Hotel St. Marie, one of the best hotels in New Orleans, Louisiana, indulges guests with modern amenities combined with a classic French Quarter atmosphere. Elegant guest rooms overlook the exciting streets of the New Orleans French Quarter or our serene tropical courtyard and pool. Each reserved room at Horror on the Mississippi will have two queen beds, mini-fridge and coffee maker. Parking available for $42+tax per night.

C.S. Humble is the author of the Amid the Vastness of All Else saga, consisting of That Light Sublime and The Peregrine Estate trilogies (Shortwave Books). He is the winner of the 2018 PenCraft Award for Supernatural Fiction. He has penned a number of short stories which are available in his collection, Minotaur. And his short story Ambush Predator was a part of the 2024 Stoker Award-nominated anthology Human Monsters (Dark Matter Books).

Gwendolyn Kiste is the four-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens, Reluctant Immortals, Boneset & Feathers, Pretty Marys All in a Row, and The Haunting of Velkwood. Her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in outlets including Lit Hub, Nightmare, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, CrimeReads, Titan Books, The Lineup, and The Dark. She's a Lambda Literary Award winner, and her fiction has also received the This Is Horror Award for Novel of the Year as well as nominations for the Shirley Jackson, Premios Kelvin, Ignotus, and Dragon Awards. 

Originally from Ohio, she now resides on an abandoned horse farm outside of Pittsburgh with her husband, their excitable calico cat, and not nearly enough ghosts. Find her online at gwendolynkiste.com

Rae Wilde (she/her) is a queer woman and author of dark fiction who has published numerous works under the pen name Rae Knowles. Her collection, I Do Not Apologize for My Position on Men, will re-release in July 2026 from Shortwave Publishing and her commercial fiction debut, Happily Ever After the Murders will release in Fall 2026 from Legacy Lit. Her available works include The Stradivarius, Merciless Waters, and I Can Fix Her and she is represented by Carleen Geisler at PS Literary.

Christina Henry is a horror and dark fantasy author whose works include THE PLACE WHERE THEY BURIED YOUR HEART, THE HOUSE THAT HORROR BUILT, GOOD GIRLS DON’T DIE, HORSEMAN, NEAR THE BONE, THE GHOST TREE, THE GIRL IN RED, THE MERMAID, LOST BOY, the CHRONICLES OF ALICE series (ALICE, RED QUEEN and LOOKING GLASS) and the seven-book urban fantasy BLACK WINGS series.

Her short stories have been featured in the anthologies HOWL, ELEMENTAL FORCES, CURSED, TWICE CURSED, GIVING THE DEVIL HIS DUE and KICKING IT.

She enjoys running long distances, reading anything she can get her hands on and watching movies with samurai, zombies and/or subtitles in her spare time. She lives in Chicago with her husband and son.

You can visit her on the web at

www.christinahenry.net

BlueSky: @christinahenry.bsky.social

Threads: authorChristinaHenry

Instagram: authorChristinaHenry

Goodreads: goodreads.com/CHenryAuthor.

Josh Rountree is a Texas novelist and short story writer. His novel, The Legend of Charlie Fish, was released by Tachyon Publications in 2023 to wide acclaim, making the Locus Recommended Reading List, and being named one of Los Angeles Public Library’s best books of the year. A followup novel, The Unkillable Frank Lightning, and a new novella, Summer in the House of the Departed, were both published in 2025.

More than seventy of his short stories have been published in a variety of venues, including The Deadlands, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Bourbon Penn, Realms of Fantasy, PseudoPod, Weird Horror, and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror. Several collections of his short fiction have been published, including Fantastic Americana, and most recently, Death Aesthetic, featuring tales of death and transformation.

Rountree lives in Austin with his lovely wife of many years, and a pair of half-feral dogs who demand his obedience. 

