• Guest Artist: Ellie Dassler

• Monster Featured: HINT: Sometimes thick skins are seen as strength, but these little ladies’ hearts are powerful enough…Selkies!

• Release Date: Thursday, August 31st, 2023

• Biography: Ellie Dassler is the Program Director, Folk & Traditional Arts at Mid Atlantic Arts. She holds an MA in Folk Studies from Western Kentucky University and a BA in Anthropology from the College of William & Mary in Virginia. She has worked and interned at South Arts, the Kentucky Folklife Program, the Journal of American Folklore, the North Carolina Arts Council, and Long Island Traditions, and she was a 2017-2018 Fulbright English Teaching Assistant at the University of Aveiro in Portugal.

• Guest Artist: Delainey Bowers

• Monster Featured: HINT: If you like Burgoo, these little guys do too. ..Kentucky Goblins!

• Release Date: Thursday, September 7th, 2023

• Biography: Delainey Bowers is a folklorist living in south central Kentucky. She currently serves as the Editor in Chief for Kentucky Folklife digital magazine. She also moonlights as a researcher for the paranormal podcast, Monsters Among Us. Most days she can be found hiking, beading, or on the hunt for high strangeness.

• Guest Artist: Tim Evans

• Monster Featured: HINT: These guys stick with you; like gum on your shoe, a song in your head - with intentions so lively, it’s hard to believe that they’re dead…Ghosts that Haunt a Space!

• Release Date: Thursday, September 14th, 2023

• Biography: Dr. Tim Evans holds a PhD in Folklore & American Studies from Indiana University. Evans worked for about 15 years as a public folklorist, mostly in the Rocky Mountains, then taught at Western Kentucky University Folk Studies for 24 years. Evans has a lifelong interest in spooky stories, which has extended to classes taught (e.g., a class on horror narratives), and publications (on Slender Man, H.P. Lovecraft, M.R. James etc).

• Guest Artist: Natalie Hedberg

• Monster Featured: HINT: As tough as the ocean’s pressure and commonly found around your neck, this being can live autonomously, and always deserves your respect…Pearls!

• Release Date: Thursday, September 21st, 2023

• Biography: Natalie Hedberg is currently a Master's student at The University of Alabama, in Communication Studies. Her research focuses on girlie fandom cultures surrounding popular music, specifically K-pop. She got her Bachelor's degree from Western Kentucky University in Advertising and Graphic Design in 2019. In between working on her thesis and coaching for the Alabama Forensics Council, Natalie enjoys watching Run! BTS re-runs, beading friendship bracelets, and designing stationery for her Etsy store.

• Guest Artist: Nik Antony

• Monster Featured: HINT: Piece by piece a puzzle can come together, and the more mismatched you are, the more thunderstorms you can weather…Frankensteins!

• Release Date: Thursday, September 28th, 2023

• Biography: When Nik is not swinging a sword like the knights of old, he’s weaving stories for adventuring parties to battle goblins and trolls.

• Guest Artist: Vanessa Navarro Maza

• Monster Featured: HINT: A mirror, a comb, and billowing sea foam are not the only areas in which these monsters can roam…Afro-Caribeño Mermaids!

• Release Date: Thursday, October 5th, 2023

• Biography: Vanessa Navarro Maza was born and raised in Miami, FL. As Folklife Curator at HistoryMiami Museum, Vanessa directs the South Florida Folklife Center. She curates exhibitions in the museum’s Folklife Gallery as well as temporary exhibitions related to local folklife. She conducts fieldwork and collecting projects, such as the What Makes Miami, Miami Project commissioned by the Florida Folklife Program and the Miami Street Culture Project, resulting in the exhibition Avenues of Expression: Street Traditions in Miami. She also oversees the Miami Stories oral history initiative and manages all Folklife Center programming, including the museum’s artist-in-residence project, Cultural Encounters series, and annual CultureFest 305 folklife festival. Additionally, Vanessa creates media products about local folklife and assists the region’s traditional artists. She studied Anthropology at the University of Florida and Ethnomusicology at Florida State University.

• Guest Artist: Lamont Jack Pearley

• Monster Featured: HINT: When life gives you trouble and your far from beside her, these souls will appear - maybe with horns, maybe a spider?…African Tricksters!

• Release Date: Thursday, October 12th, 2023

• Biography: Lamont Jack Pearley is the Executive Director/ Founder of Jack Dappa Blues Heritage Preservation Foundation. An award-winning Independent Filmmaker and radio journalist, Pearley is an applied folklorist, ethnographer, African-American traditional music historian, and blues practitioner enrolled at WKU in the Graduate Folk Studies program. The founder and editor-in-chief of the African American Folklorist Magazine, Pearley also hosts a segment on WKU Public Radio & NPR called the African American Folklorist. He was inducted into the New York Blues Hall of Fame as Great Blues Historian and TV/Radio Producer (2017) and Great Blues Artist (2018). Pearley works in Folklore's academic and public sectors, where his expertise assists communities and local advocacies to document their stories and strategize and implement long-term goals for cultural sustainability.

