CYNTHIA (cina) PELAYO grew up in a haunted house with very superstitious parents in Chicago’s Northwest Side. So, a lifelong fascination with Gothic literature, romantic horror and the macabre seemed fitting. Pelayo holds a genuine curiosity for superstition, folklore and myth.
She holds a Bachelor of Art in Journalism from Columbia College, a Master of Science in Integrated Marketing Communication from Roosevelt University, and a Master of Fine Art in Writing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Pelayo is a member of the Horror Writer’s Association and when she is not sleep deprived is active in local Chicago and greater writing communities.
Burial Day Books is a boutique publishing company she founded with her husband who was complaining he wasn’t spending enough time with her due to her writing and so she dragged him into the world of fiction. The mission of Burial Day Books is to provide an outlet for emerging horror writers with styles leaning toward traditional horror. The Gothic Blue Book is a horror anthology Burial Day Books has published for the past two years that pays homage to the Gothic Blue Book genre of the 18th century, and the collection has been fortunate to feature best selling horror authors for each edition.
Now available, her short story collection LOTERIA contains 54 short stories based on Latin American folklore, superstition, legend and myth. Each story corresponds to one of the cards in the deck of the Mexican board game of chance of the same name. This October, Pelayo’s first novel SANTA MUERTE, about the Mexican cult of death, will be released via Post Mortem Press.
On sunny days she avoids the sunlight and she wears black as much as (un)humanly possible. When not grumbling about having to work a full-time career in marketing research in order to pay the mortgage, she can be found writing – a lot.
Currently, she is finalizing a second novel, outlining her third novel, as well as a novella, and of course there are other projects in development stages. All new projects currently being drafted are due for completion by 2013.
For being a horror writer she is fairly friendly and enjoys feedback and will occasionally hear out complaints, but we can’t be held responsible if she puts a Voodoo curse on you.