Greta T. Bates resides in a quaint, coastal town and considers herself a beach person. A winter beach person. Summer finds her indoors, writing and editing and waiting for fall. She writes stories that explore lost love, revenge, and the struggle of being a human, told through the lens of horror. A Mills College alumna, she has been featured in several online publications and her poetry can be found in Dream, 2nd edition, and Shards, both publications of Ravens Quoth Press. Greta’s short stories can be found in Horror Scope-A Zodiac Anthology, volumes 1 and 3, Pretty Girls Make Graves, and Till the Yule Log Burns Out. Her latest short story, Look-alike, can be found in Dolls in the Attic. 

She is the proud author of Wounded and Hazed, part of the novella series The Other Side of the Glass. Her novelette, Season of the Damned, is a gothic horror-romance ghost story—juicy stuff there!

Spare Nothing is her first novel coming out July 21, 2026.

Currently, she is working on her second novel. Greta lives on a salt marsh with her small fam, 2 cats, and her little dog too.

Website and social link:

GretaBatesWrites

@greta_t_bates

Jon Padgett is a professional–though lapsed–ventriloquist who lives in New Orleans. He is the Editor-In-Chief of Grimscribe Press. Padgett’s first short story collection, The Secret of Ventriloquism, was named the Best Fiction Book of the Year by Rue Morgue Magazine.

Padgett’s voice has also become synonymous with the works of Thomas Ligotti. Padgett has lent his voice to numerous Thomas Ligotti works, including the recently released Penguin Random House audio version of The Conspiracy Against the Human Race and Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe and various Cadabra Record releases, “The Bungalow House,” “The Red Tower,” “The Small People,” “Gas Station Carnivals,” “The Clown Puppet,” “Pictures of Apocalypse,” “Mrs. Rinaldi’s Angel,” and others.

jonpadgett.net

Samantha (Sam) Curtin is an occult and paranormal horror author who has been published for over 13 years. As a practicing witch, medium, and tarot reader she draws from her background for her work. Her books include the Summer's Hollow Series, Carmichael Series, and many other short stories and novellas. She resides in Maryland with her partner, two human children, and one fur child. 

In addition to her books, at this event she will be offering $10 tarot readings for those interested.

V.S. Lawrence grew up in Utah being scared of everything. Now, she puts  her fears on paper, writing spooky books that feel like Scooby-Doo chase music. When not writing, she can be found buried in a horror novel,  wandering aimlessly, or cuddling her dog, Rigby. She is still scared of  everything.

Briana N Cox (she/they) is the oldest of seven children and a first-generation academic. She holds a BA in cognitive science from Swarthmore College and an MS in speech-language pathology from Purdue University. Briana has been a writing Fellow through The TN Playwright’s Studio, Stowe Story Labs, Bend Base Camp Feature Lab, Stage 32 Feature Competition, and the Moonshot Initiative Feature Accelerator. She has won Best Script at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival and Best Tennessee Writer at the Nashville Film Festival. They have additionally been highlighted in Variety magazine and on the 2024 Next List of screenwriters to watch for. Briana writes genre stories from the margins, illuminating the experiences of overlooked demographics with authenticity, dignity, and dark humor. Her novel Indigent releases March 2026.

Brianancoxwriter.com

@pedropara2

Daniel Braum writes short fiction that lives in the eerie space between the psychological and the supernatural. He embraces the tradition of the “strange tale,” crafting Twilight Zone–like fiction inspired by Robert Aickman and the power of ambiguity. His stories linger in liminal places emotionally rich, unsettling, and impossible to fully pin down.

His debut collection, The Night Marchers and Other Strange Tales (2016), was reissued as a Cemetery Dance trade paperback in 2023 and rose to the #1 spot in Amazon’s Horror Short Stories. His work has appeared in major anthologies including The Best Horror of the Year Volume 12 edited by Ellen Datlow and Shivers 8 edited by Richard Chizmar.

His latest books include the illustrated volume Creatures of Liminal Space (Jackanapes Press) and Phantom Constellations: Strange Tales and Ghost Stories (Cemetery Dance Publications).

 Find him at www.bloodandstardust.wordpress.com