Tad and his wife, Deborah Beale, live in the San Francisco Bay Area with their children and far more cats, dogs, turtles, pet ants and banana slugs than they can count.
Mark Lawrence is married with four children, one of whom is severely disabled. His day job is as a research scientist focused on various rather intractable problems in the field of artificial intelligence. He has held secret level clearance with both US and UK governments. At one point he was qualified to say 'this isn't rocket science…oh wait, it actually is'.
Between work and caring for his disabled child, Mark spends his time writing, playing computer games, tending an allotment, brewing beer, and avoiding DIY.
J.M. Martin has written comic books and worked on-staff at Caliber Press, publishers of The Crow, Deadworld, The Realm, Kabuki, and more. While there he wrote 18 issues of the fantasy series, Legendlore, and co-created a collectible card game based on Todd McFarlane's SPAWN universe.
He was a Gold ENnie-award-winning managing editor (2001–2005) for Privateer Press, and instrumental in building the Iron Kingdoms and Warmachine intellectual properties. He has also served as managing editor (2006–2008) for a nationally-syndicated magazine publisher called YOUnique, interviewing celebrities such as former UFC champion Rich Franklin and The Hunger Games movie star, Josh Hutcherson.
In 2013 he began Ragnarok Publications along with Tim Marquitz, and presently serves as the company’s Creative Director. He has various short stories in anthologies such as Sails & Sorcery, Dark Heroes, Manifesto: UF, and Neverland’s Library, and he is also co-creator and co-writer of the supernatural horror Weird Western series, “Dead West.”
After more than a decade teaching history, religion, and philosophy, Brian Staveley decided to write books. He now lives on a steep dirt road in the hills of southern Vermont, where he divides his time between fathering, writing, husbanding, splitting wood, skiing, and exploring old trails. Stiff knees permitting, Brian also still competes in multi-day adventure races. While he hopes that participating in these gruelling events will give him insight into the physical and psychological suffering faced by his characters, it’s possible that he’s just too dumb to quit. To the dismay of his family, he also sometimes tries to play the banjo.
Tim Marquitz is an author and editor, having most recently compiled and edited Angelic Knight Press anthologies, Fading Light: An Anthology of the Monstrous and Manifesto: UF, as well as Ragnarok Publications’ Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters.
His writing credits include the "Demon Squad" series, the "Blood War Trilogy," the “Dead West” series, as well as several standalone books, and numerous anthology appearances including Triumph Over Tragedy, Corrupts Absolutely?, Demonic Dolls, Neverland’s Library, and No Place Like Home.
Marsheila (Marcy) Rockwell was born an indeterminate number of years ago in America's Last, Best Place. A descendant of kings, pilgrims, Ojibwe hunters and possibly a witch or two, she spent the first few years of her life frolicking gleefully in a large backyard that is now part of one of the nation's largest Superfund sites. Perhaps that explains her early penchant for fantasy and horror--the first book she ever read (at the tender age of three) was L. Frank Baum's Ozma of Oz.
Fast forward two decades. Marcy graduated from Last, Best Place State University with a degree, not in Creative Writing, as may have been expected, but in Civil Engineering—because even then, she knew writing alone would never pay the bills (her mistake, of course, was in thinking that engineering would). But while she worked as a registered Professional Engineer for several years, she never forgot her true passion, sparked by that early love of books, and in 2005, after more than ten years of writing and submitting short stories and poems, she finally landed her first book contract.
Marcy now lives in the desert in the shadow of an improbably green mountain with her Naval officer husband, their three sons, the requisite Black Lab, and far too many books. In odd moments stolen from her family and her writing, she can be found browsing eBay for unusual Wonder Woman figures or Seabees sweetheart jewelry from WWII.
Jeff Mariotte was born in Park Forest, Illinois. He moved away from there at the age of six, when his father, a civilian working for the Department of Defense, was transferred to Paris, France. Since then he's lived in Arlington and Reston, Virginia, Worms and Schriesheim, Germany, San Jose, San Diego, and Arizona.
He graduated from San Jose State University with a degree in Radio/TV/Film. He has worked delivering the Washington Post, in a comic book store, fast food, selling encyclopedias door-to-door, and as maintenance supervisor for a large regional shopping center. He was the manager of Hunter's Books, La Jolla when his first fiction was published. He has been VP of Marketing and Senior Editor for comic book publisher WildStorm Productions, Editor-in-Chief for IDW Publishing, and a freelance writer. He and his wife Maryelizabeth Hart and partner Terry Gilman are the owners of Mysterious Galaxy, an independent bookstore specializing in mystery, science fiction, fantasy, and horror.
