Guests
Guests for the 2023 Festival will be announced here.
Featured Guests
Rebekah McKendry is an award-winning director, writer, and podcaster. Her most recent horror feature, GLORIOUS (starring JK Simmons), premiered at Fantasia Film Festival and after receiving top honors from critics was certified as “fresh” on Rotten Tomato. Rebekah began her film and writing career working for Fangoria Entertainment and went on to become Editor-in-Chief for Blumhouse Productions, as well as writing for media companies like Shudder, Universal, AMP, AMC and more. Additionally, Rebekah has written multiple books including PRETTY EVIL, coming soon from Simon and Schuster, and several volumes of the HELLRAISER comic book series. She is an award-winning podcaster currently hosting Fangoria’s Colors of the Dark Podcast. She also has a PhD focused on the Horror genre and is currently a professor in the Cinematic Arts Department at the University of Southern California.
Clay McLeod Chapman is the author of novels Ghost Eaters, Whisper Down the Lane, The Remaking, and miss corpus, story collections nothing untoward, commencement and rest area, as well as The Tribe middlegrade series: Homeroom Headhunters, Camp Cannibal and Academic Assassins. His new novel, What Kind of Mother, was released on September 12, 2023.
Chapman is the creator of the rigorous storytelling session The Pumpkin Pie Show. In the twenty years of its existence, it has performed internationally at numerous festival including the Romanian Theatre Festival of Sibiu, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, New York International Fringe Festival, and many many more.
Other projects include writing for comics, podcasting, and performing. You can listen to Quiet Part Loud, a 12-part horror podcast series from Jordan Peele and Monkeypaw Productions, written by Chapman and Mac Rogers, on Spotify. Chapman’s story "Late Bloomer" was adapted into a short film, directed by Craig William Macneill. An official selection at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, the short won Best Short at the Lake Placid Film Festival and the Brown Jenkin Award at the 12th Annual H .P. Lovecraft Film Festival.
Chapman was educated at the North Carolina School of the Arts for Drama, the Burren College of Art, and Sarah Lawrence College. He currently teaches writing at The Actors Studio MFA Program at Pace University.
Screenwriter of 2023's Suitable Flesh, directed by Joe Lynch and based on H. P. Lovecraft's "The Thing on The Doorstep", Dennis Paoli achieved his greatest enduring cult popularity by penning the wickedly witty scripts for two superior 80s H.P. Lovecraft adaptations directed by noted horror genre icon Stuart Gordon: the terrific Re-Animator and its equally excellent follow-up From Beyond. Paoli and Gordon first crossed paths working for the experimental Organic Theater in Chicago. Besides those two films, Paoli has also written The Pit and the Pendulum, Castle Freak, Dagon and the Masters of Horror episodes "H.P. Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch-House" and "The Black Cat" for Gordon. Paoli has done several screenplays for prolific low-budget movie producer Charles Band: a segment of the horror anthology Pulse Pounders, Spellcaster, Meridian, and Ghoulies II. He collaborated with Larry Cohen and Nicholas St. John on the script for Abel Ferrara's supremely creepy and underrated sci-fi/horror winner Body Snatchers. In addition to those credits, Paoli wrote the gruesome The Dentist for Brian Yuzna. Outside of writing screenplays, Dennis Paoli has a regular day job as a Writing Instructor and Coordinator of the Hunter College Writing Center at Hunter College in New York. He's especially knowledgeable on Irish literature and has taught a course on Gothic fiction.
Guests
In 1998 Scott Glancy left a perfectly functional career as an attorney to join up with the role-playing game publisher Pagan Publishing, the nerd equivalent of running away to join the Foreign Legion. Today Scott is the man in charge of Pagan Publishing (much in the same sense that the last surviving legionnaire can be said to be in command of Fort Zinderhoff). Pagan’s most recent project is “Horrors of War,” an anthology of scenarios set during the Great War for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game. Scott is a contributing author on the award-winning Delta Green series of Call of Cthulhu rpg supplements and has had Lovecraftian fiction published in several short story collections including the recent "Book of Cthulhu II," "Shotguns v. Cthulhu," and the upcoming “Swords v. Cthulhu.” You can hear his recorded games sessions on Role-Playing Public Radio, and listen to him bloviate on the Unspeakable Podcast and Podcast at Ground Zero.
