Girl at the End of the World

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Adam “Bucho” Rodenberger is a 34 year old writer from Kansas City living in San Francisco. He holds dual Bachelor’s degrees in Philosophy & Creative Writing and completed his MFA in Writing at the University of San Francisco in 2011.
He has been (or will be) published in Alors, Et Tois?, Agua Magazine, Offbeatpulp, Up The Staircase, The Gloom Cupboard, BrainBox Magazine, Cause & Effect Magazine, the Santa Clara Review, Crack the Spine, Penduline Press, Bluestem Magazine, Aphelion, Glint Literary Journal, Lunch Ticket, Eunoia Review, Serving House Journal, and Phoebe.
He blogs at http://triphoprisy.blogspot.com.

Adrian Tchaikovsky was born in Lincolnshire and studied zoology and psychology at Reading, before practising law in Leeds. He is a keen live role-player and occasional amateur actor and is trained in stage-fighting. His literary influences include Gene Wolfe, Mervyn Peake, China Miéville, Mary Gentle, Steven Erikson, Naomi Novak, Scott Lynch and Alan Campbell. ‘War Master’s Gate’, the 9th book in the Shadows of the Apt series, is out now.

Alec McQuay writes from a bungalow in west Cornwall, in the shadows of ruined engine houses, surrounded by abandoned mining works. A martial artist, body builder and walking singularity for cups of tea, you might think his love of post- apocalyptic worlds comes from the environment he works in. You’d be wrong. He used to work in Croydon…

According to her late grandmother, C. Allegra Hawksmoor is related to Edward the Black Prince of Wales. She isn’t sure if this is true, as she’s yet to manifest the desire to invade France, however she is very fond of Wales, and has lived there since discovering its existence at an impressionable age. Allegra writes science fiction and fantasy, serves as fiction editor at SteamPunk Magazine and Vagrants Among Ruins, and maintains a blog at www.hawksmoorsbazaar.net

Alexander Danner has contributed science fiction stories to Machine of Death and Bound Off. He also writes comics, which can be found at TwentySevenLetters.com and TwoForNo.net. Alexander teaches online courses in writing comics at Emerson College, and his second textbook, Comics: A Global History, 1968— Present (with Dan Mazur) is forthcoming from Thames & Hudson. He is also president of The Writers’ Room of Boston, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing safe, affordable workspace to writers in the greater Boston area.

Alex Helm has always had an interest in the fantastical, the futuristic and the bizarre and has frequently been accused of having her head in the clouds. A keen live action roleplayer, historical re-enactor and cosplayer, Alex likes nothing more than spending a weekend dressed up in heavy armour and running around outdoors taking part in battles and pretending to be someone far more interesting (and with more interesting problems). She currently lives in Paris, France with her two feline overlords, and works for a video game company.

Andrew Reid is a writer obsessed with the fantastic and the adventurous. When the end comes, he will be bitterly disappointed that he never invested in a walled commune while the going was good. Born in Scotland, he lives in Yorkshire, far closer to cities than apocalypse safety regulations would advise. You can find him on Twitter as @mygoditsraining, where he shares tips on purifying water and recipes for the modern-day scavenger.

Anne Michaud lives on the south shore of Montreal with a head filled with dystopian worlds and an attic full of ghosts. Her  short story collection Girls & Monsters is now available, and keep an eye out for upcoming short stories published in  anthologies. http://annecmichaud.wordpress.com

The Ancient Wise Ones told of a woman who would chronicle the end of the old time and the beginning of the new one in the life domes and robot-monitored underground bunkers. Carol Borden is that woman. Living in the heart of apocalypse, she dons her enemies’ skins, still dripping with gore, and takes up her brush to paint upon the walls of a crumbling parking structure a sorrowful story based on true enough events, “Sophie and the Gate to Hell.” You may read some of her other stories in Fox Spirit Books’ Weird Noir and Noir Carnival, her articles on comics and Godzilla in The Cultural Gutter, and see her other doings at her personal website: www.monstrousindustry.wordpress.com/

Bruce Lee Bond has traveled since a teen, and hitchhiked around the west coast of North America at seventeen.  He left San Francisco State College at twenty-two, where he was the only undergrad in the graduate writing department, to journey to South Dakota as the student of an Oglala Lakota (Sioux) medicine man. After studying the rituals of the Native American (peyote) Church, he fled with the medicine man’s abused girlfriend, ranged from the Canadian Rockies to Mexico, attended the University of Oregon’s journalism department, and has lived in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest since.