He currently lives on the Flying M Ranch in Arizona with his wife and two dogs, in a house filled with books and comics and toys and music and laughter.
He is passionate about—among other things—reading, the deserts and mountains and forests of the American West, modern and historical politics, photography, independent bookstores, and whatever else strikes his fancy at any given moment.
Kenny Soward grew up in Crescent Park, Kentucky, a small suburb just south of Cincinnati, Ohio, listening to hard rock and playing outdoors. In those quiet '70s streets, he jumped bikes, played Nerf football, and acquired many a childhood scar.
Kenny's love for books flourished early, a habit passed down to him by his uncles. He burned through his grade school library, and in high school spent many days in detention for reading fantasy fiction during class. In those days, his sixth grade teacher encouraged him to start a journal, so he began jotting down pieces of stories, mostly the outcomes of Dungeons & Dragons gaming sessions. At the University of Kentucky, Kenny took creative writing classes under Gurny Norman, former Kentucky Poet Laureate and author of Divine Rights Trip (1971).
By day, Kenny works as a Unix professional, and at night he writes and sips bourbon. His latest releases are Rough Magick (GnomeSaga #1) and the “Dead West” series, which he co-writes with Tim Marquitz and J.M. Martin. He now lives in Independence, Kentucky, with three cats and a gal who thinks she's a cat. His website is www.kennysoward.com.
Betsy Dornbusch writes urban and epic fantasy, science fiction, and dabbles in thrillers and erotica. Her short fiction has appeared in print and online venues such as Sinister Tales, Big Pulp, Story Portal, and Spine tingler, and her work is in the anthologies Tasty Little Tales and Deadly by the Dozen.
Betsy’s been an editor with the ezine Electric Spec for six years and regularly speaks at fan conventions and writers’ conferences. Her first full length novel, Archive of Fire came out in 2012 to great reviews and the first of her epic fantasy series, Exile, came out in February, 2013. She’s the sole proprietor of Sex Scenes at Starbucks (http://betsydornbusch.com), where you can believe most of what she writes. In her free time, she snowboards, air jams at punk rock concerts, and just started following Rockies baseball, of all things.
Stephen McQuiggan has written short stories for numerous anthologies, including Fading Light: An Anthology of the Monstrous, Songs for the Raven, Into the Darkness, and more.
Keith Gouveia lives in Florida with his wife, Lisa. He is a mechanical engineer by trade and writes fiction in his spare time. Among his works, he recommends Death Puppet: Revolt of the Dead and The Screaming Field: A Novel of Scarecrow Terror, both from Coscom Entertainment, as well as his fantasy novel, The Goblin Princess, published by Lachesis Publishing and the well received Animal Behavior and Other Tales of Lycanthropy—check it out, if you dare.
Kevin has also edited the anthology, Bits of the Dead, published by Coscom Entertainment, and released his self-published title, Behind The Stained Glass, called by Charles Gramlich
“a world worthy of Oz and Wonderland with a touch of Dante’s ‘Hell’ thrown in.”
Jeff Salyards grew up in a small town north of Chicago. While it wasn't Mayberry, with all the doors unlocked and everyone offering each other slices of pie and quaint homilies, it was pretty quiet and sleepy, so I got started early imagining my way into all kinds of other worlds and universes that were loud, chaotic, and full of irrepressible characters and heaps of danger. Massive explosions. Tentacled aliens. Men with sharp swords and thousand-yard stares and secrets they would die to protect. Clearly, I was a full-bore dork.
Royal Crown bag full of multi-sided dice? Check. Blood-red hooded cloak? Check. Annual pilgrimages to Renaissance Faires? Check. Whacking other (curiously athletic and gifted) dorks with rattan swords in the SCA? Check. Yes, I earned my badges, thank you very much.
My whole life, I've been fascinated by the fantastic, and of course this extended to speculative fiction of all kinds. Countless prepubescent evenings found me reading a worn, dog-eared copy of Thuvia, Maid of Mars (it sounded so much dirtier than it was!) or The Frost Giant's Daughter (high hopes for that one too!) well past lights-out, flashlight in hand, ignoring the repeated calls to turn in. That's as quiet and harmless a rebellion as you can have, and my parents mostly sighed and left me to it.