Andrew Leman is one of the founding members of the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, and has produced a number of literary, film, theatrical, music, prop and gaming projects there over the decades with his longtime friend and collaborator Sean Branney. He has written and produced more than 20 live-action Lovecraftian role-playing games. He wrote and directed the first HPLHS film, "The Testimony of Randolph Carter", directed "The Call of Cthulhu", and co-wrote and co-produced The Whisperer in Darkness. He co-wrote, produced, and appears in the "Dark Adventure Radio Theatre" series of Lovecraft adaptations. Leman earned his MFA in acting from the University of Illinois, and has been seen on professional stages in Chicago and Los Angeles. He greatly enjoys reading for The H. P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast and being an occasional guest host. When not pursuing any of these many other occupations, Leman is a graphic and type designer, and his typographical work has been seen in books and on movie screens, Trader Joe’s products, and billboards nationwide.
Chris Bozzone is a soundtrack composer, songwriter and filmmaker. In the fall of 2017, he began working with Jonathan Dennison, the founder of Cadabra Records on his first soundtrack for the label, Thomas Ligotti's "The Bungalow House,'' a vinyl-and-cassette release that came out in 2018. His soundtrack work for Cadabra Records covers a wide array of weird, fantastical and macabre fiction. Bozzone also works with film and concert hall composer Peter Scartabello and his Yuggoth Records label. In October of 2022, Yuggoth Records released Bozzone’s first album for the label, “Phantom Flowers,” as a vinyl record and digitally. Bozzone and Scartabello released their debut collaborative album, “Glimpsing Into Oblivion” under the project name Seer in April of 2023. Singular for his ability to fuse together different musical styles, Bozzone's scores and songs encompass evocative electronic music, arresting folk melodies, classical piano compositions, and boundary-pushing experimental soundscapes.
Cody Goodfellow has written nine novels and five collections of short stories, and edits the hyperpulp zine Forbidden Futures, and has won three Wonderland Book Awards. His comics work has been featured in Mystery Meat, Creepy, Slow Death Zero and Skin Crawl. As an actor, he has appeared in numerous short films, TV shows, music videos by Anthrax and Beck, and a Days Inn commercial. He wrote, co-produced and scored the Lovecraftian hygiene films Baby Got Bass and Stay At Home Dad, which can be viewed on YouTube.
Kenneth Hite has designed, written, or co-authored 100+ roleplaying works, including Trail of Cthulhu, Bookhounds of London, The Dracula Dossier, the Delta Green RPG, Night’s Black Agents, The Fall of Delta Green, and Vampire: the Masquerade 5th Edition. His other works include the two-volume Tour de Lovecraft, Cthulhu 101, The Cthulhu Wars for Osprey, the “Lost in Lovecraft” column for Weird Tales, an annotated edition of Chambers’ The King in Yellow, and four Lovecraftian children’s books. Half of the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff podcast and an Artistic Associate at Chicago’s WildClaw Theatre, he lives in Chicago with two Lovecraftian cats and his non-Lovecraftian wife, Sheila.
Robert Lloyd Parry is an actor and writer who specializes in literary storytelling: theatrical performances based upon texts from the golden age of the short story in English, approx 1880 - 1930. Since 2005 he has been touring the UK with the The M R James Project, a series of solo performances which bring to life the masterpieces of the father of the English Ghost Story. In 2015 he appeared as M R James in Mark Gatiss’s BBC documentary M R James: Ghost Writer. He has himself produced, written and presented two documentaries based on James’s work: “Wits in Felixstowe” and “Dim Presences.” Between 2013 – 16 he toured his adaptation of H G Wells’s The Time Machine around the UK, with the support of Arts Council England. He regularly performs short stories in pubs and libraries throughout the land, works by the likes of H G Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, Saki, Arthur Machen, Kenneth Graham and E F Benson.
