describe much of her life) she got a job as a kindergarten teacher in a small private school for gifted children. She worked there for almost a decade, then left to pursue her life as a writer, supporting this folly by working at a series of odd jobs. (There are, of course, mysterious gaps in this account, and that is where all the truly interesting stuff happened.) Her short story collection, Map of Dreams, was published by Golden Gryphon Press in 2006, and won the World Fantasy Award.
Thomas Tessier was born in Connecticut and educated there and at University College, Dublin. He lived in Dublin and London for thirteen years, during which time three books of his poems were published and three of his plays were professionally staged. For several years he wrote a monthly column on music for Vogue (UK). His short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Borderlands, Cemetery Dance, Prime Evil, Dark Terrors, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, and Best New Horror. His first collection, Ghost Music and Other Tales, received an International Horror Guild Award. He is the author of several novels of terror and suspense, including The Nightwalker, Phantom, Finishing Touches, and Rapture, which was made into a movie starring Karen Allen and Michael Ontkean. His novel Fog Heart received the International Horror Guild Award for Best Novel and was cited by PW as one of the best books of the year. His latest novel, Wicked Things, was published in paperback in June 2007 by Leisure Books, and a hardcover edition is forthcoming from Cemetery Dance. He lives in Connecticut, and is currently working on a new novel and completing his second collection of short fiction.
David J. Schow is a short story writer, novelist, screenwriter (teleplays and features), columnist, essayist, editor, photographer, and winner of the World Fantasy Award (short story, 1987) and International Horror Guild Award (nonfiction, 2001). Peripherally he has written everything from CD liner notes to book introductions to catalog copy for monster toys. As expert witness, he appears in many genre-related documentaries and DVDs and has traveled from New Zealand to Shanghai to Mexico City to shoot or produce same. He lives in a house on a hill in Los Angeles. Website: www.davidjschow.com.
Each of Glen Hirshberg’s first two collections, American Morons (Earthling, 2006) and The Two Sams (Carroll & Graf, 2003), won the International Horror Guild Award and were selected by Locus as one of the best books of the year. He is also the author of a novel, The Snowman’s Children (Carroll & Graf, 2002), and is a five-time World Fantasy Award finalist. Currently, he is putting the final touches on two new novels and a third collection. With Dennis Etchison and Peter Atkins, he co-founded the Rolling Darkness Revue, a traveling ghost story performance troupe that tours the west coast of the United States each October. His fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including multiple appearances in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Dark Terrors 6, Inferno, The Dark, Trampoline, and Cemetery Dance. He teaches writing and the teaching of writing at Cal State San Bernardino.
Thomas Ligotti is recognized as a contemporary master in the genre of horror fiction. Conspicuous features of his works include an idiosyncratic prose style and inventive narrative structures as well as subjects and themes of a uniformly grim nature. The recipient of several awards, including the Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Award for his collection The Nightmare Factory and short novel My Work Is Not Yet Done, Ligotti is often compared to classic horror writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. Ligotti’s latest collection of stories is Teatro Grottesco from Mythos Books, which also published his nonfiction work The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, subtitled “A Primer of Horror in Life and Art.” A short film of Ligotti’s story “The Frolic” is available on DVD. In addition, Fox Atomic, a subsidiary of Fox Studios, released a graphic novel based on works from his 1996 collection, The Nightmare Factory.
Benjamin Percy was raised in the High Desert of Central Oregon. He received his BA with honors from Brown University and his MFA with a teaching fellowship from Southern Illinois University. Ben currently lives in Milwaukee, teaching creative writing, composition, and literature at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. He also writes book reviews for the Capital Times. When he isn’t hunched over the keyboard, hammering out stories, he enjoys hiking, canoeing,