So, no one has ever been surprised to hear that I was working on (or at least talking about working on) some sci-fi or fantasy story or other. But it took years of flirting with various projects, flitting from one to the next without the hint of complete commitment, before I finally mastered myself enough to finish a novel. And longer still before I finished another one that was worthy of being published.
But wonders never cease. And here we are.
My debut novel, Scourge of the Betrayer, is a hard-boiled fantasy published by Night Shade Books in May, 2012, and will be followed by Veil of the Deserters in May, 2014. I'm so excited I'm beginning to annoy myself. I am represented by Michael Harriot at Folio Literary Management, and couldn't be happier. His savvy, smart advice has been invaluable on this journey. I suspect he has a secret stash of 20-siders somewhere in his desk.
I live with my lovely wife, Kris, and three daughters in a suburb west of Chicago. I am indebted to Kris in countless ways for her steadfast encouragement, support, and thick skin in dealing with a prickly, moody writer. I don't always like living with me, but she has a choice and stays anyway.
And before you are tempted to mention it, I am fully aware that siring three daughters is certainly karmic retribution, particularly when they all transform into teenagers. I cling to the hope of discovering at least one of them reading covertly in the middle of the night. That kind of transgression I can handle.
William Meikle is a Scottish genre writer now living in Newfoundland. He has 20 novels and several hundred short stories in genre presses, anthologies and magazines. His current bestseller is the sci-fi novel The Invasion with 20,000 copies sold and counting. When he's not writing Willie drinks beer, plays guitar, and dreams of fortune and glory.
Ian Creasey was born in 1969 and lives in Yorkshire, England. He began writing when rock and roll stardom failed to return his calls. His first story was published in 1999, and since then he has appeared regularly in magazines such as Asimov's Science Fiction.
His story "Erosion" featured on the 2009 Locus Recommended Reading List, and was reprinted in three Year's Best anthologies. "Erosion" is the lead story in his collection Maps of the Edge, alongside sixteen other SF tales.
Ian's spare time interests include hiking, gardening, and environmental conservation work... anything to get him outdoors and away from the computer screen.
Hi. I’m Mercedes M. Yardley. I have two broken laptops, three kids, a husband, and no time to write, although I try my very best. I like to write stories. I like to write poems. I like to write essays and sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they aren’t.
I’m the author of Beautiful Sorrows, Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A Tale of Atomic Love, and Nameless: The Darkness Comes, which is the first book of The Bone Angel Trilogy. I specialize in the dark and beautiful. I blog at abrokenlaptop.com.
Pete Rawlik's first professional sale was “On the Far Side of the Apocalypse” to the legendary magazine Talebones in 1997. Since then his work has appeared in Crypt of Cthulhu, Morpheus Tales, the Lovecraft Ezine, Innsmouth, and the anthologies Dead But Dreaming 2, Horror for the Holidays, Urban Cthulhu, and Worlds of Cthulhu. He is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Science Fiction and Tales of the Shadowmen, an annual anthology series focusing on heroes from French literature, comics and film. His first novel, Reanimators, came out in 2013 from Night Shade Books.
Joseph Lallo, though having written several novels, is slow to consider himself an author. Educated at NJIT, where he earned a Master’s Degree in Computer Engineering, the world of Information Technology is where most of his bills are paid. When not crunching numbers, he owns and operates BrainLazy.com along with two friends. There he posts random rants and editorials regarding the world of humor, entertainment, and technology. He made his home in Bayonne, NJ, where he had lived all of his life until the success of his books allowed him to buy a home in Colonia, NJ. His novels and short stories are available via Smashwords.com.
Teresa Frohock has turned her love of dark fantasy and horror into tales of deliciously creepy fiction. She is the author of Miserere: An Autumn Tale and has a short story, “Naked the Night Sings,” in the urban fantasy anthology Manifesto: UF. Teresa lives in North Carolina where she has long been accused of telling stories, which is a southern colloquialism for lying.
