Based in Virginia with roots in New York, Creature Publishing specializes in feminist horror, dark speculative fiction, women-driven thrillers, spooky fantastical fiction, literary fiction, and the like.
Founded in 2019, Creature has served as a platform for stories which challenge the status quo, offering titles with a broad and inclusive, transgressive and intersectional, understanding of what horror is and who can make it. As Creature has grown and evolved, our initial interest in horror’s potential for social commentary and catharsis, as well as its potential to cross into other genres and subvert genre altogether, has led to our more formal adoption of writing within the realm of thrillers, sci-fi, and fantasy, particularly when fear or horrific elements continue to play a role, but always where the writing is innovative and powerful, the stories reflecting and widening our understanding of others and the world.
Our books have won or been finalists for the Bram Stoker Award, the Ladies of Horror Fiction Award, and the Foreword Indies.
Our books are creatures—living, forceful entities with desires of their own, capable of inspiring fear, passion, anxiety, dread. The illustration on the spines of our books speaks to this idea. Our name is also a nod to the content of the genre itself; horror is full of creatures, human and nonhuman and all things in-between. They can be sinister or benevolent, familiar or “other.” The monster under the bed, the monster in bed with us, the monster inside. Our creatures have bones to pick. We like it that way.
Amanda Manns, Cofounder and Publisher
Amanda holds an M.F.A. in fiction from Virginia Tech where she taught creative writing and edited print and digital literary magazines. She has worked for C&R Press and W. W. Norton and attended the Columbia Publishing Course at Oxford. She appreciates the lyric essay, a well-tended moss tray, and compelling stories of all kinds. Her inspiration for Creature included sources as varied as Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado, Angela Carter, Shirley Jackson, Midsommar, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, those awesome short films from the Berlin Final Girls, and the list goes on.
Luísa Dias, Designer
Luísa is a graphic designer based in Lisbon with a background in Culture and Communication (BA) and Design and Visual Culture (MA). Since 2016, she has worked in graphic design, first specializing in branding and editorial projects before transitioning to book cover design in 2020. She has since collaborated with publishers including Penguin, A.A. Knopf, Simon & Schuster, and HarperCollins. At home, she can usually be found with a book in hand (most often literary horror or short story collections) or watching films that embrace the unsettling and the unknown, often in the company of her opinionated cat, Odin.
Krysta Winsheimer, Copy Editor and First Reader
Krysta is a writer, editor, and project manager living in central Virginia. She spent over a decade editing intelligence assessments for the US Department of Defense before yielding to her passion for fiction editing. She’s trained in developmental and copy editing, and currently works as both a first reader and editor in the indie publishing space. When not engaged in subpar gardening efforts or attempts to figure out motherhood, she’s generally entranced by a unique (usually dark, many times translated) story.
Will Roth, Publicity and Events Coordinator
Will is a New-York-based, Boston-born project manager, writer, and educator. He received an MFA in Playwriting from Rutgers’ Mason Gross School of the Arts, and his work has been performed in New York, Chicago, and Washington, DC. His past teaching experience includes organized crime history in Chicago and three years at the 9/11 Museum, where he specialized in trauma, forensic science, and the stories of Muslim and LGBT victims. When not trumpeting Creature’s authors and their wonderful work, he teaches writing and public speaking, devours books, and runs very slowly. He loves Buster Keaton, EM Carroll’s comics, and whatever Abby Howard does next.
Olivia Batker Pritzker, Cofounder and Former Publisher
(02/2019–10/2023)
Olivia is a writer, editor, educator, and part-time swamp witch. Her path to cofounding Creature includes a lifelong affinity for strange creatures of all kinds, a passion for storytelling, a decade in the publishing industry developing and promoting books, and countless double espressos. Olivia holds an M.F.A. in writing from Otis College of Art & Design and studied psychology and comparative literature at Brandeis University. You can find her on Instagram @0livia.charlotte or on the streets of Brooklyn, NY.
