StokerCon 2025

A Bram Stoker Awards® finalist, co-chair for the HWA Mental Health Initiative with Mark Matthews, and Rhode Islander living in Australia, Lauren Elise (L. E.) Daniels has worked in publishing since '92. An Emerson College MFA grad, she's edited over 140+ titles, including the Aurealis Award-winning Relics, Wrecks and Ruins (2021), Aiki Flinthart's legacy anthology co-edited with Geneve Flynn and the Aurealis finalist, We Are Providence (2022) and Monsters in the Mills (2024) with Christa Carmen.

Lauren's first novel, Serpent's Wake: A Tale for the Bitten is an HWA Mental Health Initiative Notable Work. It shortlisted for Singapore's Half the World Global Literati Prize, ranked 4th in the People's Choice Award, shortlisted with Queensland Writer's Centre's 2023 Adaptable: Turning the Page to Screen program. Her bestselling craft book, Winning Short Story Competitions: Essential Tools for the Serious Writer was published in 2020. Recent short fiction includes "Silk," in Hush! Don't Wake the Monster (Twisted Wing Productions), "Hangman's Coming" in Where the Silent Ones Watch (Hippocampus Press), and "Darkness Repeats" in Monsters in the Mills (Interactive Publications). 

Her poetry is among the finalists for the 2022 Australian Shadows Awards, has been published by the HWA's Of Horror and Hope, and appears in Black Spot Books' Under Her Eye, Mother Knows Best and Crystal Lake Publishing's Dastardly Damsels. Her true ghost stories appear in Timber Ghost Press' Out of Time True Paranormal Encounters and 34 Orchard.

Lauren directs Brisbane Writers Workshop: www.brisbanewriters.com