Fantasy Authors

"Amidst all the hubbub, wine and beer crossed the bar in one direction, while copper and silver crossed it in the other, making everyone happy on both sides."

"“You intend to pray for answers to those questions, my lord?” “That, yes. But I have found that the best way to ask God about questions like these is to go out and dig up the data yourself.”"

"I have always contended that the true connoisseur is to be pitied, for he has trained his taste to such perfection that he enjoys almost nothing."

"That’s the way girls were—they always laughed. Because they were bitches."

"I think perhaps all of us go a little crazy at times."

"Funny...how we take it for granted that we know all there is to know about another person, just because we see them frequently or because of some strong emotional tie."

"The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on."

"Matheson gets closer to his characters than anyone else in the field of fantasy today. ... You don’t read a Matheson story — you experience it."

"Magic—that's just a label, you know. Completely meaningless. It wasn't so very long ago that people were saying that electricity was magic."

"We're all not quite as sane as we pretend to be."

"I haven't had this much fun since the rats ate my baby sister."

"At first, when the shower curtains parted, the steam obscured the face. Then she did see it there—just a face, peering through the curtains, hanging in midair like a mask. A head-scarf concealed the hair and the glassy eyes stared inhumanly, but it wasn’t a mask, it couldn’t be. The skin had been powdered dead-white and two hectic spots of rouge centered on the cheekbones. It wasn’t a mask. It was the face of a crazy old woman. Mary started to scream, and then the curtains parted further and a hand appeared, holding a butcher’s knife. It was the knife that, a moment later, cut off her scream. And her head."

"Mothers sometimes are overly possessive, but not all children allow themselves to be possessed."

"The bad man had really committed the murders and then he tried to blame it on her. Mother killed them. That's what he said, but it was a lie. How could she kill them when she was only watching, when she couldn't even move because she had to pretend to be a stuffed figure, a harmless stuffed figure that couldn't hurt or be hurt but merely exists forever? She knew that nobody would believe the bad man, and he was dead now, too. The bad man and the bad boy were both dead, or else they were just part of the dream. And the dream had gone away for good. She was the only one left, and she was real. To be the only one, and to know that you are real—that's sanity, isn't it? But just to be on the safe side, maybe it was best to keep pretending that one was a stuffed figure. Not to move. Never to move. Just to sit here in the tiny room, forever and ever. If she sat there without moving, they wouldn't punish her. If she sat there without moving, they'd know that she was sane, sane, sane. She sat there for quite a long time, and then a fly came buzzing through the bars. It lighted on her hand. If she wanted to, she could reach out and swat the fly. But she didn't swat it. She didn't swat it, and she hoped they were watching, because that proved what sort of a person she really was. Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly...."

"Horror is the removal of masks."

"Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk."

"Silence hung like a boulder precariously balanced."

"Chico’s was busy that night, the dance floor a scrummage of writhing humanity. Snowclaw couldn’t get over the noise in the place. It had taken some getting used to. He didn’t quite understand what all the thumping and screeching was about, though he knew it had something to do with music. And the dancing was completely incomprehensible. Snowy took it to be some complex courting ritual. But what did the flashing lights have to do with anything?"

"Things are going to change around here. I realize that taboos are hard to overcome, but it simply has to be done if your people are going to have any future."

"Jeremy shook his head. “I used to dream about women like you. Hell, every guy does. You’re like a centerfold.” “Why, thank you.” “I mean it. You’re beautiful. But I just can’t believe that you’re real.” “But I am.” “You’re a computer program, for pete’s sake.” “What difference does that make?” “What difference? Well, I mean, you don’t just go around making out with computer programs. A program is just a…” “Just a pattern of information.” “Yeah. Just a pattern.” “So are you.” “What do you mean?” “You’re just a pattern of information, too. What makes you you is the configuration of data that’s in your brain. Your brain is just holding the information, just like a storage device. No difference. Your pattern is stored in a body, mine in a computer.” Jeremy was silent. Then he said, “I never thought of it that way.” “We’re both software, Jeremy. Why can’t we interface?” “I guess…well, maybe. But where did your body come from?” She shrugged. “I guess you could say that my body is just a pattern of information, too. Everything is merely a configuration of data.” “I don’t get it. But I’ll tell you one thing. I like your configuration a lot.” She smiled and kissed him."

"“Deems, this new pastime of yours may prove your undoing.” “Eh?” “Thinking. You’ve done so little of it in your life. This much exertion all at once…Well, it can’t be healthy.”"

"Nobody ever gained anything by playing chess with himself."

"“You’ve been planning moves in advance.” “As necessary in life as in chess.”"

"Fate, eh? Bloody bad luck, I call it."

"The truth lay on him like the rubble of a landslide."

"“It might have something to do with quantum uncertainty. ‘Quantum uncertainty’ is good for explaining just about anything that doesn’t make sense.”"

"This look into the far future has lightened my heart. Simply to know that there is a future is somehow reassuring."

