Payton McCarty-Simas is an author, film critic, editor, and video artist based in New York City. Payton’s short films, screenwriting, and editing work has been featured at the Hammer Museum in LA as well as in several film festivals around the country. Her critical and academic writing has been published in The Brooklyn Rail, Horror Studies, and Film Daze among others. They the author of One Step Short of Crazy: National Treasure and the Landscape of American Conspiracy Culture. Her second book, That Very Witch: Fear, Feminism, and the American Witch Film, is due for release in July 2025.