S. T. Joshi has prepared comprehensive editions of H. P. Lovecraft’s collected fiction, essays, poetry, and letters. He is the author of The Weird Tale (1990), The Modern Weird Tale (2001), I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft (2010), and Unutterable Horror: A History of Supernatural Fiction (2012), and has edited the anthology American Supernatural Tales (2007) and the Black Wings series of Lovecraftian tales.
Sean is a producer, actor, director and writer with the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society which he runs with his nefarious colleague, Andrew Leman. He was intimately involved in the creation of the motion pictures The Call of Cthulhu and The Whisperer in Darkness, nineteen episodes of Dark Adventure Radio Theatre, and many other Lovecraftian projects. With his work at the HPLHS, he's created many other Lovecraftian entertainments. Sean also produces and directs live theatre in Los Angeles. He plays ice hockey and has four chinchillas.
A.W. McCollough writes science fiction, fantasy, poetry, and non-fiction. His work tends to describe unfortunate things happening to relatable protagonists and frequently involves magic or robots. He is an editor of and contributor to the SPACE COCAINE anthology series, and his most recent work can be found at https://worlds.workingtitle.us/
Adam Bolivar is a formal poet of folkloric fantasy, a weird fiction writer and a playwright for marionettes with a particular interest in alliterative verse, balladry and Jack tales. He is the author of THE LAY OF OLD HEX (Hippocampus Press, 2017), THE ETTINFELL OF BEACON HILL (Jackanapes Press, 2021), BALLADS FOR THE WITCHING HOUR (Hippocampus Press 2022) and A WHEEL OF RAVENS (Jackanapes Press, 2023).
Andreas Petersen is a screenwriter based out of Salt Lake City, UT. His previous credits include the animated horror comedy Attack of the Demons and the animated fantasy drama When You Get to the Forest.
Andrew S. Fuller writes dark and strange stories. His fiction appears in several magazines, anthologies, short films, and the new collection Constellations of Ruin (2023, Trepidatio Publishing). Since 1999, he’s been editor-in-chief of Three-Lobed Burning Eye magazine. He lives in Portland, OR near two rivers, several extinct(?) volcanoes, and is friends with several crows and spiders. Visit him online at andrewsfuller.com.
Anthony returns to H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival after winning Best Short in 2016 with "When Susurrus Stirs." Since then he's directed shorts "The Bloody Ballad of Squirt Reynolds" and "Every Time We Meet for Ice Cream Your Whole Fucking Face Explodes."
Cameron Beyl is an award-winning filmmaker whose work has featured in numerous film festivals, museums and online media outlets like Sight & Sound, Vice Creators Project, Indiewire, and the Oscars' A-Frame magazine. His ongoing video essay project, THE DIRECTORS SERIES, has also established him as a prominent voice in the world of online film scholarship. In 2019, he established FilmFrontier Studios, an independent production company dedicated to the discovery of new horizons in cinematic storytelling. THE VEIL is Beyl’s third feature film.
Carson Winter is an award-winning author, punker, and raw nerve. His fiction has been featured in Apex, Vastarien, and Tales to Terrify. “The Guts of Myth” was published in volume one of Dread Stone Press’ Split Scream series. His novella, Soft Targets, is out now from Tenebrous Press. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.