• Guest Artist: Katie Bennett

• Monster Featured: HINT: It’s rude to say these wonderful guys don’t have brains…It’s not these guys that are slow, but the ones who hold the reigns…Zombies!

• Release Date: Thursday, October 19th, 2023

• Biography: Katie Bennett is a folklorist-in-training from Frankfort, Kentucky. She holds a bachelor's degree in English for Secondary Teachers and will complete her master’s in Folk Studies in May 2024. Her research includes a variety of topics including supernatural folklore, Appalachia, folk narrative, gender, and family dynamics. Several of these topics will be included in her presentation at the 2023 American Folklore Society conference, in which she will present her paper “The Spirits We Share: Ghost Storytelling Traditions Among Kentucky Women.” Prior to entering the field of folklore, Katie explored film studies, and helped in the production of several short films. She has also worked as a high school teacher and cave tour guide. She has enjoyed all things spooky her entire life, something she attributes to her family’s many ghost stories and her longtime love of horror movies. In her spare time, Katie enjoys writing, listening to alt-rock, and hanging out with her pet rabbit, Pim.

• Guest Artist: Christopher Acosta

• Monster Featured: HINT: From a childhood video game to a franchise well-known, this little critter is full of heart…and possibly bone…Cubones!

• Release Date: Thursday, October 26th, 2023

• Biography: Christopher has a background in theatre and classical singing. He resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico where he sings with the New Mexico Gay Men’s Chorus as well as Opera Southwest. He also loves cooking, fiber arts, dogs, and has a passion for storytelling

• Guest Artist: Dr. Kate Horigan

• Monster Featured: Witches!

• Release Date: November 16th, 2023

• Biography: Kate Horigan is an independent folklorist based in Arvada, Colorado, where she lives with her husband and three young kids. Prior to heading out west, she taught folklore at Western Kentucky University for several years, and before that at Indiana and Ohio State. She loves working with communities to learn about their stories and traditions, both spooky and non-spooky.

Guest Artist: Michael Cosman

Monster Featured: Cucuys!

Release Date: November 23rd, 2023

Biography: Michael Cosman was born in El Paso, TX. With a degree in Filmmaking at The Los Angeles Film School, Michael studies and continues to grow in the film industry by working on major films, commercials and short films. He has the knowledge and creative mindset to dive deep into storytelling to unravel the little details of everything film. If he is not helping create a story in the film industry he most definitely is watching them. He is no stranger to the horror genre and everything spooky which is why his love for horror movies continues to grow. In his spare time, Michael enjoys working on his side profession as a photographer and playing video games with his friends while his dog Shadow watches cheering him on.

Guest Artist: Ganer Newman

Monster Featured: Bigfoots!

Release Date: November 30th, 2023

Biography: Ganer Newman is a communication expert and storyteller based in Bowling Green, KY, where he resides with his partner and 3 cats. Ganer is the director of the national championship Forensics program at Western Kentucky University, where he led the organization to 17 team national championship titles since taking the helm in 2014. He is the author of two books on public speaking and storytelling, Authentic Communication: Public Speaking for Everyone and the National Speech and Debate Association’s textbook Interpretation of Literature: Bringing Words to Life. Ganer was born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Western Kentucky University.

Guest Artist: Claudia Chiang-Lopez

Monster Featured: Werewolves!

Release Date: December 14th, 2023

Biography: Claudia Chiang-Lopez is a Queer and multiply-disabled Education PhD student at UNLV, looking at the intersections of carcerality, race, and disability. Their master’s thesis focused on true-crime stories as community-making and they currently teach a class on the topic. Exploring supernatural concepts, gender ideas, storytelling, and disability issues with Archer are highlights of their partnership. Claudia also spends altogether too much time studying perfumes, watching figure skating, crafting, and learning about astrology.

Guest Artist: Archie Rizzo

Monster Featured: Werewolves!

Release Date: December 14th, 2023

Biography: Archer Rizzo is a burnt toast queer and technical artist and illustrator working as a bike courier while on medical leave in Portland, OR. They’ve been an undercover autistic for about 20 years, and are branching away from studio game design to find ways to communicate the internal delights, sorrows and disconnection of masked autism. They’ve identified as a secret dude for 25+ years, since their childhood bud J.D. told them he turned into a boy by peeing standing up. They consider their outward presentation as a well-earned study of femininity that’s blossomed into a deep fascination for the complexities of girlhood, and the labyrinth of social navigation within which they continue to wander through as they shift careers. Also, and this is very important, Archie has run into some mean people and situations in this world, thus leading them to create a GoFundMe. Archie is such a kind soul in every way, and it would be so lovely if you would take the time to either donate to this fund or share it in any way that you possibly can. One dollar or one share can go such a long way, so please, head on over to the GoFundMe page www.gofundme.com/f/eyesofarcher.

Guest Artist: Azadeh Najafian

Monster Featured: Vampires!

Release Date: December 23rd, 2023

Biography: Azadeh is originally from Iran. She is an independent researcher and folklorist based on Nashville, TN. She is a bookworm and plants lover.