Guests of Honor
Jewelle Gomez
Jewelle Gomez is the author of several books including the double Lambda Literary Award winning vampire novel, The Gilda Stories. She is the recipient of a literature fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, two California Arts Council fellowships and an Individual Artist Commission from the San Francisco Arts Commission. She has also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the HWA. Her fiction, essays, criticism and poetry have appeared in numerous periodicals such as The San Francisco Chronicle and The New York Times.
Alma Katsu
Alma Katsu is the author of The Hunger, The Fervor, Red Widow and others. Her books have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal, been featured in the NY Times and Washington Post, been nominated and won multiple prestigious awards, and appeared on numerous Best Books lists including NPR, the Observer, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Goodreads, and Amazon.
Owl Goingback
Owl Goingback is a three-time Bram Stoker Award Winner, receiving the award for lifetime achievement, best novel, and best first novel. He is also a Nebula Award Nominee, and a Storytelling World Awards Honor Recipient. His books include Coyote Rage, Tribal Screams, Crota, Darker Than Night, Evil Whispers, Breed, Shaman Moon, Coyote Rage, Eagle Feathers, and The Gift.
Cynthia Pelayo
Cynthia “Cina” Pelayo is an International Latino Book Award winning and three-time Bram Stoker Awards® nominated poet and author.
She is the author of LOTERIA, SANTA MUERTE, THE MISSING, and POEMS OF MY NIGHT, all of which have been nominated for International Latino Book Awards. POEMS OF MY NIGHT was also nominated for an Elgin Award. Her recent collection of poetry, INTO THE FOREST AND ALL THE WAY THROUGH explores true crime, that of the epidemic of missing and murdered women in the United States, and was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award and Elgin Award.
Her modern day horror retelling of the Pied Piper fairy tale, CHILDREN OF CHICAGO was released by Agora / Polis Books, and won an International Latino Book Award for Best Mystery (2021).
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Columbia College, a Master of Science in Marketing from Roosevelt University, a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and is a Doctoral Candidate in Business Psychology at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Cina was raised in inner city Chicago, where she still lives. Find her online at www.cinapelayo.com and on Twitter @cinapelayo. She is represented by Lane Heymont at Tobias Literary.
Wrath James White
Wrath James White is a former World Class Heavyweight Kickboxer, a professional Kickboxing and Mixed Martial Arts trainer, distance runner, performance artist, and former street brawler, who is now known for creating some of the most disturbing works of fiction in print.
Wrath is the author of such extreme horror classics as THE RESURRECTIONIST (now a major motion picture titled "Come Back To Me") SUCCULENT PREY, and its sequel PREY DRIVE, YACCUB'S CURSE, 400 DAYS OF OPPRESSION, SACRIFICE, VORACIOUS, TO THE DEATH, THE REAPER, SKINZZ, EVERYONE DIES FAMOUS IN A SMALL TOWN, THE BOOK OF A THOUSAND SINS, HIS PAIN, POPULATION ZERO and many others. He is the co-author of TERATOLOGIST co-written with the king of extreme horror, Edward Lee, SOMETHING TERRIBLE co-written with his son Sultan Z. White, ORGY OF SOULS co-written with Maurice Broaddus, HERO and THE KILLINGS both co-written with J.F. Gonzalez, POISONING EROS co-written with Monica J. O'Rourke, among others.
Daniel Kraus
Daniel Kraus is the New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen novels and graphic novels. He coauthored The Living Dead with legendary filmmaker George A. Romero. With Guillermo del Toro, he coauthored The Shape of Water, based on the same idea the two created for the Oscar–winning film. Also with del Toro, Kraus coauthored Trollhunters, which was adapted into the Emmy–winning Netflix series.
He has won two Odyssey Awards (for Rotters and Scowler), and The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch was named one of Entertainment Weekly’s Top 10 Books of the Year. His books have been Library Guild selections, YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults picks, Bram Stoker finalists, and more. His work has been translated into over twenty-five languages. Daniel lives with his wife in Chicago. Visit
him at DanielKraus.com.