Kevin Lafferty grew up in Pasadena. Despite this setback, he moved to Santa Barbara to study marine biology in 1981, where he remains. To his mother’s embarrassment, he is not a real doctor. Rather, as a parasitologist (not to be confused with a parapsychologist) he studies the role of parasites in natural ecosystems. He is a senior scientist at the USGS, and adjunct professor at UC Santa Barbara, where he influences well-adjusted young minds to find beauty in things like the black fingers of death or raccoon latrines. His academic achievements include receiving the Ward Medal for Parasitology, authoring over 200 scientific publications, and being one of the 10 most cited parasitologists. None of this helps him get a window table or invitations to dinner parties.

Justin LaLiberty holds degrees in Critical Film Studies and Film Preservation and Archiving and has spent more than half of his life working in either theatrical exhibition or home video in the roles of projectionist, film programmer and archivist. He currently works as the Director of Operations for OCN Distribution, sister company of Vinegar Syndrome, and spends most of his free time logging films on Letterboxd and taking photos of his cat.

Simon Laperrière is a writer, scholar and film curator based in Montreal. Currently a PhD Candidate in Film Studies at Université de Montréal, he is a frequent collaborator of different film publications like Hors champ, Panorama-Cinéma, 24 images and Zoom-Out. His most recent book, Series of Dreams: Bob Dylan et le cinéma, was published in 2018 by Rouge profond. (He also tried to finish Evil Within 2, but abandoned the game before the final boss).

Cory Legassic is a faculty member of the Humanities and Sociology Departments at Dawson College, Montréal, Québec, where he teaches courses on Social Movements, Social Justice Education, Anti-Racism, Media and Feminist Masculinities. His article “Reasonable Accommodation as a Settling Concept” was published in The Canadian Women’s Studies Journal in their special issue on Women and Canadian Multiculturalism (2010). An article on horror icon Rondo Hatton and the politics of disfigurement in forties horror is forthcoming.

Dr Catherine Lester is a lecturer in film and television at the University of Birmingham. She is the author of the book Horror Films for Children: Fear and Pleasure in American Cinema (2021) and editor of the forthcoming essay collection Watership Down: Perspectives on and Beyond Animated Violence (2023), both published by Bloomsbury. She has also published shorter pieces on the intersections of children’s culture and the horror genre in the books Discussing Disney (2019), Global TV Horror (2021) and the Fantasy/Animation Research Network http://fantasy-animation.org. When she isn’t writing or teaching she can usually be found relaxing with her partner, cat and two rabbits, whose lives aren’t nearly as dramatic as those of the rabbits in Watership Down.

Joe Lipsett is a Toronto-based film critic and podcaster. He has written for Bloody Disgusting, Pajiba, Consequence, The Spool, That Shelf, Anatomy of a Scream, as well as his own site QueerHorrorMovies. Once upon a time he was a sessional film instructor at Carleton University where he taught courses on Dystopias, Cyberpunk, Animation, Superheroes and Slashers. Nowadays Joe is the co-host of several podcasts, including YA adaptation podcast Hazel & Katniss & Harry & Starr, Erotic Thriller podcast White Ladies in Crisis (on the Anatomy of a Scream Pod Squad Network) and Bloody FM’s Horror Queers, which has been profiled in The AV Club, Variety, The New York Times and Entertainment Weekly. 

Felicia Lobo is a Brooklyn-based director and educator specializing in horror and fantastical theatre. She holds a BFA from NYU Tisch in Drama and a Masters in Educational Theatre from CCNY, and her work creates visceral responses from audiences, exploring the terror and humor of our mortality. Some credits include GAS by Charles Cissel, Pop Punk High by Anderson Cook & Ben Lapidus, and Suburban Nightmare by AJ Ditty & Travis Yablon. From 2013-2018 she was co-artistic director of Insomnium Theatre Company which produced horror theatre experiences in basements and warehouses throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. Outside of her theatre work, Felicia is the frontwoman of the band QWAM, runs the YouTube channel GirlyGore, and hosts the podcast Sinister Sisters featuring strange stories from around the world. Catch up with her at FeliciaLobo.com.

Meg D. Lonergan [she/they] is a doctoral candidate (ABD) in the Department of Law and Legal Studies with a collaborative specialization in Political Economy at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Meg teaches several courses in Law and Legal Studies and the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Carleton, including seminars on Cultural Criminology; Crime, Emotion and the Senses; Feminist Controversies in Sex and Law; Law and Violence; and True Crime Media. She has previously had the pleasure of teaching seminars on Gender and Law at the University of Alberta and The Sociology of Fear and Risk at Concordia University online. When she is not teaching or doing research, Meg can be found watching horror movies or trying to teach herself how to play the ukulele (much to the chagrin of her elderly Pekingese Dorian).

Bruna Foletto Lucas is currently in her third year as a PhD student at Kingston University London, researching the role of women in horror films, both in front of and behind the camera (“Woman and Horror: Reframing the Debate”). She's presented papers in key horror international conferences and has taught a guest MA lecture at Kingston University London as well as created and delivered a course based on her own research for The Brilliant Club. Bruna is currently a member of Doing Women's (Global) (Horror) Film History, created by Alison Peirse, where she is researching the works of the Brazilian filmmaker Juliana Rojas. Her writing outside of academia can be found on The London Horror Society and the UK Film Review.

Roger Luckhurst is a British writer and academic. He is Professor in Modern and Contemporary Literature in the Department of English and Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London and was Distinguished Visiting Professor at Columbia University in 2016. He works on Victorian literature, contemporary literature, Gothic and weird fiction, trauma studies, and speculative/science fiction. Luckhurst is notable for his introductions and editorships to the Oxford World's Classics series volumes -- Late Victorian Gothic Tales, Dracula, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Portrait of a Lady, H.P. Lovecraft's Classic Horror Tales, King Solomon’s Mines, and The Time Machine -- and for his books on J. G. Ballard (1997), The Invention of Telepathy (2002), Science Fiction (2005) The Trauma Question (2008), The Mummy’s Curse: The True Story of a Dark Fantasy (Oxford University Press, 2012), and Zombies: A Cultural History (Reaktion Press, 2015). He has also written two books for the British Film Institute classic film series on The Shining and Alien. Luckhurst has written pieces for The Guardian and features for the film journal Sight and Sound and wrote and presented the BBC Radio 4 documentary about mummy curses in 2012. He has been an occasional film reviewer and commentator for the radio programmes Front Row and Free Thinking.