Laird Barron | email | web site
"Hour of the Cyclops"

Tim was born in Palmer, Alaska and raised on a remote wilderness parcel. He is a full-time writer with poetry appearing in the Melic Review, Stirring, The Adirondack Review, Vowel Movement, and upcoming issues of Mefisto, Undressed, and Ixion. He has recently completed a novel. His interests include research of ancient warfare, medieval diplomacy, and combat martial arts. Mr. Barron lives in Seattle, Washington.

Tim Curran | email
"Noctulos"

Tim has placed stories in Burning Sky, Hardboiled, the upcoming Mad Love CD-ROM anthology, Darkness Within, The Edge, and the upcoming anthology More Fungi From Yuggoth. He writes horror, crime, suspense, even westerns and war stories. He works in a factory by day and writes "this kind of stuff by night."

Misha Gordin | email | web site
gallery artist - "shout16," "confession" and "doubt3"

Misha was born in 1946, the first year after the World War II. His parents just survived hardships of evacuation and returned back home to Riga, then under Soviet occupation. Misha grew up among Russian speaking population of Latvia, and Russian culture become his root culture. He graduated from the technical college as aviation engineer but never worked as such, instead he joined Riga Motion Studios as a designer of equipment for special effects… "At this time social realism was an official culture of the country and I did not care about it too much. Information about modern western art was hardly available and my knowledge of it was highly limited." He started to photograph when he was nineteen, driven by desire to create his own personal style and vision. He was involved in portraiture and did some documentary shots, but soon realized the results did not satisfy him. He put his camera aside and concentrated on reading (Dostoevsky, Bulgakov) and cinematography (Tarkovsky, Parajanov). "Confession" was his first concept photo in 1972, after he realized this was what he wanted to do with photography. In 1974, he left his country and arrived in USA. Misha says, "Creating an idea and transforming it into reality is an essential process of conceptual photography." … and… "At this moment I don't see any reason to switch to digital. I still prefer glowing quality of original print and the laborious process to achieve it. Yet, I believe, that it is only matter of time before digital technology replaces analog and the conceptual approach will receive well deserved place in Art of Photography. I also want to believe that, many years from now, artists will continue to develop the language of photography, understanding and preserving its unique power."

Claudius Reich | email
"Snowdrift"

Claudius Reich is an aging Bohemian, and lives in San Francisco. He is a demi-professional writer, of essays, horror, poetry, porn, etc. (essentially, anything he can get away with). Some of his stranger essays have been published by Automatism Press (Lend the Eye a Terrible Aspect, Death's Garden, Morbid Curiosity #1 & #3). He spends unseemly amounts of time staring at the computer screen, when not busy rotating his earthquake supplies. He firmly believes that snow belongs on television.

Rew X | web site
cover art - "unforgiver" and "gatherer"

Cannot come out to play. The ghosts say it's chore day. (… and yes, he does appear in the new motion picture, X-men… he's the mutant with the invisible hand, whose thumb is always in the corner of the camera frame.)