The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 4

TERRY LAMSLEY’s first collection, set in his then home-town, Buxton in Derbyshire, was nominated for three World Fantasy Awards and the title story “Under the Crust” won in the Best Novella category, 1994. Since then he has had numerous stories published in a wide range of collections, magazines and anthologies, most recently in The Very Best of Best New Horror and House of Fear. He no longer writes about Buxton and lives in Amsterdam in The Netherlands.

“In the Absence of Murdock” was originally published in House of Fear, edited by Jonathan Oliver.

MARGO LANAGAN has written four collections of short stories: White Time, Black Juice, Red Spikes and Yellowcake, and two dark fantasy novels, Tender Morsels and The Brides of Rollrock Island, which will be published in late 2012. She is a four-time World Fantasy Award winner, for Short Story, Collection, Novel and Novella. Lanagan lives in Sydney, and day-jobs as a contract technical writer. She was an instructor at Clarion South in 2005, 2007 and 2009, and taught at Clarion West in 2011.

“Mulberry Boys” was originally published in Blood and Other Cravings edited by Ellen Datlow.

JOHN LANGAN is author of the collections Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters, Technicolor and Other Revelations, and of the novel House of Windows. His stories have been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and in numerous anthologies, including Supernatural Noir, Blood and Other Cravings, and Ghosts by Gaslight. He lives in upstate New York with his wife, son, dog, cats, and several tanks full of fish.

“In Paris, In the Mouth of Kronos” was originally published in Supernatural Noir, edited by Ellen Datlow

ALISON LITTLEWOOD is a writer of dark fantasy and horror fiction. Her first novel, A Cold Season, is published by Jo Fletcher Books, a new imprint of Quercus. It was selected as a Richard and Judy Book Club read for spring 2012. Alison’s short stories have appeared in magazines including Black Static, Crimewave and Not One Of Us, as well as the British Fantasy Society’s Dark Horizons. She also contributed to the charity anthology Never Again as well as Read by Dawn Vol 3, Midnight Lullabies, and Festive Fear 2. Her nonfiction has appeared in The Guardian.

“Black Feathers” was originally published in Black Static #22.

Visit her at www.alisonlittlewood.co.uk.

LIVIA LLEWELLYN is the author of the short story collection Engines of Desire: Tales of Love & Other Horrors, published by Lethe Press. Her fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Subterranean, ChiZine, and Postscripts. She’s currently working on her first novel.

“Omphalos” was originally published in Engines of Desire: Tales of Love & Other Horrors.

DAVID NICKLE has been writing and publishing fiction for the past twenty years, with stories appearing in places like the Northern Frights anthology series, the Tesseracts and Queer Fear anthologies, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, and magazines like Cemetery Dance and On Spec. He’s a past winner of the Bram Stoker Award and Canada’s Aurora Award for short fiction. Lately, he’s been publishing books with Toronto’s ChiZine Publications. His story collection Monstrous Affections received a Black Quill Readers’ Choice award in 2010. His historical horror novel Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism was released from CZP in 2011. In late spring of 2012, his novel of psychic spies, giant squid and outdoor sporting equipment, Rasputin’s Bastards, is set for release.

He lives and works as a journalist in Toronto, where he presides over the city hall press gallery, covering local politics for a chain of community newspapers.

“Looker” was originally published in Chilling Tales, edited by Michael Kelly.