JEFF MARIOTTE: 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 and a fast food restaurant, selling encyclopedias door-to-door, as maintenance supervisor for a large regional shopping center, and as a technical editor. 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, a co-owner of independent specialty bookstore Mysterious Galaxy, and a freelance writer and editor. He’s currently the Editor-in-Chief for Visionary Comics. 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. He’s married to author and writing partner Marsheila (Marcy) Rockwell. They live with their family in Arizona. MARSHEILA (MARCY) ROCKWELL: 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 Frank L. 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 where she writes dark fiction and poetry, often with her writing partner and husband, Jeffrey J. Mariotte. In odd moments stolen from her family and her writing, she can be found browsing eBay for unusual Wonder Woman/Girl figures to add to her burgeoning collection.
