1: Colleen East

Colleen East is a speculative writer and an artist known for her vibrant use of expressive color and evocative imagery. Raised in the Appalachians, she spent many years living in the Shenandoah Valley before traveling the U.S. out of the back of a truck. She backpacked abroad in Australia and New Zealand, then bounced around between Hawaii, Michigan, and Ohio before finally landing in Portland, Oregon, where she now resides. She’s Chair of the Hillsboro Chapter of the Willamette Writers, reads tarot, and teaches yoga.

2: Andrew Fuller

Andrew S. Fuller writes dark and strange stories. His fiction appears in magazines, anthologies, a few short films, and the collection Constellations of Ruin (2023, Trepidatio Publishing). Since 1999, he’s served as editor of Three-Lobed Burning Eye magazine. He resides in the Pacific Northwest near the confluence of two rivers and a conclave of several extinct(?) volcanoes, and remains friends with crows and spiders.

3: H. A. Spector

H. A. Spector resides in the suburbs of beautiful Portland, Oregon where he serves as the Chair of the Horror Writers Association, Oregon Chapter. He holds a Masters of Fine Arts degree in Commercial Fiction from Southern New Hampshire University. You can find his work published in Dark Harbor Magazine. His advice for his fellow writers would be to do anything they need to in order to find a writing community, even if it means starting one themselves, and to invest in their local bookstores and libraries to ensure readership for all continues to exist for generations to come.

4: Niyyah Ruscher-Haqq

Niyyah writes children and adult speculative fiction, fantasy and horror, with an emphasis on Muslim American and multicultural characters. You can find her short stories in Demagogue Press, Believe in Wonder Publishing, and upcoming by Hayaat House, Bel Esprit, and Weird Fiction Quarterly. By day, she’s a healthcare provider and can get really nerdy with you about infectious disease, emergency medicine and toxicology. Prior to her healthcare career she taught ESL in South Korea, Cambodia, and Hungary. She is the medical coordinator for the PCRF Portland chapter, the Portland SCBWI Coffee Coordinator, and Co-Chair for Young Willamette Writers. She is a member of SCBWI and HWA. Check out her seasonal handcrafted items at Niyyah Handcrafted!

5: Zachariah O

Zachariah is a writer from the Pacific Northwest who enjoys telling stories with his friends, and thinking about how things work. When not trading his time for money, he can be found at various cafes around town. Proud member of the National Writers Union.

6: Richard Leis

Richard Leis writes literary, horror, and speculative poems and stories that have been published in The Deadlands, F&SF, Nightmare, Impossible Archetype, the Timberline Review, and other publications, including anthologies from Crone Girls Press, House of Zolo, Weird Fiction Quarterly, and Wising Up Press. He works on an active Mars mission.

7: Erik Grove

Erik Grove is a writer, writing teacher, editor, and dog wrangler living and doing things in Portland, OR. You can find his short fiction in places like Nightmare Magazine, Escape Pod, numerous anthologies, and carved into the bark of gnarled trees in the haunted woods behind your house. You can find links to stories, information on appearances, and more sundry shenanigans at his website.