Elena Chaikin

Fantasy author, artist, marketer, lifelong reader, and builder of monsters, impossible romances, old curses, complicated families, and women who refuse to become anyone's prophecy object.

Elena Chaikin is a fantasy author and artist based in Chicagoland whose work blends folklore, horror, romance, and the supernatural. Born in Kemerovo, Russia and brought to the United States when she was three, she was raised in Chicago between Russian and American cultures — a duality that deeply shapes her love of myth, identity, family history, and fate versus choice.

A graduate of Columbia College Chicago with a Bachelor's degree in Creative Writing, Elena studied horror writing under acclaimed author Mort Castle. Her storytelling is shaped by magical realism, Slavic folklore, vampire mythology, supernatural history, and writers such as Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, and Anton Chekhov.

In addition to writing, Elena creates traditional and digital art, including character art, visual worldbuilding, and promotional materials for her projects. For her, storytelling has always been visual as much as written — a way of building mood, myth, and emotion across words, images, and atmosphere.

Her work often lives where the ordinary world starts to feel haunted: old stories, hidden magic, strange inheritances, family ghosts, and monsters who are most interesting when they have grief, rules, loyalties, and terrible coping mechanisms.

Mostly Human. Probably.

Elena works in marketing, creates traditional and digital art, watches supernatural shows, drinks a responsible amount of water, and treats Halloween less like a holiday and more like a personality trait.

She is fascinated by vampire folklore, supposed sightings, cryptids, metaphysical shops, Russian myths, and the stories people tell when they are trying to explain the unknown. She also loves superheroes, which may explain her weakness for characters burdened with power, responsibility, and impossible choices.

Elena also lives with Crohn's disease, an experience that has deepened her interest in resilience, invisible battles, and characters who keep going even when their bodies, histories, or destinies make life harder than it should be.

She lives in Chicagoland with her husband and their fur babies.