CONtraflow XI

Kurt Amacker is a comic book writer from New Orleans, Louisiana. He graduated from Loyola University in 2002 and received his Masters degree from Tulane University in 2018. He began writing his first miniseries, Dead Souls, while recovering from an injury in the United States Marine Corps. After the first issue was published in 2008, he continued to write comics while DJing in the raucous French Quarter Goth scene. Since 2011, he has written and co-written the licensed comic books for the European hard rock bands The 69 Eyes and Cradle of Filth. His work has been publicly praised by Alan Moore, Hart Fisher, Jyrki 69, Victor Gischler, and Dani Filth. His first prose novel, Bloody October, was published in 2016. His next graphic novel, Dead Souls: Resurrection, is forthcoming.

C.D. Brown is a writer, filmmaker, editor, and professor from New Orleans. He has published five novels including Vamp City and Midnight Brew (making its debut at ContraFlow) and directed two feature films, including the New Orleans-set goth noir Angels Die Slowly. His main projects are editing and publishing the fantasy/urban fantasy fiction magazine Dirty Magick and directing the long-running live streaming musical game show Escape From The Secret Lab. He teaches first-year writing and literature at Tulane and Loyola Universities.

Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, and journalist. His latest novels are THE BEZZLE (a follow-up to RED TEAM BLUES) and THE LOST CAUSE, a solar-punk science fiction novel of hope amidst the climate emergency. His most recent nonfiction book is THE INTERNET CON: HOW TO SEIZE THE MEANS OF COMPUTATION, a Big Tech disassembly manual. He is the author of the international young adult LITTLE BROTHER series. He is also the author of CHOKEPOINT CAPITALISM (with Rebecca Giblin), about creative labor markets and monopoly; HOW TO DESTROY SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM, nonfiction about conspiracies and monopolies; and of RADICALIZED and WALKAWAY, science fiction for adults, a YA graphic novel called IN REAL LIFE; and other young adult novels like PIRATE CINEMA. His first picture book was POESY THE MONSTER SLAYER (Aug 2020). His next novel is THE BEZZLE (February 2024). He maintains a daily blog at Pluralistic.net. He works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is a MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate, is a Visiting Professor of Computer Science at Open University, a Visiting Professor of Practice at the University of North Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in Los Angeles. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. In 2022, he earned the Sir Arthur Clarke Imagination in Service to Society Awardee for lifetime achievement. In 2024, the Media Ecology Association awarded him the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. York University (Canada) made him an Honourary Doctor of Laws; and the Open University (UK) made him an Honourary Doctor of Computer Science.

"The" Rob Cerio was born at an early age, and has since grown much more hair. He denies all rumors of having been snapped away by Thanos. He has published four novels, six short stories, and helped author a YouTube web series. He has also won two awards for his writing contributions to his local 48hr Film Festival. He is also grateful to CONtraflow for putting up with his unique shenanigans for so many years. He now lives in Metairie, Louisiana with his lovely wife, two adorable step kids, and a small annoying dog named after a large Japanese monster.

Charles Gramlich lives amid the piney woods of southern Louisiana and is the author of the Talera fantasy series, the SF novel Under the Ember Star, and the anthologies, Bitter Steel, (fantasy), Midnight in Rosary (Vampires/Werewolves), and In the Language of Scorpions (Horror). Charles also writes westerns under the name Tyler Boone, and has been writing for several of the A. W. Hart series from Wolfpack Publishing, including “The Avenging Angels” and “The Ranger.”

Outside of novels, Charles’s stories and poetry have been published in such magazines as Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Skelos, Star*Line, The Horror Zine, Beat to a Pulp, Dreams and Nightmares, and Pedestal Magazine. His work is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Wildside Press, Sundown Press, and Wolfpack Publishing. He has recently welcomed a wonderful grandson names Silas into the family.

#

As Louise Herring-Jones, Amy L. Herring writes mainstream, historical, and speculative fiction as well as non-fiction. Her science fiction, dark fantasy, and light horror stories have been included in anthologies, including: "The Twittering of Sparrows" in Asian Pulp (Pro Se Press, 2015); “Gooji” in Luna’s Children: Full Moon Mayhew (Dark Oak Press, 2014); "Earl and Bubba Save the King" in Summer Gothic (Jared Millet, ed., 2012); and “Earl, Bubba, and the Flying Hubcap in Southern Fried Sci-Fi: Tales from the NASFCAS (Thunderchild Press, 2013). Her steampunk story "Queen of Steam," set in the reconstruction South, is included in Gizmos: Dreams of Steam IV (Dark Oak Press, 2013). She placed second in the inaugural (2012) SELTI Moundville-themed story contest and won the 2009-2010 Charlotte Writer's Club Board Prize for fiction. Her historic baseball article, "A Georgia Yankee: The Legend of Johnny Mize," appeared in the 2010 Maple Street Press Yankees Annual (Cecilia Tan, ed.). Herring is also a veteran reporter for The Daily Dragon Online, the news voice of Dragon*Con, a multi-media science fiction, fantasy, and comic book convention held annually in Atlanta, Georgia. With her husband Bryan Jones, she is municipal liaison for the Alabama North region for National Novel Writing Month ("NaNoWriMo"), celebrated in November each year. She practices law in Alabama and is an advocate for privacy rights, First Amendment guarantees, and other constitutionally protected freedoms. For additional details and links, visit her author’s website at http://www.louiseherring-jones.com
[ http://www.louiseherring-jones.com ].

Les Johnson is an author, a scientist and a NASA technologist. Les has authored or co-authored several popular science books including Solar Sails: A Novel Approach to Interplanetary Travel (2014), Harvesting Space for a Greener Earth, and Sky Alert: When Satellites Fail. He is also a science fiction writer; his books include Going Interstellar and (Mars) Rescue Mode, with co-author Ben Bova. He recently received the Watkins Award for his science writing.