"Tell my doppelgänger not to do anything I wouldn’t do."

"Look, we’re not getting anywhere. Why don’t we all return to our respective…whatever you call them. Continua, quantum glitches, Erewhons, reflections of reflections—"

"The desire to rule, to dictate, is born of nothing but contempt."

"The silence was deep, yet it was the sort of restful, contemplative silence befitting and peculiar to a library."

"So far, so good, the man said as he fell thirty-nine of forty stories."

"The sixteenth hole wouldn’t have gone well even if the herd of wyverns hadn’t showed up."

"Once your work is as good as you can make it Send It Out! Don’t spend time wondering if it will be accepted or not, just get it out the house and start something new. If it comes back and you can make it better, do it. If you can’t make it better, Send It Out anyway. We writers are not the best judge of our work. For sure, your writing will get better the more you write, not necessarily rewriting the same piece."

"All of the books I mentioned above are available as print and/or eBooks. The links are on my website"

"Know that even when you’re not putting words on paper/computer you’re writing. Living is writing. Everything we do feeds creativity, even in the most un-obvious ways."

"Don’t edit while writing first draft, just get it out. This is a rule I often struggle with because I know the quality I want, but I also know it’s important to write it from beginning to end and the editor mind doesn’t help that for me."

"Read (all kinds of writing, even the kind you don’t do), listen to music, go to art shows. There is such energy from creating and it’s important to feed all the senses."

"A collaborative collection, “Dark Duet” of music inspired poetry written with Stephen M. Wilson, published by Necon E-Books 2012, was on the final ballot. This was a very special collection for me. Stephen approached me with the project and I was excited to work with him because he did poetry that made shapes on the page and I wanted to try something different. We worked seamlessly together and I’m extremely proud of this book. Unfortunately, Stephen died from cancer in 2013."

"After “Consumed, Reduced to Beautiful Grey Ashes” I was nominated for two collections that I wrote alone and won for both: “Being989336 Full of Light, Insubstantial”, which was 100 poems (Space & Time, 2007) & “How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend” a collection of short stories and poetry (Necon E-Books, 2011)."

"My fourth HWA Bram Stoker award® was received in 2014 for “Four Elements” with Charlee Jacob, Marge Simon & Rain Graves, published by Bad Moon Book. The book has four sections for the four elements, Earth, Fire, Water and Air. Each of us picked an element, mine was Air which I wrote as a person who travels through time and space. I’ve known the other authors for years and it was a great honor working with them to create this collection."

"As NYC and I tried to find a new normal after the Towers were destroyed I slowly returned to my book. I was interviewed a couple of times about the book title and opening poem."

"When it came out I had the first book signing set for Sept 11, 2001 in Rockefeller Center in NYC. Yes, that day! I had the book propped up on my desk at my day job as a software developer. When that day came to an end I couldn’t even look at the cover. The first poem is called ‘Fire/Fight’, which I write years before 9/11 but suddenly was too relevant."

"It’s a poetry collection I put together around the concept of transformation after destruction. There are three sections titled: Things Gone Bad, In Between, Transformation. The poems cover many kinds of loss and transformation, for example: a mother mourning a lost child, a lover loss of self, a revengeful lover, even a human losing their soul to a Voodoo Goddess."

"I would say I’ve spent my whole life making up fairy tales, poetry, etc. I started writing to see myself in print when I was in high school. I had a couple of poems published in my high school magazine. Once I got out of college I started seriously submitting work (and collecting a good number of rejections), eventually the rejections became acceptances around 1994."

"It was mind-blowing experience (to quote a cliche). I literally was so excited to be on the final ballot with people who were my heroes that it didn’t occur to me that I would actually win. The awards were in New York City so my mother came up from Philly for the awards banquet. It was amazing to receive it and have my mother there (she passed in 2009). She was my biggest supporter and it meant everything to me for her to see this great honoring. I could barely speak. I did get it together enough to make my mother stand up and wave to everyone. It’s one of my happiest memories."

"I didn’t realize then that I was the first Black award winner until someone bought it up and I looked back at the history of HWA Bram Stoker winners. One awesome thing that came out of winning was that my high school, Germantown HS, in Philadelphia asked me to speak at a graduation."

"Everything around me, the news, my past, my hopes for the future, all the positive and negative things that humans do to each other and the planet. I moved from NYC in 2014 to Arizona and went from a city kid to being surrounded by mountains and nature. The mountains and desert have an overall settling effect on me which help me focus."

"I received the HWA Bram Stoker award® for “Consumed, Reduced to Beautiful Grey Ashes”, a poetry collection published by Space & Time, with an introduction by one of my favorite authors, Charlee Jacob and cover by Colleen Crary, interior illustrations by Marge Simon."

"Write, write, write. Write every day, even if only for a few minutes. I believe most writing happens in our subconscious so if we sit down each day the subconscious gets to know, ‘ah so I can show up now’ and it will pour out what it’s been mulling over."