He’s a founder of the Alaska Writers Guild, worked with the American Indian Movement during the armed occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, has fished, logged, built log cabins in the wilderness of the northwest and Alaska, and has rescued a dozen sex slaves in Alaska since the times of the pipeline boom while operating and owning cabs.  He has known corrupt cops and politicians, upright madams and honourable criminals, spent a dark winter under a pall of volcanic ash keeping fifteen starving moose alive while living in a log home he built in the Alaskan wilderness, and has looked down the muzzle blast of a pistol at eighteen.  He loves the haunted old towns of the American West, from the Barbary Coast to the dirt streets of Dawson City, Yukon Territory, and often finds the ghosts he encounters better company than newcomers. With proper coaxing they occasionally speak to him.

Cat Connor lives in Upper Hutt, New Zealand. She is the author of The_byte series published by Rebel ePublishers, USA. An FBI thriller series about the life of SSA Ellie Conway. Her short stories have appeared in anthologies, ezines, and journals in the UK and USA.
A coffee addict and a lover of red wine. Recently described as irresistible, infectious, and addictive. Cat believes music is essential. She knows where to hide the body and where you hid the body and more importantly where the stocks of anti-virals, antibiotics, and weapons are kept. There will be survivors.

Catherine Hill grew up in Worcestershire, England. She spent much of her childhood with her head in a book and played games in which her toys escaped from a variety of unexpected catastrophes. She now lives in Birmingham with her husband. While blogging with the Girls Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse collective she discovered that she has a lot of ideas about how to end the world. She may have published a post on the internet about how AIs can successfully wipe out the human race. She is certainly not responsible for our inevitable doom.

Cheryl Morgan has been accused of “destroying fandom” so often that she decided she should have a go at destroying the universe instead. She knows exactly which girl is tough enough to still be there at the end.
When not indulging in apocalyptic violence, Cheryl runs a small press and an ebook store, writes about books, and talks about books on Bristol local radio. You can follow her on Twitter at @CherylMorgan, or find out more at her website, Cheryl’s Mewsings ( http://www.cheryl-morgan.com/).

Leaving the rotting carcass of her alien pod far behind her, Chloë Yates defied her xenomorphic Queen and took to the open road, refusing to be held down by “the man”. Mixing metaphors and confusing pop culture, she has trailed a blaze of defiance in the post-apocalyptic landscape of both Slough and Grenoble (neither of which she’s been to). Catch her in Chalmun’s Cantina at weekends, where she plays her harp made from the skin of mutant managerial staff – but don’t accept a drink from her; she was once a pupil of the renowned Catherine Deshayes. She writes accounts of her prophetic dreams and expects another Apocalypse tout de suite… She’s available for most things of a writerly persuasion. Bring your own gloves.

Christian D’Amico is a science fiction, horror and genre fiction writer based in Surrey, England. Any similarities between his county and any dystopian futures are entirely coincidental. When he isn’t writing he spends his time involved with street dance, reading, gaming and in the gym, both as a fitness enthusiast in his own right and as a personal trainer.
Recently Christian has agreed on an on-going series of short stories and novels with his publisher, Fox Spirit, encompassing a world 9 years in the making. The series is titled “The Unity Wars”, of which more detail can be found on the published works page. www.chrisdamico.co.uk

Colin Sinclair has spent what seems like forever writing things and stuff. Some of it has even seen the light of day. Recently Colin provided settings, background material and short fiction for Broken Rooms, an alternate-worlds tabletop roleplaying game that features thirteen flavours of apocalypse. One of his ever-so-short stories is in the Fox Pockets “Guardians” anthology. His favourite word remains indolent. He still wonders if his bio should have jokes. http://www.brokenrooms.com/

Dash Cooray is a juvenile copywriter who secretly creates fantastic worlds in a filthy upstairs den in her parents’ farm in the chill and mist flavoured mountains of Kandy, Sri Lanka. She was born with an uncanny obsession for stories as all writers are and when she is not writing, she is engrossed in her other obsession – music. She tweets obsessively about her obsessions at the handle @dashdidntdoit and blogs sporadically at dashcooray.wordpress.comDemon Runner, combining fantasy with uniquely Sri Lankan history; is her first published short story. http://twitter.com/dashdidntdoit  http://dashcooray.wordpress.com

