Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers

Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most prolific and respected writers in the United States today. Oates has written fiction in almost every genre and medium. Her keen interest in gothic and psychological horror has spurred her to write dark suspense novels under the name Rosamond Smith. She has written enough stories in the genre to have published five collections of dark fiction—the most recent being The Museum of Dr. Moses: Tales of Mystery and Suspense and The Corn Maiden—and to edit American Gothic Tales. Oates’s has won two Bram Stoker awards, for her short novel Zombie and her short story collection The Corn Maiden, and she has been honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Horror Writers Association.

Oates’s most recent novels are The Gravedigger’s Daughter, My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike, and Little Bird of Heaven.

She teaches creative writing at Princeton University. With her late husband, Raymond J. Smith, she ran a small press and literary magazine, The Ontario Review, for many years.

Melissa Shaw’s short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, and Analog Science Fiction and Fact, as well as several anthologies. Shaw is a Clarion West Writers Workshop graduate and a Writers of the Future contest winner. She is currently working in the video game industry.

Delia Sherman’s most recent short stories have appeared in the young adult anthologies Steampunk! and Teeth, as well as in Ellen Datlow’s urban fantasy anthology Naked City. Sherman’s adult novels include Through a Brazen Mirror, The Porcelain Dove, and The Fall of the Kings (with Ellen Kushner). Novels for younger readers include the New York Between novels Changeling and The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen. Her newest novel, The Freedom Maze, time-travel historical about antebellum Louisiana. It was nominated for the Andre Norton Award.

When she’s not writing, Sherman is teaching, editing, knitting, and traveling. She lives in New York City with Ellen Kushner, piles of books, some nice Arts and Crafts wallpaper, and a very Victorian rock collection.

Dave Smeds is the author of novels such as The Sorcery Within and Piper in the Night. His short fiction has appeared in magazines such as Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Realms of Fantasy, and anthologies such as In the Field of Fire, Full Spectrum 4, Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn, Best New Horror 7, The Shimmering Door, and a dozen volumes of the Sword and Sorceress series. Known primarily for writing high fantasy, his work also includes hard science fiction, contemporary fantasy, horror, and erotica. Some of the latter was collected in Earthly Pleasures under the pseudonym Reed Manning. His latest book is the high-fantasy collection Raiding the Hoard of Enchantment.

Brian Stableford’s recent fiction includes a series of novels and novellas featuring Edgar Allan Poe’s proto-detective Auguste Dupin, which includes The Quintessence of August, The Cthulhu Encryption, and Journey to the Core of Creation. He is also translating numerous French scientific romances and other exotica from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Recent works in the series include Louise Michel’s anarchist thriller The Human Microbes and Félicien Champsaur’s Ouha, King of the Apes, about the missing link between Tarzan and King Kong.

Ellen Steiber has written many books for young readers, as well as a number of essays on mythology, gemstones, and jewelry. A Rumor of Gems is her latest novel, and she is currently working on the sequel. Some of her most recent essays have appeared in Demigods and Monsters, The World of the Golden Compass, and Nyx in the House of Night: Mythology, Folklore and Religion in the P.C. and Kristin Cast Vampyre Series.