Human for a Day (9781101552391) (33 page)

 

Jim C. Hines
' latest book is
The Snow Queen's Shadow
, the final book in his series about butt-kicking fairy tale heroines (because Sleeping Beauty was always meant to be a ninja, and Snow White makes a bad-ass witch). He's also the author of the humorous
Goblin Quest
trilogy, as well as more than forty published short stories in markets such as
Realms of Fantasy
,
Sword & Sorceress
, and
Turn the Other Chick
. He has never actually written a story about time-traveling, zombie-slaying British ninjas, but now thinks it could be fun. He lives in Michigan with his wife, two children, and half an ark's worth of pets. You can find his web site and blog at
www.jimchines.com
.

 

Jay Lake
lives in Portland, Oregon, where he works on numerous writing and editing projects. His 2011 books are
Endurance
and
Love in the Time of Metal and Flesh
, along with paperback releases of two of his other titles. His short fiction appears regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay is a past winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.

 

Tanith Lee
was born in North London (UK) in 1947. Because her parents were professional dancers (ballroom, Latin American) and had to live where the work was, she attended a number of truly terrible schools, and didn't learn to read—she is also dyslexic—until almost age eight, and then only because her father taught her. This opened the world of books to Lee, and by nine she was writing. After much better education at a grammar school, Lee went on to work in a library. This was followed by various other jobs—shop assistant, waitress, clerk—plus a year at art college when she was twenty-five. In 1974 this mosaic ended when DAW Books, under the leadership of Donald A. Woll-heim, bought and published Lee's
The Birthgrave
, and thereafter twenty-six of her novels and collections.

Since then Lee has written around ninety books and approaching three hundred short stories. Four of her radio plays have been broadcast by the BBC; she also wrote two episodes (“Sarcophagus” and “Sand”) for the TV series
Blake
'
s 7
. Some of her stories regularly get read on Radio 7.

Lee writes in many styles in and across many genres, including horror, SF, fantasy, historical, detective, contemporary-psychological, children and young adult. Her preoccupation, though, is always people. In 1992 she married the writer-artist-photographer John Kaiine, her companion since 1987. They live on the Sussex Weald, near the sea, in a house full of books and plants, with two black and white overlords called cats.

 

David D. Levine
is a lifelong SF reader whose midlife crisis was to take a sabbatical from his high-tech job to attend Clarion West in 2000. It seems to have worked. He made his first professional sale in 2001, won the Writers of the Future Contest in 2002, was nominated for the John W. Campbell award in 2003, was nominated for the Hugo Award and the Campbell again in 2004, and won a Hugo in 2006 (Best Short Story, for “Tk'Tk'Tk”). A collection of his short stories,
Space Magic
, won the Endeavour Award in 2009. In January of 2010 he spent two weeks at a simulated Mars base in the Utah desert, and you can read about that at
http://www.bentopress.com/mars/
. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, Kate Yule, with whom he edits the fanzine
Bento
; their website is at
www.bentopress.com
. .

 

Seanan McGuire
was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, which probably explains her affection for the region, rattlesnakes and all. Her short stories have appeared in various magazines and anthologies,
including The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination
and
Westward Weird
. Mina Norton, the bartending alchemist, first showed up in
After Hours
:
Tales from the Ur-Bar
, and has shown no immediate signs of leaving.

Seanan was the winner of the 2010 John W. Campbell Award, and is currently the author of two urban fantasy series: the October Daye books, which follow the adventures a half-fae knight errant, and InCryptid, which focus on a family of cryptozoologists. She also writes as Mira Grant, author of the Newsflesh trilogy. To relax, she occasionally records albums of filk music. Unsurprisingly, Seanan doesn't sleep very much.

Seanan currently lives in a crumbling farmhouse with far too many books, several large blue cats, and an extensive collection of strange and unusual toys. When not writing, she attends more conventions than is strictly probable, resulting in her bringing home more books and more toys (although usually not more cats).

 

Jody Lynn Nye
lists her main career activity as “spoiling cats.” When not engaged upon this worthy occupation, she writes fantasy and science fiction.

Before breaking away from gainful employment to write full time, Jody worked as a file clerk, bookkeeper at a small publishing house, freelance journalist and photographer, accounting assistant, and costume maker. For four years, she was a technical operator and technical operations manager at WFBN-TV Chicago.

Since 1987 she has published forty books and more than one hundred short stories. Among her novels are her epic fantasy series The Dreamland, beginning with
Waking in Dreamland
; five contemporary humorous fantasies, beginning with
Mythology 101;
three medical SF novels; the Taylor's Ark series
;
and
Strong Arm Tactics
, a humorous military SF novel
.
Jody wrote
The Dragonlover
'
s Guide to Pern
, a companion to Anne Mc-Caffrey's popular world. She collaborated with Anne on four novels, including
The Ship Who Won
,
and wrote its solo sequel,
The Ship Errant
. Jody co-authored the
Visual Guide to Xanth
with Piers Anthony, and edited an anthology of humorous stories about mothers entitled
Don
'
t Forget Your Spacesuit, Dear!
She wrote eight books with the late Robert Lynn Asprin,
License Invoked
, a contemporary fantasy set in New Orleans, and seven of Asprin's
Myth Adventures
, including the latest,
Myth-Fortunes
.

Her newest books are
Dragons Deal
, third in the Dragons series begun by Robert Asprin, and
View from the Imperium
, a humorous military SF novel.

