Guest Artist: Camille Maria Acosta

Monster Featured: Clowns!

Release Date: February 11th, 2024

Biography: Camille Maria Acosta is a Folklorist/Chicana Performance Activist originally from El Paso, Texas. She pursued a BA in Theatre before completing her MA in Folk Studies from WKU. Acosta's research focuses on the beauty of Latinx horror, and how monsters are mirrors guiding us toward our own brilliance; our own truth. She pursued folklore work with the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress as well as the New Mexico Arts Folk Arts Program. In 2023, Acosta launched her podcast Floaties for Krakens. Today, she is the Kentucky Folklife Specialist under the Kentucky Folklife Program.

Guest Artist: Dr. Ben Pyle

Monster Featured: The Hulk!

Release Date: February 16th, 2024

Biography: Dr. Ben Pyle is an Assistant Professor at The University of Alabama where he also serves as the Director of the Alabama Forensic Council. In addition to research, Ben writes prose, comics, and graphic novels.

Guest Artist: Kayt Novak

Monster Featured: Braxxie!

Release Date: February 26th, 2024

Biography: Kayt Novak is a folklorist from Nevada, although she now lives in Maryland. She earned her BA in Hospitality Management and Anthropology from UNLV in 2015 and her MA in Folk Studies from WKU in 2023. She works for the National Council for the Traditional Arts planning folk festivals and other events centered around folk artists. She enjoys researching supernatural and sustainable tourism, folklore in pop culture and occupational folklore! When she isn’t exploring the traditional arts, she’s watching a Lakers game or cheesy ghost shows with her shih-tzu Doja, sleeping, or stressing about the current political climate.

Guest Artist: Josh Niedwick

Monster Featured: Darth Vader!

Release Date: March 3rd, 2024

Biography: Josh Niedwick is a folklorist and an award-winning video producer with over fifteen years of professional experience in public media, specializing in ethnographic methods aimed at public service. Currently serving as Production Manager for WKU PBS in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Josh focuses on creating community-oriented content while providing training and guidance in video production methods and ethnographic practices to future video production professionals. This work has led to him being selected as a 2023-2024 Peace Studio Fellow, enabling him to continue his efforts to promote understanding and community building as a storyteller. When not working, Josh enjoys experiencing story and narrative in various mediums, whether audio, visual, written, or interactive.

Guest Artist: Melanie McNeil

Monster Featured: Fairies!

Release Date: March 11th, 2024

Biography: Melanie McNeil is a current Folklore and Public Culture Master’s student at the University of Oregon. She also graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Texas at Austin. She is writing her thesis on supernatural personal experience narratives found in podcasts and the process of creating and transmitting folklore. She can be found knitting, reading fantasy novels, or playing Dungeons and Dragons (as a fairy, of course!)

Guest Artist: Daniel Reyes

Monster Featured: El Diablo!

Release Date: March 17th, 2024

Biography: Daniels Reyes, a native Texan, juggles multiple roles as a folklorist, multidisciplinary artist, writer, and a dedicated Veteran Outreach Coordinator based in Durham, North Carolina. In his journey as an emerging performance artist, Daniel uniquely shapes his work through the lens of autoethnography, immersing himself in the exploration and interview of material culture, archives, and personal artifacts.

Guest Artist: Natalia Lucero

Monster Featured: Mothman!

Release Date: March 23rd, 2024

Biography: “Hello, me llamo Natalia Lucero, and I've grown up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, my entire life! I went to John Baker Elementary, Hoover Middle School, and now I go to Amy Biehl High School and my school funds dual credit college classes, so I am also taking a drawing CNM class! I have always been into art such as: origami, painting, drawing, coloring, and even sometimes working with clay! I have also had theatre and choir experience and have done both for around 5 years! I am actually, in fact, a part of the Junior Thespian society and have a card for it and everything! I also was in Girl Scouts when I was younger since kindergarten up until I went to middle school. My birthday is on the 17th of September, and I am currently 16. I am going to turn 17 this year! I hope everyone enjoys my presence on the podcast!” heart emoji!

Guest Artist: Daisy Ahlstone

Monster Featured: Thylacines!

Release Date: March 30th, 2024

Biography: Daisy Ahlstone (they/them) is a folklorist studying environmental storytelling through the lens of folklore, eco-criticism, posthumanism, and community-engaged methodologies. They are interested in the ways legend, extinction, material culture, metaphor, and community interact. Daisy also collaborates on several folklore and community-centered projects, including the Livelihoods Knowledge Exchange Network, the Western States Folklore Society, and a YouTube and Twitch streaming channel called Folkwise, which approaches the study of tradition non-traditionally.

Guest Artist: Kathy Fuentes

Monster Featured: Medusa!

Release Date: April 6th, 2024

Biography: Dog mom, amateur mythologist and loving the señora life.

Guest Artist: Matty Howard

Monster Featured: Doppelgängers

Release Date: April 20th, 2024

Biography: Matty Howard is a 24 year old digital folklorist based out of Eugene, OR. After earning bachelor's degrees at the University of Oregon in both Folklore and Public and Family and Human Services, Matty’s pursuing a graduate education in Media and Communications to merge his two fields of study together. As a folklorist, Matty aims to study the weird, shocking, and traumatic media of the internet and its effects on the consumer, as well as the social groups developed around said media. When he’s not studying or writing, Matty’s enjoying time doing embroidery or sculpture, cooking new meals, or spending time with his wife and cat.