Michelle had been making costumes for herself and for friends for a few years when she had the crazy idea to try to create for herself a Cthulhu costume. After a journey to the fabric temple with only a vague idea she returned home with some green, mottled, scaled stretch velour and a bodysuit pattern. After reusing some old fairy wings and some stuffing she managed to create a costume that was looked upon with horror when Cthulhu Girl ventured out into Portland one Halloween. A brief appearance at Orycon won her some awards and much more favorable looks than the previous appearance but Cthulhu Girl went back into the closet soon after. Michelle has been attending the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival since some students took her along shortly after she moved to Portland, OR to work at Reed College in 2000. But it was a few years and festivals before she was brave enough to don the costume at the HPLFF and once again become Cthulhu Girl. She has since made many appearances at the HPLFF, welcoming the crowds, posing for pictures, and handing out awards. The first year Cthulhu Girl appeared at the festival was immortalized in the documentary Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown.
Danger Slater is the Wonderland Award-winning author of I Will Rot Without You, He Digs a Hole, Moonfellows, House of Rot and others. He writes gross horror stories that are both funny and sad. He has a cat named Bubbles.
David Heath is a podcaster and blogger who has hosted shows such as Dave's Underground Goat Shenanigans,and Radio Free Oleander. He is currently the co-host of The People's Guide to the Cthulhu Mythos. He lives with his extended family in northern Oregon on a working goat farm.
Adventurer/Occult Investigator/Illustrator/Writer/Game Designer/Media
Critic/Podcaster from Portland,Oregon. I like soda water, good game design, clever cosmic horror.
Praise to Tsathoggua!!
They/Them
Denise Dumars has a new mini-poetry chapbook from Space Cowboy Books, titled "Mars Maundering." Her recent chapbook Cajuns in Space placed 3rd in the Elgin Awards. She has stories in Occult Detective Magazine's Special Mythos #1 issue and upcoming in the Halloween edition of Weird Fiction magazine. She'll have her poetry chapbooks and her story collection, Lovecraft Slept Here, available at the festival.
Eric Shanower is the award-winning cartoonist of the comics series Age of Bronze (Image), recounting the Trojan War. The forthcoming anthology The Cozy Cosmic (Underland) includes his story “The Purple Emperor.” His latest book, All Wound Up: The Making of The Tik-Tok Man of Oz (Hungry Tiger), tells the history of the obscure musical. Shanower has illustrated for television, stage, and children’s books. He lives with his husband in Portland.
Erik Grove is a writer, writing teacher, long distance runner, and little dog wrangler living and doing things in Portland, OR. You can find his work in places like NIGHTMARE, ESCAPE POD, and upcoming in the COZY COSIC and the WINDING PATHS anthologies. Visit www.erikgrove.com for links to his published work, information on editorial and mentoring services, and updates on readings and appearances.
Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito (she/her) is a Chinese American writer in Portland, Oregon. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Nailed Magazine, Buckman Journal, Flame Tree Press's Asian Ghost Stories, Strangehouse's Chromophobia, Startling Stories, Not a Pipe's Stories Within, Mother: Tales of Love and Terror, Death’s Garden Revisited, and Unquiet Spirits: Essays by Asian Women in Horror. Frances also co-chairs the Young Willamette Writers program that provides free writing classes for high school and middle school students. You can find her on IG @paippolito, Twitter @frances_pai, and at www.francesippolito.com
Gretchen has volunteered at Portland Horror Film Festival and the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival since 2016, and helps judge films for both. As a lifelong fan of horror movies, she loves found footage films and exorcism movies. She co-hosted the Kaijucast podcast, and was a frequent guest on Horror Brew podcast. A “recovering-goth” Gretchen is also a mother and a wife, and is the guardian of a Devon-Rex cat that looks like a goblin.
Heather Humpleman is the director of “Whisper in the Static”, and the Co-Founder of Midnight Hour Studios, a Los Angeles-based production company. She graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts, and has been fortunate to serve and support their alumni as both the President of the Women of Cinematic Arts and the Director of Membership for the Trojan Entertainment Network. Heather is also a member of LA’s Asian Business Association, a graduate of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program, and a US-UK dual-citizen.
