Kristi DeMeester, a high school English teacher from Georgia, has achieved success as an author of horror fiction, an unusual genre for women authors. Photo credit: Kristi DeMeester

There are many outstanding teachers who have earned acclaim in fields outside of the classroom. One of these is Kristi DeMeester, a high school English teacher from Georgia who has also achieved success as an author of horror fiction, an unusual genre for women authors.

Kristi has taught grades 9 through 12 at Roswell High School in Fulton County, Georgia. In addition to teaching, she has served her school as the yearbook advisor and an assistant JV Volleyball coach.

A voracious reader herself, Kristi encourages her students to read, too. “I do feel that young people should read whatever they like without the fear of being shamed for what they are reading or told it’s beneath them or too smutty or too silly,” she says. “But I do think all young people should experience a book that moves them deeply and teaches them something about the world that exists outside of themselves,” she continues.

Kristi has published an impressive list of novels and short stories in the horror genre. Her novels include Beneath, published in 2017, and Such a Pretty Smile, published in 2022. She has also published two short story collections. The first is Split Tongues, published in 2016, and the second is Everything That’s Underneath, published in 2017. Her short fiction has appeared in Ellen Datlow’s The Year’s Best Horror Volume 9, Year’s Best Weird Fiction Volumes 1 and 3, and in publications such as Pseudopod, The Dark, Black Static, and others.

This talented educator and author earned her Bachelor’s degree in Secondary English Education and her Master’s degree in Professional Writing from Kennesaw State University.