Jay Butkowski is a writer of fiction, an eater of tacos, and an amateur pizzaiolo living and working in New Jersey. He founded and is managing editor for Rock and a Hard Place Press, an independent publisher of crime and dark fiction. His own writing has appeared in Shotgun Honey, Vautrin, Dark Yonder, Yellow Mama and Tough among other venues for noir and crime fiction. Outside of writing, he's a father of twin teenagers, a doting husband, and a middling pancake chef. You can follow along with his publishing misadventures at rockandahardplacemag.com.

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Bryan Gruley is a novelist and journalist whose story Penitents is his first work of short fiction in 45 years. His sixth novel, Bitterfrost, will be published by Severn House in April 2025, followed by a sequel in 2026. He has been nominated for an Edgar Award  and shared in The Wall Street Journal's Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He lives with his wife, Pam, in northern Michigan, where he plays a lot of hockey and golf. You can follow him on social media at bryangruley.com or on all the usual platforms, usually as @bryangruley.

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Marco Etheridge is a writer of prose, an occasional playwright, and a part-time poet. He lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. His work has been featured in over 100 reviews and journals across Canada, Australia, the UK, and the U.S. His story Power Tools has been nominated for Best of the Web for 2023 and is also the name of his latest collection of short fiction. When he isn’t crafting stories, Marco is a contributing editor for a new ezine called Hotch Potch. In his other life, Marco travels the world with his lovely wife Sabine. Learn more about the author at marcoetheridgefiction.com.

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Hope Howell Hodgkins grew up in small-town Missouri, earned her PhD from the University of Chicago, and taught for many years at UNC-Greensboro. She has published essays on high-modern poetics, religious rhetorics, dress styles, and early American literacies. Her recent book is Style and the Single Girl: How Modern Women Re-Dressed the Novel, 1922-1977 (Ohio State UP, 2016). Hodgkins's work in historical archives is important to much of her fiction, including her Missouri novel Decently. Her 2024 stories appear in Ellery Queen, Crimeucopia's Through the Past Darkly, Malice Domestic's anthology Mystery Most Devious, and the Barbara Pym Society’s All This Richness.

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David James Keaton’s first collection of dark crime/horror fiction, FISH BITES COP! Stories to Bash Authorities, was named the 2013 Short Story Collection of the Year by This Is Horror and was a runner-up for the Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award. He was also editor of Hard Sentences: Crime Fiction Inspired by Alcatraz, Dirty Boulevard: Crime Fiction Inspired by Lou Reed, and Tales from the Crust: An Anthology of Pizza Horror. He lives in Santa Clara, California with his wife and daughters and teaches composition and creative writing at SCU.

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Kathleen Kent is a NY Times bestselling author and was an Edgar Award nominee for her contemporary crime trilogy comprised of The Dime, The Burn, and The Pledge. She’s also the author of three award-winning historical novels, The Heretic’s Daughter, The Traitor’s Wife, and The Outcasts. Her newest novel, Black Wolf, is an international spy thriller that has received glowing reviews in both the U.S. and the UK. She has written short stories and essays for D Magazine, Texas Monthly, and LitHub, and has been published in the crime anthology Dallas Noir. In March 2020, she was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters for her contribution to Texas literature.

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Henry Presente has published stories with Orca, Barren Magazine, Criminal Class Review, Harpur Palate, SmokeLong Quarterly, and others. His short story collection is Personal Earthquakes (Czykmate Productions, 2018). He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, helped save enough energy to power one million homes for one year, and once led a spontaneously-formed conga line — fearlessly and with no regard for tomorrow. Find him online at henrypresente.com and as @HenryPresente on X.

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Jay Randall is a wannabe tough guy who learned to box in a Beijing karaoke bar cum brothel and cried like a baby when he broke his nose. Originally from Michigan, he lives in Virginia with his wife and dog. His short stories have appeared in the After Happy Hour Review, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and now Dark Yonder. A dozen or so first-thirds and one or two nearly complete novels reside in the labyrinth of his hard drive.

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Chris L. Robinson was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago. He is a United States Army veteran. He has been published in Shotgun Honey, Guilty Crime Story Magazine, Punk Noir, and Pulp Modern Flash. He has a beautiful wife that loves him, a dog that tolerates him, and a son that is gradually winning all of their wrestling matches. You can find him on X (@ChrisLRobinson3) and at chrisLrobinson.com.

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Rob D. Smith is a common man attempting to write uncommon fiction out of Louisville, KY. Currently an editor at Rock and a Hard Place Press, his work has appeared in Apex Magazine, Shotgun Honey, Pyre Magazine, Thriller Magazine, Tough, Thicker Than Blood, Vautrin, and several other crime, horror, and speculative magazines, anthologies, and online publications. Good-Looking Ugly is his debut crime novel. Find his work at robdsmith.carrd.co.