After escaping a stalled elevator into a zombie apocalypse, Emily must learn how to trust people again or risk losing everything in this terrifying world. ***** For Emily, every day of the last two years have been a blur. She keeps her head down, takes her college courses online, and only goes out to work at her mandatory internship. But all that changes on the day the office elevator breaks down, leaving her trapped when the screams begin. And when the doors finally open, revealing a dystopian world ruined by bloody teeth and disease, Emily is launched into a terrifying run for her life, caught between the strangers she's not sure she can trust and the man-eating monsters that hunger for her flesh. Now she must learn not only how to survive in this new and dangerous world, but also how to overcome her own inner demons before they cost her something more precious than her life. [[Wattys' Shortlist]] [[Promoted by AMC]] Content and/or Trigger Warning: The story contains some gore, violence, strong language, and dark themes. [[word count: 100,000-150,000 words]]

*Wattys 2018 Winner / Hidden Gems* CREATE YOUR OWN MR. RIGHT Weeks before Valentine's, seventeen-year-old Kate Lapuz goes through her first ever breakup, but soon she stumbles upon a mysterious new app called My Dream Boyfriend, an AI chatbot that has the ability to understand human feelings. Casually, she participates in the app's trial run but finds herself immersed in the empathic conversations with her customizable virtual boyfriend, Ecto. In a society both connected and alienated by technology, Kate suspects an actual secret admirer is behind Ecto. Could it be the work of the techie student council president Dion or has Kate really found her soulmate in bits of computer code? She decides to get to the bottom of the cutting-edge app. Her search for Ecto's real identity leads Kate to prom, where absolute knowledge comes with a very steep price.