Guest Artist: Allison Cate

Monster Featured: Candyman!

Release Date: April 27th, 2024

Biography: Allison Cate is an independent folklorist based in her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee. She holds a Master's degree in Folk Studies from Western Kentucky University and a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology and International Studies from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. For her Master's thesis, Allison had the privilege of writing about the “Tomato Krewe,” which is the parading group she joins each year for East Nashville’s Tomato Art Festival. Her research interests include festivals, local legends, and the role of the arts in community-led placemaking practices. She is also interested in the intersections of folklore and film, most especially horror.

In her spare time, Allison and her husband are probably on a walk with their German Shepard mix, Snoopy.

Guest Artist: Dr. Orquidea Morales

Monster Featured: Final Girls!

Release Date: May 4th, 2024

Biography: Dr. Orquidea Morales is an assistant professor in the School of Theatre, Film, and Television at the University of Arizona. Her work on border violence, Latine media, and horror has been published in journals such as Film Quarterly and Flow. Her work looks at the intersection of Latine Studies and Horror Studies and she is currently working on a manuscript that traces the movement of La Llorona in Mexican and U.S. film. Morales also hosts a podcast with Brenda Salguero. In Monstras, Morales and Salguero discuss Latinx and Latin American folklore, legends, true crime, and all things spooky

Guest Artist: Dr. Michael Chemers

Monster Featured: Werewolves!

Release Date: May 11th, 2024

Biography: Dr. Michael M. Chemers is Professor and Chair of the Department of Performance, Play & Design at the University of California Santa Cruz, where he teaches classes on theatre history, dramaturgy, and monsters in performance. He is also the Director of the Center for Monster Studies, which hosts an annual international conference of monstrous scholarship, and produces a podcast called "The Show Where They Talk About Monsters." He is the author of The Monster in Theatre History: This Thing of Darkness (Routledge UK, 2018) and the co-editor, with Analola Santana, of Monsters in Performance: Essays on the Aesthetics of Disqualification (Routledge UK, 2022) and The Figure of the Monster in Global Theatre History (Routledge 2024).

Guest Artist: Robin Gow

Monster Featured: Vampires!

Release Date: June 1st, 2024

Biography: Robin Gow (it/fae/he & él y elle) is a poet and witch from rural Pennsylvania. It is the author of several poetry, Middle Grade, and Young Adult books. It works as a community educator on topics of LGBTQIA2+ and disability justice.

Guest Artist: Dr. Dom Tartaglia

Monster Featured: The Beast!

Release Date: June 8th, 2024

Biography: Dr. Dominick Tartaglia is the State Folklorist for Florida and director of the Florida Folklife Program in the Division of Arts and Culture within the Florida Department of State. Dom is a graduate of Indiana University (2019), where he received his PhD in Folklore with a minor in Anthropology and concentration in Food Studies. He is a co-founder of Wisefolk Productions, LLC, serving as their Creative Director and hosting the weekly show Folkwise Live! on Twitch.

Guest Artist: Dr. Rachel González-Martin

Monster Featured: La Lechuza!

Release Date: June 12th, 2024

Biography: Dr. Rachel Gonzalez-Martin is a folklorist, mom, dog-mom, cryptid enthusiast, and an associate professor of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas. She teaches classes that blend folklore theory and practice and Latinx/e cultural studies including, Latinx Legend Tripping, Latinx/e Food Politics, and Latina Body Art. She is the author of Quinceañera Style: Social Belonging and Latinx Consumer Identities (2019 UT Press) and the2020 Winner of the Emily Toth-Best-Book-in-Women's Studies in Popular Culture and the 2020 Winner of the Elli Köngäs-Maranda Prize in Women's Studies in Folklore. Her new book project focuses on stories of La Lechuza—shape shifting owl witch in Latinx/e folklore and its connections to women’s stories of self determination and self-defense in greater Mexico.

Guest Artist: Dr. Bernadette Marie Calafell

Monster Featured: La Llorona!

Release Date: June 15th, 2024

Biography: Dr. Bernadette Marie Calafell (Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) is Professor of Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies at the University of Oregon. She is the Editor of the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication. Dr. Calafell has also co-edited De-Whitening Intersectionality: Race, Intercultural Communication, and Politics, Negotiating Identity and Transnationalism: Middle East and North African Communication and Critical Cultural Studies, Queer Intercultural Communication: The Intersectional Politics of Belonging in and across Differences, and Latina/o Discourse in Vernacular Spaces: Somos de Una Voz? She has authored Latina/o Communication Studies: Theorizing Performance and Monstrosity, Performance, and Race in Contemporary Culture. She is the co-editor with Dr. Thomas Nakayama of the Critical Intercultural Communication series with Peter Lang and the Horror and Monstrosity series through the University Press of Mississippi with Drs. Marina Levina and Kendall Phillips. Her research is focused on queer of color theory, women of color feminisms, monstrosity and horror, performance studies, and critical rhetoric.