DIRECTORS

 

BUCK HANNO

 

Buck Hanno grew up on the wide open plains, but eventually stampeded to the wide open ocean of a tropical island where his writin' life is goin' nowhere slow.  On occasion, he has been known to surf wearing his denim cowboy hat.  His favorite movie is pretty much any double feature, so long as he has plenty of buttered popcorn, a bladder bustin' soda pop, and his best girl at his side.  He hopes you enjoy his Schlock Zone Drive-In Theatre novella, Ratfish, and that all y'all start a social media campaign to get the SyFy Channel to add it to their Saturday night line-up, along with all the other monster and disaster flicks we all know and love.  A good schlock movie ain't too stupid; it's just stupid enough.

 

 

 

KYLE BERGERSEN

Kyle Bergersen is a relative newbie in the novel world.  He published his first novel in 2012.  Walking After Midnight: A Quimby Jonze Mystery features an aspiring country singer turned amateur detective in Branson, MO.

Kyle has more experience in the world of screenwriting.  Joining the WGA/W in 2000, when he sold his first script, Love Comes To The Executioner to Shooting Gallery.  Four years and one bankruptcy later, Executioner was released by ThinkFilm.  The cast includes Jeremy Renner (Academy Award nominee for Hurt Locker) and Gennifer Goodwin (Once Upon A Time).

Kyle has also sold scripts to DreamWorks Animation, Castlerock Entertainment, CBS, ABC, and the USA Network.

Kyle started as a cinematographer in Seattle in 1989.  Working on commercials, music videos, corporate films, and indie features.

In 1996, Kyle moved to Los Angeles to work as a commercial director/camera for November Films and in Canada with Trailer Park/Revolver.

Kyle's advertising awards include a One Show Gold Pencil, Belding, Addy, Andy, London International Advertising Awards, Lulu Awards, Golden Ollie, International Broadcasting Association, and the New York Festivals.

Currrently, Kyle is an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma where he teaches screenwriting and single-camera production.

ERIC BEETNER

 

 Eric Beetner is the author of several hardboiled crime novels, including The Devil Doesn't Want Me, which garnered praise from authors such as John Rector (The Cold Kiss, Already Gone) who said, "If you're a fan of fast paced, well-written hardboiled crime fiction, you're going to love this book."  And Owen Laukkanen (The Professionals, Criminal Element) called it, "A runaway train of violence & mayhem, packed full with one-of-a-kind characters all speeding toward an explosive and inevitable end."

 

His novella Dig Two Graves had Scott Phillips (The Ice Harvest, RAKE) saying it was, "The product of a diseased mind."  And it prompted author Grant Jerkins (The Ninth Step, A Very Simple Crime) to say, "Beetner needs counseling."

 

He is co-author (along with JB Kohl) of the period noir novels One Too Many Blows To The Head ("Like a long lost pulp you'd find in a favorite bookstore." Megan Abbott, Dare Me) and Borrowed Trouble ("Like a good fighter -- powerful, quick an hard to put down."  Rebecca Cantrell, author of the Hannah Vogel mysteries).

 

He has also penned two of the popular Fight Card series of boxing novellas, Split Decision and A Mouth Full Of Blood.

 

His award winning short stories have been collected in the Snubnose Press release A Bouquet of Bullets as well as over a dozen anthologies.

 

His crime novel Criminal Economics is available as a limited edition, signed and hand numbered direct from his website www.ericbeetner.blogspot.com.

 

Eric works as a TV editor and producer in Los Angeles as well as designing 40 book covers for crime novels.  A former musician, screenwriter and occasional filmmaker, he is hard at work on his newest book late into the night.

