I live in Roanoke, Va., with my wife Anita, a comical dog and a demonic cat. I'm an editor, writer, poet, artist, performer, not necessarily in that order. (In my day job I'm a newspaper reporter, though you won't see
much about that here, because this is a play-space, or maybe a "craft exhibit" — unless of course, I'm making a podcast appearance.) I'm also a semi-regular
(I consider myself a "supporting player") at Roanoke Underground's No Shame Theatre.
For almost a decade I've been editor of a poetry zine called Mythic Delirium, where I've published
verse with science fiction and fantasy themes, some from folks like Ursula K. Le Guin, Joe Haldeman, Jane Yolen and all sorts of others.
(And it's currently open to submissions; guidelines are here.) I have a new project, a fiction anthology
called Clockwork Phoenix, just getting started. I'll tell more about that when there's more to tell.
I have 4½ books available on Amazon. Two are anthologies of fiction and poetry, a series I edited in 2006: MYTHIC and MYTHIC 2.
The stories and poems in the MYTHIC series take unusual approaches to myths, fairy tales, or fantastic archetypes (like dragons.)
Two are collections of my own poetry: Disturbing Muses, a series of dark fantasy pieces based on the lives of modern artists; and
Strange Wisdoms of the Dead, a survey of 10 years of my work which includes a little fiction (The Philadelphia Inquirer reviewed
Strange Wisdoms and much to my delight dubbed it "poetry for Goths of all ages.") The half goes to The Alchemy of Stars,
an anthology of Rhysling Award winning poems that I co-edited when I was president of the Science Fiction Poetry Association.
Over the course of what I sometimes with tongue-in-cheek call a "career in the shadows" I've as of this writing published eight books,
18 short stories and 180 poems. Most of these have been in out of the way places, but I've had stories turn up in H.P. Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror
and Helix and poetry appear in Asimov's Science Fiction, Strange Horizons and in the Nebula Awards Showcase series. And I'm still pluggin' away.
If you send me a message here, don't be too offended if I don't reply right away; I've really got
more Internet going on than I can handle. I have my own website, Descent Into Light, that's creepy-red-and-black
like this page and goes into all the writing stuff in much more detail, with news, descriptions of my books, and other stuff. I also
have a LiveJournal, The Plasteel Spider Factory, which is where I do my casual blogging. (Both of those weird phrases
are taken from lines in my poems.)
I'll close with a couple of samples of things I have out on the web:
FICTION
"And then a millstone came along..."
"Gherem" (with Charles Saplak)
POETRY
"Black Holes Hold Their Breath"
"Epochs in Exile: A Fantasy Trilogy" (with Charles M. Saplak)
"The Journey to Kailash"
"lis pendens"
"Manifest Density"
"Miró's Mirror"
"Picasso's Rapture"
"Seventh Coming" (with Ian Watson)
"The Strip Search"
Online Now!
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