David Surface is the author of two collections of short fiction, Terrible Things, published by Black Shuck Books, and These Things That Walk Behind Me from Lethe Press. He is co-author with Julia Rust of Angel Falls, a crossover/YA novel from YAP Books/Haverhill House Publications. A second novel, Saving Thornwood, also written with Julia Rust, is due out from YAP Books in July, 2025. His stories have been published in many genre and literary publications, and have been selected twice by Ellen Datlow for Best New Horror of the Year.

David has worked as a teaching artist for over thirty years, designing and leading writing programs in public schools, mental health centers, and veterans facilities. As a senior teacher for Teachers & Writers Collaborative, he led cross-disciplinary residencies in grades 5 – 12, using creative writing techniques to deepen student knowledge of history and other social studies topics. He also provided professional development programs in creative writing for the NYC Department of Education. As writer-in-residence for Rockland Psychiatric Center, he led writing programs for adults in outpatient mental health centers, and collaborated with Julia Rust on special initiatives to use art to combat the stigma against mental illness. He is also founder and director of Veterans Writing Workshop. His favorite things are good coffee, medieval music, and old black & white movies (not necessarily in that order).

Julia Rust is a writer and teaching artist from the Hudson River valley of New York. She is the author of two novels, Angel Falls, from YAP Books/Haverhill House Publications, winner of the 2024 Whippoorwill Prize for Rural Teen Fiction, and Saving Thornwood, due out from YAP Books in July, 2025, both co-written with David Surface. Her stories have appeared in Nightscript, Bull and Cross, The Cortland Review, Uncertainties III, and Many Mountains Moving.

Julia is co-director of Veterans Writing Workshop, bringing free workshops to U.S. veterans and active duty military in the metro-NYC area. She is principal instructor for On the Homefront which offers memoir-writing workshops for veterans’ family members and caregivers in partnership with Poets & Writers and the White Plains Public Library. She also designed and ran ‘Pause and Reflect’, a personal-writing workshop for adults during the Covid pandemic, and has served on the board of the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center. She is an actor, Buddhist meditation teacher, and can often be found stuck to the couch by a cat in her lap.

David Surface is the author of two collections of short fiction, Terrible Things, published by Black Shuck Books, and These Things That Walk Behind Me from Lethe Press. He is co-author with Julia Rust of Angel Falls, a crossover/YA novel from YAP Books/Haverhill House Publications. A second novel, Saving Thornwood, also written with Julia Rust, is due out from YAP Books in July, 2025. David’s stories have been published in many genre and literary publications, and have been selected twice by Ellen Datlow for Best New Horror of the Year.

Julia Rust is a writer and teaching artist from the Hudson River valley of New York. She is the author of two novels, Angel Falls, from YAP Books/Haverhill House Publications, winner of the 2024 Whippoorwill Prize for Rural Teen Fiction, and Saving Thornwood, due out from YAP Books in July, 2025, both co-written with David Surface. Her stories have appeared in Nightscript, Bull and Cross, The Cortland Review, Uncertainties III, and Many Mountains Moving.