Jeff Gorcyca is an actor, voice over artist, and filmmaker based in New York City. He is a proud member of the production team, GirlSOUP. Jeff's recent GirlSOUP projects include acting in the folk horror film Outen the Light, directing and writing "Don't Bother The Neighbors!", and serving as producer for the livestream Karula's DreamShow Live. When not acting, Jeff loves to write music and juggle.
John Shirley is an author, screenwriter, television writer, comics writer, singer, and songwriter. With over 40 novels and 8 short story collections to his name, he won the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association for his collection, Black Butterflies: A Flock on the Dark Side. His novels include Demons, Stormland, Cellars, A Sorcerer of Atlantis, and Wetbones. He is co-screenwriter of The Crow, and has written for television and animation. He performs with his band, THE SCREAMING GEEZERS, and his newest story collection is The Feverish Stars.
Writer. Director. Producer. Composer. Performer. Shooter. Cutter. Teacher. Stoner. Pool shark. Dancer on head of pin at the end of time.
Joseph Scrimshaw is a filmmaker, writer, and comedian based in Los Angeles. His film, "The Narrator," starring Phil LaMarr won the Silver Award for Best Experimental short at the Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation & Technology. He’s delighted to be back at the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival after showing his 2022 film, "Unboxing The Cosmos," and multiple appearances with Tim Uren as the comedy cultists, Chuck & Dexter. Joseph’s also written for television and radio, performed across the country as an actor and stand-up, and did a commercial with the monkey from Friends. A true highlight of a varied career.
K.L. Young is a writer and the Editor of Strange Aeons Magazine. He is also the screenwriter of several short and feature films.
Kasie Heister is a Southern California native, and received her undergraduate degree from the University of Southern California and her Masters of Business Administration, specializing in Entertainment Management, from the University of California, Los Angeles. "Whisper in the Static" is her inaugural film, and she is currently in development on the feature version.
Katherine Kerestman is the author of Lethal (PsychoToxin Press, 2023) and Creepy Cat's Macabre Travels: Prowling around Haunted Towers, Crumbling Castles, and Ghoulish Graveyards (WordCrafts Press, 2020), as well as the co-editor (with S. T. Joshi) of The Weird Cat, an anthology of weird cat stories (WordCrafts Press, October 2023). Her Lovecraftian and gothic works have been featured in numerous publications. Katherine is wild about Dark Shadows and Twin Peaks. You can keep up with her at www.creepycatlair.com
Kyle is a Los Angeles-based producer, writer, and actor with almost two decades of experience in the business. An Emerson College graduate, he is one half of the creative team behind FilmFrontier Studios, whose recent debut feature production - the dramatic sci-fi/thriller THE VEIL - screened at Fox Studios before its 2023 festival run. The team has several projects in development, including features, narrative podcasts, and other media.
Marco Falcucci is a film student at Penn State University, double majoring in Film Production and Computer Science, because he never really wanted a life during college anyway. He likes making films because it engages him creatively and it's easier than drawing.
Martin Berthiaume, Writer and Director of "The Shadow" is French Canadian, born on the south shore of Montreal, Martin migrated to the west coast in 2002 to pursue his film career. His filmmaking journey has taken him from editing to camera operating, working on indies to studio features. Going forward with writing and directing, he hopes that his Quebecois passion is reflected in his craft.
Monstark is an award-winning artist and filmmaker living in Portland, Oregon as a human cat dad. His work, often celebrating the sympathetic monster, is enjoyed all over the world.
Nathan Carson is a musician, writer, and Moth StorySlam champion from Portland, OR. He is widely known as co-founder and drummer of the internationally touring doom metal band Witch Mountain, host of the XRAY FM radio show The Heavy Metal Sewïng Cïrcle, and owner of the boutique music booking agency Nanotear. His byline can be found in the Willamette Week and the Oregonian. A regular on the weird fiction convention circuit, he has published many short stories and novelettes in critically acclaimed horror anthologies. His first standalone novella, Starr Creek, was recently released by Lazy Fascist Press and currently sits at #1 on the Goodreads list of “Books Like Stranger Things.”