MICHAEL A. BLACK

 

Michael A. Black is the author of 19 books and over 100 short stories and articles.  He has a BA in English from Northern Illinois University and an MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago.  A decorated police officer in the south suburbs of Chicago, he worked for over thirty years in various capacities, including patrol supervisor, SWAT team leader, investigations, and tactical operations.  In 2010 he was awarded the Cook County Medal of Merit for his police service.  his Ron Shade series, featuring the Chicago-based kickboxing private eye, has won several awards, as has his police procedural series featuring Frank Leal and Olivia Hart.  He has written two novels with television star Richard Belzer and is writing novels in a popular adventure series under another name.  His current books are Sacrificial Offerings, The Incredible Adventures of Doc Atlas (with Ray Lovato, and Pope's Last Case and Other Stories.  He also writes novels in the Executioner series and his first Sleeping Dragons,  will be out in October 2013.  His hobbies include martial arts, running and weight lifting.

 

"I'm the guy who used to stay up late watching a B-movie on the late show as a kid, rush home to catch an afternoon broadcast after school, or head to the Saturday afternoon matinees at the neighborhood theater with my buddy Ray.  The flicks didn't always have the best acting, and the special effects were sometimes downright laughable, but they strove for one thing:  entertainment.  They always gave you a bang for your buck."

 

 

RAY LOVATO

Lovato has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from St. Xavier University in Chicago, Illinois.  His proudest years were when he designed and taught a college credit course in Popular Culture.  He has been published in various well-known magazines in the U. S., Australia, England, and Germany under his various nom de plumes.  As the co-creator of DOC ATLAS with his life-long friend Michael Black, he has collaborated on and written parts of the Doc Atlas stories since their inception.  He has also written several screenplays.

 

"I remember the first time Michael showed me a copy of Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazine.  Besides having nightmares for several months, I was hooked for life.  People enjoy being terrified by tales of things that go bump in the night.  I am certain that cavemen told ghost stories sitting around a campfire in the Stone Age.  But I hold the conviction that, what most people see as "scary stories" are really deeply rooted psychological expressions of the tortured human soul.  Our most famous movie monsters are literary creations from Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, and Robert Louis Stevenson.  Edgar Allan Poe then postulated that sometimes the worst monsters are the ones inside of us.  Monster stories come from a proud literary tradition.  I am honored to explore my own dark corner of them.  And they still give me nightmares."

SEAN DALTON


Sean Dalton has authored thirteen science-fiction adventure novels, originally published by Ace Books. Some of these—TIME TRAP, SHOWDOWN, and the forthcoming PIECES OF EIGHT—are now available in Kindle format, and more will be added. The Dalton name is just one of novelist Deborah Chester’s pseudonyms. Others include C. Aubrey Hall and Jay D. Blakeney. For more information, check out deborahchester.com, www.debchester.wordpress.com, and www.faelinchronicles.com.
 

 

J. E. MOONEY

An award-winning journalist, J.E. Mooney turned to fiction to escape reporting about real-world violence.  Once covering courts, cops, plane crashes, and writing the occasional rock concert review, J.E. now favors science fiction and urban fantasy, and does a little editing on the side.  J.E. is the editor of Shadows of the New Sun, a Gene Wolfe tribute anthology from TOR Books.  J.E. lives with an assortment of critters on a good-sized chunk of land in central Illinois surrounded by train tracks and farm fields.

Visit the author's website:  www.jemooney.net.

MATTHEW LOVATO

 

Matthew David Lovato was born in Blue Island, Illinois, a city adjacent to the south side of Chicago.  As one of the founding members of the rock group Mest, he spent several years touring the U.S. and Japan, while signed on Madonna's record label Maverick Records and later Warner Music.  He currently works in the telecommunications industry, but spends his spare time writing songs, playing in clubs with his new band The Twilight and The Sound, and creating book and comic illustrations.  His most recent artwork can be found in The Incredible Adventures of Doc Atlas, Tales of Masks & Mayhem, Tales From the Pulp Side, and the poster cover for Schlock Zone Drive-In's Dark Haven.

 

Visit Matthew's art folio at www.behance.net/MatthewLovato.