About Our Bloggers
Theodore Beale is the author of five science fiction and fantasy novels, including Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy. An active member of the SFWA, he has participated on three Nebula Award juries. He is a professional game designer and he lives in Italy.
Judith Berman’s last Black Gate offering, “Awakening,” was a finalist for the 2007 Nebula Award. Residing in another wing of the genre, her most recent story, “Pelago,” is a far-future sf novella forthcoming in the February 2009 Asimov’s. Other not-very-short fiction includes works in Interzone, Realms of Fantasy, Best Short Novels 2005, and the chapbook Lord Stink and Other Stories (Small Beer Press, 2002). Her first full-length novel, Bear Daughter (Ace, September 2005), was praised as “utterly absorbing, unforgettable…truly original and unique” (Booklist, Starred Review), “brilliant” (VOYA), and “a richly imaginative tour de force” (Locus). In addition to the Nebula she has been short-listed for the Sturgeon and Crawford Awards, and her often-cited essay on trends in the field, “Science Fiction Without the Future,” received the Science Fiction Research Association’s Pioneer Award in 2001. Her website is at http://www.judithberman.net, and at the moment, rather to her surprise, she is living in Dubai on the Arabian Gulf.
Photo by Michael Wakely
James Enge lives in northwest Ohio with his wife, their two children, four cats of varying degrees of mental instability and two goldfish intent on world domination. He teaches Latin, Greek and classical civilization at a medium-sized public university. His stories about Morlock Ambrosius have appeared in Black Gate, at Flashing Swords, and at Every Day Fiction. His novella “The Lawless Hours” (Black Gate #11) was selected by Dave Truesdale for his “Best of 2007” list. Look for his first novel Blood of Ambrose, slated to appear from Pyr Books in April 2009. He can be reached through his web-page or his blog.
E.E. Knight was born in 1965 in La Crosse Wisconsin and grew up in Minnesota. His first novel, Way of the Wolf, was published in 2003. Knight lives in Oak Park, IL with his bellydancing wife and some cats.
Scott Oden has a weird fascination with Orcs. But, he also writes fantasy and historical adventure so weird fascinations are par for the course. His novels include the critically-acclaimed Egyptian epic Men of Bronze (2005) and Memnon (2006), which chronicles the life of Alexander the Great’s deadliest foe. His latest, The Lion of Cairo, which he dubs “historical sword-and-sorcery”, is forthcoming from Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press.
Oden’s fascination with far-off places began when his oldest brother introduced him to the staggering and savage vistas of Robert E. Howard and Harold Lamb. Though Oden started writing his own tales at the age of fourteen, it would be many years before anything would come of it. In the meantime, he had a brief and tempestuous fling with academia before retiring to the private sector, where he worked the usual roster of odd jobs—from delivering pizza to stacking paper in the bindery of a printing company to clerking at a video store. Nowadays, Oden writes full-time from his family home near Somerville, Alabama.
Photo by Marcia DeFiore
In addition to stints as a newspaper reporter and college English teacher, David Soyka has been a freelance writer since 1978. While he writes the occasional short story, he makes a living writing corporate communications, which is a kind of fiction. His website is at http://homepage.mac.com/prosenet. As a disk jockey for WTJU in Charlottesville, VA, he co-hosts Vagabond Shoes, where he plays basically whatever he wants.
Bill Ward is a writer, reviewer, and some-time editor whose work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, as well as science fiction and fantasy gamebooks. Visit his book review blog at http://www.billwardwriter.com.