Vincenzo Natali is a Toronto-based writer-director known for science fiction and horror films such as CUBE, SPLICE, and IN THE TALL GRASS, as well as TV series Hannibal, Guillermo De Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, and the adaptation of William Gibson’s The Peripheral.

Adam Nayman is a film critic, lecturer and author based in Toronto. He writes on film for The Ringer, Sight and Sound and The New Republic, and has contributed articles to The New Yorker, The New York Times and The Walrus.  He teaches Cinema Studies at the University of Toronto and lectures for a variety of institutions online and in Toronto, including Ryerson and the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. He is the author of five books, including It Doesn’t Suck: Showgirls, The Coen Brothers: This Book Really Ties the Films Together and  Paul Thomas Anderson: Masterworks.

Kim Newman is a novelist, critic and broadcaster. His fiction includes The Night Mayor, Bad Dreams, Jago, the Anno Dracula novels and stories, The Quorum, The Original Dr Shade and Other Stories, Life’s Lottery, Back in the USSA (with Eugene Byrne), The Man From the Diogenes Club, Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the d’Urbervilles and An English Ghost Story under his own name and The Vampire Genevieve and Orgy of the Blood Parasites as Jack Yeovil. His non-fiction books include Nightmare Movies, Ghastly Beyond Belief (with Neil Gaiman), Horror: 100 Best Books (with Stephen Jones), Wild West Movies, The BFI Companion to Horror, Millennium Movies and BFI Classics studies of Cat People, Doctor Who and Quatermass and the Pit. He is a contributing editor to Sight & Sound and Empire magazines (writing Empire’s popular Video Dungeon column), has written and broadcast widely, and scripted radio and television documentaries. His stories ‘Week Woman’ and ‘Ubermensch’ have been adapted into an episode of the TV series The Hunger and an Australian short film; he has directed and written a tiny film Missing Girl; he co-wrote the West End play The Hallowe’en Sessions. Following his Radio 4 play ‘Cry Babies’, he wrote episodes for Radio 7’s series The Man in Black (‘Phish Phood’) and Glass Eye Pix’ Tales From Beyond the Pale (‘Sarah Minds the Dog’). He scripted (with Maura McHugh) the comic book miniseries Witchfinder: The Mysteries of Unland (Dark Horse), illustrated by Tyler Crook; it’s a spinoff from Mike Mignola’s Hellboy series. His official web-site is at www.johnnyalucard.com. His forthcoming fiction includes the novels The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange and Angels of Music . He is on Twitter as @AnnoDracula.

Xueting C. Ni was born in Guangzhou, during China’s “re-opening to the West”. Having lived in cities across China, she emigrated with her family to Britain at the age of 11, where she continued to be immersed in Chinese culture, alongside her British education, realising ultimately that this gave her a unique a cultural perspective, bridging her Eastern and Western experiences. After graduating in English Literature from the University of London, she began a career in the publishing industry, whilst also translating original works of Chinese fiction. She returned to China in 2008 to continue her research at Central University of Nationalities, Beijing. Since 2010, Xueting has written extensively on Chinese culture and China’s place in Western pop media, working with companies, theatres, institutions and festivals, to help improve understanding of China’s heritage, culture and innovation, and introduce its wonders to new audiences. Xueting has contributed to the BBC, Tordotcom Publishing, and the Guangdong Art Academy. Her first book, From Kuan Yin to Chairman Mao, is published by Weiser Books. Her new anthology Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction came out in November 2021. Xueting currently lives just outside London with her partner and their cats, all of whom are learning Chinese.

Wendy C. Nielsen (www.wendynielsen.com) is Associate Professor of English at Montclair State University in New Jersey, where she teaches European Romanticism, Science Fiction, Enlightenment literature, and other courses about comparative literature. She is interested in solving why certain popular figures recur in British, German, and French literature, as seen in her book Women Warriors in Romantic Drama (University of Delaware Press, 2012) and the forthcoming monograph, Motherless Creations: Fictions of Artificial Life, 1650-1890 (Routledge, 2022). She regularly publishes scholarly essays in academic journals on world literature, Romantic-era automata, theater, the French Revolution, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Olympe de Gouges, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elizabeth Inchbald, Charlotte Corday, and Boadicea.

Mark Norman is a renowned folklorist, author, and broadcaster, best known as the creator of The Folklore Podcast, a globally acclaimed show with millions of downloads since 2015. His books include The Folklore of Devon and The Folklore of Wales: Ghosts, which was shortlisted for the British Fantasy Society Awards. His bestseller Dark Folklore topped Amazon charts, and Zoinks! The Spooky Folklore Behind Scooby-Doo gained Top 10 status in TV History charts. A Council Member of the Folklore Society, Mark also founded The Folklore Library and Archive, dedicated to preserving folklore materials worldwide.

Andy Nyman is an Olivier award-winning English actor, writer and director, and is perhaps best known for co-creating the long-running stage hit Ghost Stories, which he both starred in and co-wrote/co-directed (with Jeremy Dyson). The original production of the play ran for five years and over a thousand performances in England, and went on to be staged in Australia, Canada, Russia and China, as well as being revived successfully in London in 2019. In 2017 he and Dyson wrote and directed the film adaptation of Ghost Stories, in which he also starred. He has also enjoyed a long-running partnership with the illusionist Derren Brown, collaborating on several television productions together, as well as four West End theatrical hits. As an actor, his film and television credits include The Woman in Black (1989), Severance (2006), Dead Set (2008), Crooked House (2008), Black Death (2010), Kick Ass 2 (2013), The Last Jedi (2017) and next year in Disney's 'Jungle Cruise'. On the London stage, he also appeared in Stephen Sondheim's Assassins, Martin McDonagh's Hangmen and most recently with his Olivier nominated performance as Tevye in Trevor Nunn's production of 'Fiddler on the Roof.'