Dayna Ingram writes about girls who inhabit various worlds.. This one time, during the apocalypse, she fought alongside Michelle Rodriguez to quell the zombie scourge, and then wrote a memoir about it. Unfortunately, both her publisher and her therapist deemed this event “just a dream,” so she was forced to publish her account as fiction (EAT YOUR HEART OUT [BrazenHead/Lethe Press]). She’s currently working on expanding “Little Daughter” into a full-length novel. When not making up stories, Dayna enjoys making her mini-pig wear dapper sweater-vests, making her coworkers listen to her tales of epic failure at getting her pig to wear sweater-vests, and making out with pirates. Some day, she hopes to have Joss Whedon’s babies, but, like, not in a gross way. Visit her at thedingram.com.

David Turnbull is the author of a children’s fantasy novel featuring dragon hunters and airships – ‘The Tale of Euan Redcap’. His short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, both online and in print. His most recent anthologies include Dandelions of Mars, a Whortleberry Press tribute to Ray Bradbury, Astologica (The Alchemy Press) and A Chimerical World Vol 11- Tales of the Unseelie Court (Seventh Star Press). He is member of Clockhouse London Writers http://clockhouselondonwriters.wordpress.com/

Dylan Fox is mostly bacteria, water and ego. They writes short speculative fiction that’s been published through The Future Fire, Encounters Magazine, Steampunk Magazine, Twenty or Less Press and a few other places. They dabble with Taoism, drawing, clothes and costume making, jogging and mental health. When the end of the world comes, they looks forwards to being one of the panicked masses heroically killed by the protagonist. While the survivors cling doggedly to the old world and fight it’s inevitable collapse, Dylan will become the air and grass and animals of the new one. In the meantime, they occasionally blogs at www.dylanfox.net and posts before thinking on Facebook.

Eric Scott is the author of several articles in the field of psychology. He is a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health located in Baltimore, MD. He is currently a member of the faculty in the Department of Mental Health and his research involves improving school achievement, and reducing attention/concentration problems and aggressive and shy behaviors, by enhancing family-school communication and parenting practices associated with learning and behavior. His story, Contrition, appears in the Horrors of Historyanthology. You can find more of his writing at https://www.facebook.com/EricScottWrites.

Geraldine Clark Hellery thinks a lot about the end of the world: while Buffy & the Scoobies saved the world (a lot), does she have enough Apocalypse Girl training to survive? Geraldine has written about running in heels from zombies, killer fae, murderous grad students, rampaging dragons and things that go bump in the night which has hopefully given her a rounded view of survival (or rather, how to die in blood-curdling ways). A country girl at heart, Geraldine’s collection of short stories and poems, set in the ‘Weird Wild’ woods will be published by Fox Spirit Books in 2014. She lives with her ever present evac bag by her side along with an aged computer, a manic puppy and a very patient husband.

G.R. Delamere hopes someday she’ll have a real writing routine. When not working as a doctor she may be found with her kids at fairy makeovers or in dragon multiverses. She is completing an MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London and working on a novel for young adults. In spare moments she dreams of her next project: an epic steampunk alternative history set in colonial India.  Mechanized elephants will surely feature.

I’m afraid James Bennett did not survive the apocalypse. His clone did, however, and is writing this now. If anyone is out there, in the dead and derelict cities, in the black and barren hills, you might want to take a break from killing zombies for a minute and read one of his stories. http://jamesbennett72.blogspot.co.uk/ Twitter: @I_James_Bennett

James Dorr’s newest collection is The Tears of Isis, released by Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing in May 2013. This joins his two prose collections from Dark Regions Press, Strange Mistresses: Tales of Wonder and Romance and Darker Loves: Tales of Mystery and Regret, and the all-poetry Vamps (A Retrospective) from Sam’s Dot/White Cat. An active member of SFWA and HWA with nearly four hundred individual appearances from Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine to Xenophilia, Dorr invites readers to visit his site at http://jamesdorrwriter.wordpress.com.