Nathan Carter is a writer, cinematographer and eclectic. He was raised in the wilds of East Texas — primarily by books and movies — and moved to Los Angeles to study creative writing and animation at the University of Southern California. He never left. He currently serves as the creative director at Midnight Hour Studios, where he brings a cinematic approach to the stories of educational, non-profit and public-minded institutions. Nathan is the Writer & Cinematographer of "Whisper in the Static."
Nick Harrington is a producer and editor who was born and raised in Los Angeles. His early fascination with movies inspired him to collaborate with friends on backyard ‘epics’ - modest but formative ventures into visual storytelling. This passion compelled him to study film production at Occidental College. Currently he works as the lead editor at Midnight Hour Studios. Nick is the Line Producer for "Whisper in the Static".
Noah lives is a recent graduate of Portland Community College’s multimedia program where he developed skills in video editing, design, and motion graphics. He’s currently working on his editing and motion graphics reels as well as writing his second feature-length screenplay (a Lovecraft inspired horror/comedy set in Astoria). When not thinking about what story to make in which medium, he indulges in chasing/repousse metalwork, armored combat, Scythian archaeology, and archery.
Pauline Chow explores alternative histories and disgruntled people in her writing. She is a mom, writer, data scientist, and former legal aid attorney. She lives in the woods in New York with her partner, daughter, and rescue pup. Snow days are her favorite. Find her stories on www.paulinechowstories.com including one forthcoming in Cosmic Horror Monthly.
Quinn Bailey is the writer, director, editor, and composer behind “Play It All Night Long”. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Quinn studied film production at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where he lives and works as a script analyst and freelance musician. As a lifelong cosmic horror fan, he’s honored to be a part of this year’s HPLFF.
By day, Remy Nakamura works in the funeral industry. At night, he writes weird fiction. His stories can be found in Escape Pod, Pseudopod, and a number of Lovecraftian-themed anthologies. He graduated from Clarion West, served on the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association's Board, and is working on a Masters in Genre Writing. Remy resides in Portland, where he spends as much time as possible getting cold, wet, and muddy.
Roni Stinger lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two cats. Her short stories and poetry have appeared in dozens of magazines and anthologies, including Dark Matter Magazine, Unnerving Magazine and MetaStellar. Her debut novella Fuzzy (Rewind or Die 34) is out now from Unnerving Books. You can find her online at www.ronistinger.com and on Instagram and Twitter @roni_stinger
Sarah Walker is an artist, anthropologist, and writer of horror living in the Pacific Northwest. Her work appears in publications such as Audient Void, Lovecraft Ezine Press, Vastarien, and many more. She co-edited the Folk Horror anthology, A Walk in A Darker Wood with Gordon White, Phil Breach, and Duane Pesice, and A Walk in a City of Shadows: Tales of Urban Legendry, with Nora B. Peevy, Jill Hand, Gordon White, and Phil Breach.
Simone Cooper grew up on a diet of Creature Features and Speed Racer cartoons. She's an avid gamer, and was a major writer on the 2005 Ennie Award winning A Game of Thrones RPG. She has organized more than 30 game conventions under the umbrella "AmberCon." She also loves cooking.
Tony LaMalfa is a big kid from a small town with a passion for storytelling. He is a former educator, produced playwright, and proud member of the Horror Writers Association. His literary debut, Forbidden Knowledge: Two Tales of Lovecraftian Terror, was recently released by Hippocampus Press. LaMalfa’s short fiction can be found in various publications by Weird House Press and the HWA, as well as The Weird Cat—a forthcoming anthology by WordCrafts Press.
Wendy N. Wagner is a Shirley Jackson award-nominated writer and Hugo award-winning editor of short fiction. Her work includes the forthcoming novel The Creek Girl (2025, Tor Nightfire), the gothic novella The Secret Skin, the horror novel The Deer Kings, and more than seventy short stories, poems, and essays. She serves as the editor-in-chief of Nightmare Magazine and lives in Oregon.