Over the last two decades, Jody has taught in numerous writing workshops and participated on hundreds of panels about writing and being published. In 2007 she taught fantasy writing at Columbia College Chicago.

Jody lives in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, with her husband Bill Fawcett, a writer, game designer, and book packager, and one cat, Jeremy.

 

Fiona Patton
was born in Calgary, Alberta, and grew up in the United States. She now lives in rural Ontario with her partner, Tanya Huff, a huge pile of cats, and two sweet Sheltie/Papillons. She has written seven heroic fantasy novels for DAW books. The latest,
The Shining City,
is due out in April of 2011. “The Sentry” is the thirty-third short story she has written for Tekno Books and DAW.

 

Jean Rabe
tugs on old socks with her two dogs when she isn't writing. She's the author of more than two dozen fantasy and adventure novels and more than 60 short stories. She's edited twenty anthologies and more magazines than she cares to count. She lives in Wisconsin, where she hibernates in the winter and roots for the Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, and occasionally the Pittsburgh Steelers.

 

Laura Resnick
is the author of the popular Esther Diamond series, whose releases include
Unsympathetic Magic
,
Doppelgangster
,
Disappearing Nightly
, and
Vam-parazzi
. She has also written traditional fantasy novels such as
In Legend Born
,
The Destroyer Goddess
, and
The White Dragon
, which made the “Year's Best” lists of
Publishers Weekly
and
VOYA
. An opinion columnist, frequent public speaker, award-winning former romance writer, and the Campbell Award-winning author of many short stories, she is on the Web at
www.lauraresnick.com
.

 

Kristine Kathryn Rusch
is an award-winning, bestselling writer. In the science fiction field, she has won two Hugos and a World Fantasy Award, as well as several other awards. Her bestselling Retrieval Artist series has been called one of the top 10 best science fiction detective series ever by
I09
. She is about to publish her Diving into the Wreck novels, with
City of Ruins
and
Boneyards
upcoming. And her entire backlist—including short stories—is coming into print, starting with electronic books and moving slowly to print books. She also writes under a half a dozen pen names in a variety of genres. Find out more about her at
www.kristinekathrynrusch.com
.

 

Anton Strout
is the author of the Simon Canderous urban fantasy series, as well as the author of half a dozen tales for DAW anthologies. Anton was born in the Berkshire Hills mere miles from writing heavyweights Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville and currently lives in the haunted corn maze that is New Jersey (where nothing paranormal ever really happens, he assures you). He has been a featured speaker and workshopper at San Diego Comic-Con, Gencon, New York Comic-Con, and the Brooklyn Book Festival. In his scant spare time, he is a writer, a sometimes actor, sometimes musician, occasional RPGer, and the world's most casual-and-controller-smashing video-gamer. He can often be found lurking the darkened halls of
www.antonstrout.com
.

 

Ian Tregillis
was born to a bearded mountebank and a discredited tarot card reader, who settled in the Minnesota Territory after fleeing the wrath of a Flemish prince. (The full story involves a sunken barge, taconite ore, and a stolen horse.) He received a doctorate in physics from the University of Minnesota before escaping to New Mexico, where he consorts with writers, scientists, and other disreputable types. His first novel,
Bitter Seeds
, debuted in 2010. The second volume of the Milkweed Triptych,
The Coldest War
, is scheduled for publication in 2012. He is a member of George R. R. Martin's Wild Cards writing collective. His website is
www.iantregillis.com
.

 

Tim Waggoner
'
s
novels include the Nekropolis series of urban fantasies and the Ghost Trackers series written in collaboration with Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson of the
Ghost Hunters
television show. In total, he's published over twenty novels and two short story collections, and his articles on writing have appeared in
Writer
'
s Digest
and
Writers
'
Journal,
among others. He teaches creative writing at Sinclair Community College and in Seton Hill University's Master of Fine Arts in Writing Popular Fiction program. Visit him on the web at
www.timwaggoner.com
.

Jennifer Brozek
is a fulltime freelance author and editor. Winner of the 2009 Australian Shadows Award for edited publication, Jennifer has edited a number of anthologies with more on the way. Author of In a Gilded Light and The Little Finance Book That Could, she has more than 25 published short stories, is the creator and editor of the webzine The Edge of Propinquity, and is an assistant editor for the Apex Book Company.

On the RPG side of things, Jennifer is a freelance author and editor for many RPG companies including Margaret Weis Productions, Savage Mojo, Rogue Games, and Catalyst Game Labs. Winner of the 2010 Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Game Supplement, her contributions to RPG sourcebooks include Dragonlance, Colonial Gothic, Shadowrun, Serenity, Savage Worlds, and White Wolf SAS. She also writes the monthly gaming column Dice & Deadlines.

When she is not writing her heart out, she is gallivanting around the Pacific Northwest in its wonderfully mercurial weather. Jennifer is a member of Broad Universe, SFWA, and HWA. Learn more about her and her projects at
www.jenniferbrozek.com
.

 

Martin H. Greenberg
(1941–2011) was the CEP of Tekno Books and its predecessor companies, now the largest book developer of commercial fiction and non-fiction in the world, with over 2,250 published books that have been translated into thirty-three languages. He was the recipient of an unprecedented four lifetime achievement awards in the science fiction, mystery, and supernatural horror genres—the Milford Award in Science Fiction, the Solstice Award in science fiction, the Bram Stoker Award in Horror, and the Ellery Queen Award in Mystery—the only person in publishing history to have received all four awards.