Our Team
Benjamin Vandersluis
Publisher, Editor, Founder
Ben is a firm advocate of horror as a healthy and fundamentally human mode of storytelling, a genre he pursues through his publishing, editing, writing, and occasional scholarship. By day, he enjoys tabletop games and intellectual conversations. By night, he haunts Northern California with his wife, son, cat, and other miscellaneous ghouls. You can summon him with oblations of craft beer or old books. He also responds to email like a regular mortal.
Flavor of Horror: I like horror that is atmospheric, meditative, sympathetic, and unsettling. I like stories that feel lived-in and worn. Rituals, secrets, and hauntings are often a hit with me, but the author must give me a reason to care.
Editor’s Pet Peeves: Double-spacing between sentences; overuse of ellipses.
Editor’s Thing I Love: Cover letters that describe your story’s “fit” among our influences/subgenres.
Dori Lumpkin
Director of Social Media, Editor
Dori Lumpkin is a queer writer and graduate student from the very southernmost part of Alabama, down by the beach. You can find their work in Susurrus, Marrow Magazine, or Spindle House’s very own The Deeps. They also released a charity horror collection through Ram Eye Press in June of 2023, and will be releasing their debut chapbook, Camp Homecoming, with Medusa Publishing Haus in Summer of 2024. When not writing, Dori can be found reading, blankly staring at their laptop, or talking way too much about queer erotic horror.
Flavor of Horror: Carmen Maria Machado, folk horror, queer horror, southern gothic, Clive Barker, interesting twists on the slasher genre, family trauma, Shirley Jackson, haunted houses, A24 movies (X, The Witch, Saint Maud), religious horror, Frankenstein, and that feeling of unease when you're in the woods alone and someone calls your name.
Editor’s Pet Peeve: Blatantly ignoring the guidelines. They exist for a reason!!!
Editor’s Thing I Love: When people break form/grammar rules for dramatic effect.