Peter Francis Straub (born March 2, 1943) is an American author and poet, most famous for his work in the horror genre. His horror fiction has received numerous literary honors such as the Bram Stoker Award, World Fantasy Award, and International Horror Guild Award, placing him among the most-honored horror authors in recent history.

Straub was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At the age of seven, Straub was struck by a car, sustaining serious injuries. He was hospitalized for several months, and temporarily used a wheelchair after being released until he had re-learned how to walk. Straub has said that the accident made him prematurely aware of his own mortality.

Straub read voraciously from an early age, but his literary interests did not please his parents; his father hoped that he would grow up to be a professional athlete, while his mother wanted him to be a Lutheran minister. He attended Milwaukee Country Day School on a scholarship, and, during his time there, began writing.

Straub earned an honors B.A. in English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1965, and an MA at Columbia University a year later. He briefly taught English at Milwaukee Country Day, then moved to Dublin, Ireland, in 1969 to work on a Ph.D., and to start writing professionally.

Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books. As of 2011, King has written and published 49 novels, including seven under the pen name Richard Bachman, five non-fiction books, and nine collections of short stories. Many of his stories are set in his home state of Maine.

King has received Bram Stoker Awards, World Fantasy Awards, British Fantasy Society Awards, his novella The Way Station was a Nebula Award novelette nominee, and in 2003, the National Book Foundation awarded him the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He has also received awards for his contribution to literature for his whole career, such as the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement (2004), the Canadian Booksellers Association Lifetime Achievement Award (2007) and the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America (2007).

Josh Watson (born 31 July 1977 in Newcastle, New South Wales) is an Australian backstroke swimmer, who won a silver medal in the 4 × 100 m medley relay at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Training at the Kingscliff club near the Queensland border, and coached by Greg Salter, Watson became Australian champion in the 50 m backstroke in 1996. However, as it was not an Olympic event, he did not gain national selection until 1997, when he competed at the 1997 FINA Short Course World Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden. In 1998, he made his international long-course debut at the 1998 Commonwealth Games, where he won a silver medal in the 100 m backstroke and a gold medal in the medley relay. He also won bronze in the 100 m backstroke at the 1999 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships in Sydney.

At the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Watson swum the backstroke leg in the heats of the 4 × 100 m medley relay, before being replaced by Matt Welsh in the team that trailed the United States home in the final. Watson was also a finalist in the 100 m backstroke, where he was narrowly beaten into fourth place. Watson continued to be selected in the same role (except for a self-imposed break in 2002) until the 2004 Athens Olympics, when he failed to qualify for the semifinals of the 100 m backstroke. This enabled him to collect a gold medal in the 4 × 100 m medley relay at the 2001 World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan.

R J Dent is an English writer of fiction and non-fiction.

His stories, poems and essays have appeared in a variety of magazines, journals and periodicals, including Writer’s Muse, Orbis, Chanticleer, Agenda, Panda, Roundyhouse, Quazen, Authspot, and Philosophy Now. His translations of the poems of Alcaeus and of Charles Baudelaire have appeared in Acumen and Inclement.

His first novel, Myth ISBN 1-84386-267-0, is a dark, erotic fantasy set on a Greek island. It was published by Pegasus in July 2006.

He has also translated Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil, and Alcaeus’s Poems and Fragments into English.

His influences are J. G. Ballard, Angela Carter, William S. Burroughs and Ayn Rand, amongst others.

Mick Garris (born December 4, 1951) is an American filmmaker and screenwriter born in Santa Monica, California.

He is best known for his adaptations of Stephen King stories, such as directing the horror film Sleepwalkers starring Madchen Amick and is the creator of the Showtime series Masters of Horror. Garris won a 1986 Edgar Award for an episode he wrote for the Steven Spielberg-produced television series Amazing Stories. Garris directed the FEARnet web series Post Mortem. He hosted the double feature re-release of The People Under the Stairs and The Serpent and The Rainbow on 20 February 2010 in the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. He contributes to the web series Trailers From Hell. Garris was also the co-screenwriter and executive producer of Hocus Pocus. Garris most recently directed the miniseries adaption of Stephen King's novel Bag of Bones.

Garris is an atheist.