Don Webb's first professional fiction sale was the short story "Rhinestone Manifesto", published in Interzone 13 (Autumn, 1985). He is best known for weird, experimental, and offbeat fiction, as well as works inspired by H. P. Lovecraft and, according to Locus Magazine, he has published many stories, essays, interviews and other writing materials. His short stories have appeared or been referenced in numerous anthologies, including The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eleventh Annual Collection, Asimov's Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. His story "The Great White Bed" (F&SF, May 2007) was nominated for the International Horror Critics Award.
Webb has published 12 books and over 400 other items covering a broad range of topics. He is a member of the Turkey City Writer's Workshop, currently lives in Austin, Texas, and teaches creative writing at the University of California, Los Angeles.
R.S. Belcher won the grand prize in the Strange New Worlds SF-writing contest. He runs Cosmic Castle, a comic book shop in Roanoke, Virginia.
Marie Brennan is the pseudonym of Bryn Neuenschwander, an American fantasy author. Her works include the Doppelganger duology (Doppelganger and its sequel Warrior and Witch, respectively retitled “Warrior and Witch” on later printings); the Onyx Court series; and numerous short stories. The first of the Onyx Court novels, Midnight Never Come, published in May, 2008, in the UK, and in June, 2008, in the USA; it received a four star-review from SFX Magazine.
As an undergraduate at Harvard University, Bryn served as co-chair of the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association. After graduating from Harvard, she pursued graduate studies at Indiana University, studying folklore and anthropology; in 2008 she left graduate school without completing her PhD in order to pursue writing full-time.
Miles Cameron is a military veteran and historian. He has a degree in Medieval History and lives with his wife and daughter in the most multi-cultural city in the world. There’s also a cat. So far, no horse. However, there are a great many pieces of armour, swords, pole-axes, tents, camp kettles, bits of horse harness, and other guarantees that the author spends far too much money on reenacting.
In the course of his military career, the author served both in combat roles and on staffs—and had the opportunity to give orders and take them, and to watch the modern equivalents of Kings and Constables and the like make decisions, both good and bad.
&n
bsp; The author also served for a while in the deep and dark worlds of electronic warfare, and would be the first to admit that his Neo-Platonic magic system is deeply tinged with personal experiences of detecting an adversary’s transmissions and using his own signals as a beacon for a counter-strike.
And finally, the author loves the deep wilderness—loves to camp six miles from a road—using only 14th century or 18th century camping techniques and equipment. The author feels—right or wrong—that when you are deep in the Metcalf Lake region of the Adirondack Mountains (or the Serengeti), anything might happen. Everything is possible. Just walk out of the circle of firelight into the waiting darkness, and feel the Wild.
That’s not fantasy.
Acknowledgments
Alex von der Linden * DeAnna Knippling * Rhizosphere * Dusty Wallace * James Aquilone * Holly Heisley * Rivka Kawano * Shane Jardine * Gabriel Delorme * Paul V. * Nick Sharps * Paul Martin * Eric Porter * Neverenoughbooks.org * Jodi Greene-Kelley * Sally Wright * Doug Sturtevant * Ellen Sandberg * Adrian Hawryluk * Brandon Zarzyczyny * Howard Picaizen * Leigh Drusilla Lyle * Denise Falvo * Josh Vogt * D. Werner * Kunal Garg * Matthew Charlton * Jeanette Sanders * Greg Bennett * Erik Buchanan * Cam McBain * Jason Toliopoulos * David Ledeboer * Mike Bryant * Adam VanSpankeren * Mihir Wanchoo * * Georgia and Kevin Weiman * Leah Zine * Maxwell Heath * Amanda Moore * Samantha Henderson * David Federman * Steve McCracken * Kirk Dougal * Margherita Abitino * Molly Chenault * Sara Alexander * Sarah Parkinson * Nicole Priest * Nathan Washor * Eugene Fong * Safa Minhas * Joseph Lallo * Ian Martin *Emerson Harvey III * Cristina M. Hedin * Jasmine Skye Gulick * Liam Humphries * Dino Mascolo * Anna Cylkowski * Adrienne Lipoma * Rebecca Harbison * Angélique Jamail * Jennifer Belknap * Cathy Mullican * Erren Grey Wolf * Matthew Longland * Stefan Gore * Claudia Wair * Kathleen Hedrick * Yoshio Kuniyoshi * Matthew Baguley * William Penman * Alexander Finn * John B. McCarthy * Matthew Eaton * John Marco * Tyson J. Mauermann
Neverland's Library: Fantasy Anthology Page 39