About the Authors

Joe Gold

Joe Gold is a freelance writer and marketing consultant in San Francisco. Raised in New Jersey and Philadelphia, he spent 29 years in Tucson, where he was a newspaper reporter nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize; an advertising agency owner, creative director and writer-producer-director; and a manager of the Lamp Post Motel that his father built. He is active in the National Writers Union, currently working on his next novel.

Dale Mettam

O.K. Here's all the stuff you never wanted to know about me. Of course, if you're planning on becoming an obsessive fan/ stalker, then this is just the tip of the iceberg.(1)

I was born and raised in Sheffield, England. This is the city, most recently best known as the location for the movie "THE FULL MONTY." When I was there, removing all your clothes for a group of baying women was not a viable career option.(2) If it had, there's a distinct chance my working life could have gone in a totally different direction.(3)

Having graduated college I worked for a small regional newspaper as a staff writer, restaurant reviewer and weekly contest compiler(4). Following that I worked in print and advertising, writing print copy and promotional/training videos. Around this time I also found myself relocating to the States.(5) In the middle of writing a training video for lawyers, I realized that the best bits weren't the training parts, chopped those out and was left with my first short story about Lawyers in Hell(6).

Since making the move away from writing believable and sometimes humorous lies for other people, I've written screenplays, a novel and numerous short stories. Three shorts made it to the quarter finals of the L. Ron Hubbard "Writers of the Future Contest."(9) I'm also sweating over my second novel; developing and scripting several comic book titles; and on the screenplay front, I'm working with a couple of production companies on a comedy and a horror movie.(10)

JH Hardy

JH has swum upstream in the sewers of humanity. This anointing has created a philosopher to the world. Or as JH says, "If you want to clean out the stables, then first you have to get in with the muck."

Mark Jansen - Apers

Mark was born and raised in Northern California, in the area now called Silicon Valley. He graduated from the University of California at Santa Cruz with degrees in physics and chemistry, and then promptly went into business manufacturing string art, needlework, and poster art kits. With the birth of the PC, he transitioned into the world of information technology and now writes business and marketing materials for high tech companies. He lives in Los Gatos with his family.

Barbara Day Zinicola is originally from the heart of farm country in northwest Kansas. Landing in California on a whim, she founded a graphics and communications company and spent eighteen years writing marketing materials and providing publishing services for Silicone Valley clients. She currently works in the real estate industry and lives with her family in San Jose

Adrianne Ambrose - Confessions of a Virgin Sacrifice

In her early teens, Adrianne went on a family vacation to Mexico. In the temple complex of the pyramids of Chichen-Itza, the Ambroses stopped to view a well where the Mayans used to throw virgin sacrifices. Peering into the well, Adrianne mused, “I would never let myself be chosen as a virgin sacrifice. There has got to be a loophole.” Years later, that thought became the premise for Confessions of a Virgin Sacrifice.

Today, Miss Ambrose lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has traveled to over sixty countries and works as a writer for a video game company.

www.a-ambrose.com

Ted Naifeh - Cover Art

www.tednaifeh.com/

Casey Swanson - Beyond the Fears of Tomorrow

Casey grew up in the Seattle area where he attended the University of Washington and majored in History and Russian Area Studies.

Books and writing have been a part of his life since as long he can remember. As a kid, from about the same time as he developed an interest in Russia, he's wanted to write and publish books. Just something about being around the written word. Moving to California in 1980-1, he first worked as a publisher’s representative. Since that time he’s moved through a series of sales and marketing related jobs till it was decided it was time to pursue his dream.

He started the, "Beyond the Fears of Tomorrow" while in college in 1978. It only took 26 years to finish. His inspiration was Pushkins "Eugene Oenegin" and Longfellow. He has always been a fan of story telling in poetry.

Judy Jones - The Bones of the Homeless

Judy Jones is an artist, photographer, poet, and librettist; having won “Brava for Women in the Arts” contest, with an opera libretto based on the life of painter Frida Kahlo. She wrote for the Coronado Journal newspaper as she traveled around the world doing volunteer work with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charities and while on the Great Peace March for Nuclear Disarmament.

‘Bones of the Homeless’, Judy’s first spoken word/music cd, recorded by Ray Charles bass player, Curtis Ohlson, includes many of the poems in ‘The Poorest of the Poor’, and can be found at: