editor-in-chief of a literary journal. When B.K. isn’t dreaming up new worlds to explore, he spends his time as a lifelong student of history, bookworm, and film buff.

Born in the usual way, I started roleplaying Dungeons and Dragons at the age of 8. I stopped playing it for awhile but soon plunged back into this world of fantasy and magic once more. I discovered a world of imagination and loved the myriad of possibilities that it offered. For years I designed worlds and cities, even races, and just as quickly I brought them tumbling down in ruin. I could create pantheons of Gods, and heroes to battle against their evil plots. I also started reading avidly, thanks to a teacher in high school, and this opened up more worlds for me to peruse and dissect for my own purposes. For the last 30+ years I have been coming up with whole functioning societies......but what was next?

Well I was already writing short bio's for characters in our game, and elaborate back stories for interesting people that we would interact with, so how was that very different than writing a book? So in 2011 I started putting my brain to use on developing a new world, except this time I would have to fill in everything. Lythinall was born. I published The Darkness Returns (A Lythinall Novel) Book 1 in June 2017, and The Darkness Within (A Lythinall Novel) Book 2 in 2018. Then it happened. A publisher read my story and wanted me. In 2018 I was signed by Kyanite Publishing! i put out a lot of short stories with them but sadly they closed their doors in 2019...but Skullgate Media wanted to sign me! My complete trilogy is now out as well as an anthology of tales all based in Lythinall. Other than all of this I still play the game that started it all, and I still design places, people and items when I'm not hanging out with my family or working my ass off at my day job

Bringing characters to life one story at a time. C.D. Storiz has short stories/novelettes included in Achten Tan: Land of Dust & Bone and Under New Suns both published through Skullgate Media. Her novelette, Relevant, was published with Kyanite, and two of her short stories (contest winners) are published through Gestalt Media. You can follow C.D. on Twitter: @LeChatGris3, Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20342246.C_D_Storiz or on her website: www.cdstoriz.com where you can find samples of her writing and read her latest blog.

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Zach Friday lives in North Texas where he works as a freelance writer. In his spare time, he likes writing fiction and woodworking. Although he tries to write a little bit of everything, he usually ends up writing horror. The easiest way to see what he's been up to is to visit @ZachAFriday on Twitter.

Chris Vandyke is the founder and president of Skullgate Media, an indie-publishing collective dedicated to changing the way writers work together. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of Tales from the Year Between, a weird-fiction anthology and Skullgate's flagship publication.

He was born in 1979 and spent the first 16 years of his life in the small coastal town of Gold Beach, Oregon. Since 2002 has been a High School English Teacher in the New York City Public School System, which is, needless to say, somewhat different than his hometown. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, two children, and a menagerie of animals. They are currently one goat shy of a petting zoo.

Currently, he has two novellas available in his Post Cards from NeoTokyo series, cyberpunk noir adventures following the adventures of a private eye in a robot-ruled dystopian future. He is currently querying "Love Songs for the Robot Apocalypse," a YA Sci-Fi romance involving time-travel, 90's alt-rock mixed tapes, and teenage lesbians falling in love, as well as "Dragon's Curse," the first installment in an epic fantasy trilogy. He has also finished a number installments in his "Farhome Elf Chronicles," a ten-part Middle-Grade series aimed at reluctant readers. He has also published a translation of the medieval viking saga, "The Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok," under the name Christopher Van Dyke

You can learn more about him at CVandyke.com.

You can learn more about The Tales From the Year Between at www.YearBetween.com

He tweets as @aboutrunning.

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