David Rider is the author of "Tweakers, Crane Girl and the Semi-pocalypse" on Kindle, and the novel series We Are Van Helsing. He has also written stories published by Sinister Smile Press and Grendel Press. He is a member of the Horror Writers Association.

He grew up in Calumet City, Illinois, where the smiley-face water towers never looked the same after a leering stranger in a green sedan invited young David for a ride.

He now lives with his wife and kids in a small Midwestern town that has no smiling faces on the water towers…only the scowling faces of dark entities lurking within the surrounding cornfields.

He sometimes busts out a costume and Photoshop for pretentious author pictures.