In his day job, Les serves as the Technical Advisor for NASA's Advanced Concepts Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center. He is the Principal Investigator for the NASA Near-Earth Asteroid Scout mission, a Co-Investigator for the European InflateSail solar sail demonstration mission, and was the Principal Investigator of NASA's ProSEDS space tether experiment. During his career at NASA, he served as the Manager for the Space Science Programs and Projects Office, the In-Space Propulsion Technology Program, and the Interstellar Propulsion Research Project. He thrice received NASA's Exceptional Achievement Medal and has 3 patents.

He was recently interviewed on Public Radio's Science Friday and has appeared in numerous space-related documentaries on The Science Channel, The Discovery Channel and NatGeo. And, yes, he is a long time science fiction fan - he attended his first con when he was a senior in high school.

Les Johnson

www.lesjohnsonauthor.com
[ http://www.lesjohnsonauthor.com ]

https://www.facebook.com/LesJohnsonAuthor
[ https://www.facebook.com/LesJohnsonAuthor ]

Born in New York and educated at Kenyon College and Columbia University, Scott Kenemore is the national bestselling author of Lake of Darkness, The Grand Hotel, and Zombie Ohio, as well as numerous other works of horror and satire. He lives in Evanston, IL.

Dale Kesterson was born in Manhattan, NY and grew up on Long Island. Since then, she has lived in six widely diverse locations, from New Orleans to deliberately moving to a town too small to have a red-yellow-green traffic light.

Odd creative opportunities presented themselves throughout the years, however, with two highlights. Dale did a two-year stint with an opera company where she performed pantomime characters while singing with the chorus, and she worked on a radio show as an anchor and character voice artist. She is a seasoned traveler who is also a professional photographer.

In 2018 she auditioned for a part for a community theater and has been active as an actress, singer, and assistant director with two local community theaters in her area. Dale usually plays characters with accents, the most recent being a British professor who solved the on-stage mystery in an original show, Red Ink in the Summertime, by Kansas playwright Murray Reiman.

Dale co-authored the first two Time Guards novels, and now pens the Lauren Kaye Mystery series published by Jumpmaster Press. RESORT TO MURDER (2021) was the introductory novel, followed by STAGED FOR DEATH (2022), MURDEROUS INTENTIONS (2024), and DEADLY REFLECTIONS (2025). The fifth title, CRUISING FOR A MURDER, is in progress.

She lives in southwest Kansas with her husband (of over 30 years) and their hairless cats. When she’s not writing, performing, or appearing at conventions as an author or panelist or songstress, she does handcrafts. This lady hates being bored!

Ernest Russell has written for Pro Se Productions, Beyond the Threshold Studios, and Violet Windows. Some of Ernest’s favorite things (besides coffee) are Science Fiction, Horror, Steampunk, and Fantasy.  Ernest’s writing has been influenced by Vincent Price, Jules Verne, and H.P. Lovecraft.

When he’s not writing, Ernest has plenty of hobbies to keep him out of trouble. These include an eclectic set of hobby skills ranging from electronics to leatherworking. With all that, you can probably guess he is an avid table-top and board games player. He still tries to get in some RPG’s (preferably GURPS, D&D, or Call of Cthulhu) whenever possible, but will take what he can get.

Ernest’s first published piece was “Birds of a Feather” in Monster Mayhem: An Anthology of Monstrous Proportions, a product of Beyond the Threshold Studios.

At Pro Se Productions, his first piece was “Daily Options”, found in When the Shadow Sees the Sun: Creatives Surviving Depression. Since then, Ernest has several short stories and his debut novel coming out with Pro Se Productions scheduled for 2018-2019.

Recently Ernest has joined the staff at Pro Se as contributing submissions editor and, as time allows, content and copy editor.

Over the last year, several of his pieces have appeared in volumes of the literary journal Violet Windows, a great journal edited and produced by author/entrepreneur Kimberly B. Richardson.

In his copious amounts of spare time, he has managed the FB page for The Week in Geek 99.5 WRNO Talk radio and still contributes to this great show, a radio show dedicated to all things geek.

Webpages

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/ernest.russell.whenmyworldscollide/
[ https://www.facebook.com/ernest.russell.whenmyworldscollide/ ]

WordPress

https://ernestrussell.com/author/ernestrussell/
[ https://ernestrussell.com/author/ernestrussell/ ]

Aubrey Stephens is a retired teacher from Mississippi. He has degrees in both theater and history, with certification in English, science, and special education. He is also a marine veteran and former military officer. The rumor that he has attempted to blow up the earth is just that, though he was on combat missile crew alert when the NORAD radar had a 65 cent computer chip fail and report that there were Soviet inbound missiles headed for the U.S. He is a trained martial artist with a second degree black belt in karate, brown belt in judo, and brown belt in Kendo. He also studied and taught European fencing for over 45 years. His hobbies include recreating the Middle Ages and the American Civil War. He is squired to one of the S.C.A.'s most well known knights and at this time holds the rank of Regimental Sgt.Maj. In the 3rd Tn. Cavalry Reg. He has acted, written, directed, or done set design and construction for over 200 theatrical shows. He has writien several articles on the history of the War Between the States for regional magazines. Since his retirement from teaching he has edited for Pro Se Productions and will be a published writer with Pro Se soon as a part of their PULP OBSCURA imprint. He is in the process of writing a novelization of a golden age comic hero for Pro Se as well as working on an alternate history novel that stems from a slight change during 15 seconds in 1968. He enjoys swapping stories of the many sci-fi/fantasy conventions where he has worked, attended or been a guest.

#