Black Dog is excited for an evening of Southern Gothic fiction! Peggy Kassees appears once a month on a local television station, WTXL, The Morning Show, to speak about writing in Tallahassee and the Tallahassee Writers Association. She is a book review contributor to the Southern Literary Review and the Tallahassee Democrat. Kassees recently won first place in the Royal Palm Literary Awards for Dark Fantasy/Horror for her book: Flocked: Birds of a Feather. Kassees is an Imaginist. She likes to take what is, then give it a twist to see what can be. Her favorite question is “What if?” A writer of Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy, and Southern Gothic, her stories incorporate elements of myth, mystery, magic, mayhem, and love. Kassees has performed for the public several of her short stories, and has recorded a CD accompanied by Bodega Bob Homme on guitar, “Tales From the Swamp: Swamp Song.”

Pat Spears’s second novel, It’s Not Like I Knew Her, will be released August 2016, by Twisted Road Publications. Her debut novel, Dream Chaser, was released in 2014. She has twice received honorable mention in the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition; first in 2013 for her story “Stranger At My Door” and again in 2015 for her story “Free Ride”. Her short stories have appeared in numerous journals, including the North American Review, Appalachian Heritage, Seven Hills Review, and anthologies titled Law and Disorder from Main Street Rag, Bridges and Borders from Jane’s Stories Press and Saints and Sinners: New Fiction from the Festival 2012. Her short story “Whelping” was a finalist for the Rash Award and appears in the 2014 issue of Broad River Review. She is a sixth generation Floridian and lives in Tallahassee, Florida.

Rhett DeVane is the award-winning author of eight novels and two middle grade chapter books. She lives in Tallahassee, where she splits her time between a long-term dental hygiene practice and writing fiction sprinkled with southern humor.