James Oswald is the author of a series of crime novels featuring Edinburgh-based Detective Inspector Tony McLean, the first of which, Natural Causes, was the pick of the 2013 Richard and Judy Book Club Summer Reads.  He was also short-listed for the National Book Awards New Author Award in 2013. His epic fantasy series, The Ballad of Sir Benfro, will be published by Penguin, starting in late 2014 with Dreamwalker.
When not tied to his writing desk, James runs a 350 acre livestock farm in North East Fife, where he raises pedigree Highland Cattle and New Zealand Romney Sheep. You can find him at jamesoswald.co.uk or as @SirBenfro on Twitter.

J.M. Perkins writes Science Fiction, Action Horror, and whatever else will pay the bills.  He spent the first 14 years of his life preparing to flee to the wilds of Canada to escape the forces of the Antichrist. Since then, he’s graduated UCSD, worked at a candy factory, and performed a variety of unsanctioned sociological experiments. He’s had over a dozen of his short stories sold, published, printed and adapted. In 2012 he used a successful Kickstarter Campaign to publish his first novel CHEMO: How I Learned to Kill. He cohosts the podcast ‘John vs Patrick.’ J.M. Perkins lives in San Diego with his roller derby playing photographer wife and his dog. You can find out more at J.M. Perkins’ website www.strugglingwordguy.com

Jonathan Ward is a science-fiction, horror and fantasy writer hailing from the sprawling urban metropolis of Bedford. He has wanted to be an author since the age of eight, though it’s questionable whether his writing talents have improved since then. When not writing he can be found reading a good book, out exploring new places, or in the pub being sarcastic to his closest friends. Jonathan’s Author Central page containing links to all of his published work: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jonathan-Ward/e/B002BLQ8HA/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Justin Brooks lays low in the hungry shadows of Southern California, where something almost as bad as the traffic now owns the streets: Flesh Eating Homeboys! Still, as nothing can ever quench his love for roaming the outdoors, he still risks an occasional run in the open (and what’s more motivating for a sprint than a starving mob behind you?). The art of writing has always fascinated him, and he intends to keep it alive beyond the world’s death. ‘Shirtless in Antarctica’is one of his first short stories, but he aspires to finish many more before radiation sickness or malnutrition finish him.

Cover 1 Book 2
Cover 1 Book 2

 

Kara Lee is a SFF writer who daylights as a biologist. In the event of an apocalyptic showdown, you should totally pick her for your team. Until the power grid goes down, you can find her at http://www.windupdreams.net/.

Dr K. A. Laity is an English professor, specialising in medieval language and literature with a specialisation in apocalypse studies. Her examination of late 20th century artefacts of the Zombie Conflagration has uncovered evidence of a widespread international conspiracy between conservative political parties, but she has been unable to follow up on the suggested connections since her appointment to the lucrative post as Head of Research at the Royal Institute of Filthy Lucre (formerly the London Business School). All posts relating to these discoveries have now been scrubbed from www.kalaity.com

Kim Bannerman lives in a tiny house surrounded by deep dark woods on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, where she writes short stories, novels, and plays. Her stories have appeared in journals like Room of One’s Own and Parabola Magazine, and in anthologies like the ground-breaking Paraspheres (2006), 100 Stories for Queensland (2011) and She’s Shameless (2009). She is the author of four novels: The Tattooed Wolf (2014), Bucket of Blood (2011), The Fire Song (2011), and The Wolf of Gilsbury Cross (2006), and her fifth novel, The Mark of the Magpie, will be released in late 2014.  Together with her husband Shawn Pigott, they runs Fox&Bee Studio, where they have produced over 100 short films. Visit her atwww.kbannerman.com.

Margrét Helgadóttir is a Norwegian-Icelandic writer who started to submit fiction in English for publication in 2012. She lives in Oslo, Norway, and is highly influenced by dark Nordic culture, climate and personality in her writing. Her stories have so far appeared in several magazines and she’s got stories in the 2013/2014 print anthologies Girl at the End of the World, Impossible Spaces, Fox & Fae, and the three first volumes of Fox Pockets. Find out more about Margrét on her site: http://margrethelgadottir.wordpress.com or on Twitter where she’s @MaHelgad

Michael Ezell is a former US Marine and ex-cop who now works in the Makeup FX field in Hollywood.  The first two occupations prepared him to fight in any apocalypse scenario, whether it be alien invaders, thugs in the wasteland, or rabid Mary Kay sales reps.  The third allows him to pull a “Bill Murray” and blend in with our Zombie Overlords.

Michael’s short fiction has also appeared in Stupefying Stories, the anthology “I, Automaton,” and the anthology “Fantasy for Good.”

In his professional life, Mikey Nayak is an aerospace engineer who has worked on the Space Shuttle, two-probe NASA missions to the moon, and as the Flight Director for multiple experimental satellite programs. Currently he is designing a shoebox-sized satellite for Low Earth Orbit proximity operations. Outside work he is a pro skydiver, scuba diver and vertical wind tunnel flyer, holding instructional ratings in all these sports. He also enjoys motorcycle riding, skiing, flying small aircraft and generally anything that could qualify as potentially injurious, but has been known to moonlight as an amateur thespian, stand-up comic and short film maker. He now lives in the San Francisco Bay area, where he is working on his Ph.D in Planetary Science and his first novel.

Nathan Lunt is a performance poet, Spoken Word artist, Slam Champion, and founding member of The Decadent Romantics. Flitting between the page and the stage, Nathan has turned his hand to most forms of poetic expression, and can usually be found surprising at open mic nights, ambushing festival goers, or plotting to conquer the internet from his YouTube channel. When he remembers to Tweet, find him @Nathan_Lunt

N.O.A. Rawle is an insomniac mother of two who manages to juggle family, writing projects, four teaching jobs and  translation work. Inspired by perfection in art and nature, fuelled by passion and enthusiasm, she is addicted to writing and believes life is too precious to be wasted.
A British national located in Greece, her work has been long-listed for The Guardian Travel Writing competition and the AEON Award. ‘Vanquish’ is due to be published in the anthology ‘Girl at the End of the World’ (Fox Spirit) in 2014.  www.noarawle.blogspot.gr

Paul Starkey has always been a little behind the curve (he didn’t learn to drive until he was 37) and so whilst he wanted to be a writer since he was ten, when a teacher picked up on his love of telling stories and suggested maybe he’d be an author someday, unfortunately the necessary discipline and dedication eluded him until he hit thirty. Luckily since then he’s thrown himself into his craft with ever increasing passion, dedication and downright mania. Like a career criminal he started small, writing his own Star Trek fan fiction before graduating to more original works and to date has written 4 novels. The first of these, the vampire/ zombie (or possibly zombie/vampire) post-apocalyptic actioner City of Caves, he published via Lulu. He’s also published a collection of short fiction, The Devils of Amber Street, via Amazon. He’s had multiple short stories published in myriad publications, including the British Fantasy Society Journal, and blogs at http://werewolvesonthemoon.wordpress.com/

R. B. Harkess scuttles around the abandoned wasteland north of London, avoiding the search and detain sweeps of the Angel militia as he scribbles the warning notes and hides them in the info-caches that are the only way to share information between the Free as they claw out an existence in the Dark Times. All his notes are signed www.rbharkess.com, though nobody can remember what it means.

Ruth E.J. Booth lives in the shadow of sandstone, on the edge of a valley of trees. There she runs, writes about metal for magazines, sings of the dead in Cathedrals, photographs music makers and drunks for their own purposes – and writes tales, such as this one. Her ancestors were sheep thieves and sailors. Her descendants will sing under orange skies. Follow her at @ruthmidget on twitter, until she has a website in order.

Academic, creative director, writer and Final Girl, Tracy Fahey has battled the apocalypse on many fronts, using her wits, pluck and an inordinate amount of information gleaned from horror movies. Her short story in this collection, Coming Back, is dedicated to fellow foot- soldiers from the front line, Tara and Scott, with thanks. Tracy runs a fine art department and an art collective, Gothicise (www.gothicise.weebly.com). Previous short stories have been published in the Impossible Spaces anthology(2013) and in the forthcoming Hauntings anthology (2014), both published by Hic Dragones Press. Her research and creative writing alike are continually fascinated by aspects of the unheimlich, from doppelgangers to haunted houses to the inevitable return of the repressed. In her spare time she relaxes by writing a PhD.

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