Brian Ames | email
"Prayer for the Dying"

Brian writes from the Puget Sound area of Washington state. His work appears in All Hallows (journal of the Ghost Story Society), American Jones Building & Maintenance (a literary journal), Cenotaph, Happy, The Harrow, Literally Horses, The Melic Review, South Dakota Review, Snow Monkey, Wisconsin Review, and the short-story anthology Unusual Circumstances (Pocol Press). His short fiction and essays are forthcoming in The Edge: Tales of Suspense, Glimmer Train Stories, The Massachusetts Review, RE:AL, Seedhouse, Timber Creek Review and Weber Studies. Brian is a former editor of Wind Row, Washington State University's award-winning 1983–1989 literary journal.

Alessandro Bavari | web site
gallery artist - "Guidizio Universale," "Ascesa verso il nuovo medioevo" and "Il giardino di Jerome"

Alessandro Bavari was born in 1963 and attended art school and then the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, studying scenography and art history there. After obtaining a strong ground in the classic techniques of oil painting, watercolor and engraving, he was ready to create a new visual language, and to do so he evolved his own techniques using mixed media including tar, glue, industrial paint and chemical photographic etching. The forms used to create the images came from various natural objects such as vines, plants, fossils. Bavari did this for some years until, in 1993 he found the computer, which allowed him to go far beyond the limits of the manual techniques. He treats the computer like any other working instrument, like a brush or palette or a darkroom. "Using Photoshop misses out the manual manipulation stage, but allows me to go straight to the thinking process," says Bavari, "However, there are certain processes, like etching on metal with chemicals, which the computer can emulate, but never replace." Meanwhile, Bavari took part to collective exhibition and gave personal exhibition in many galleries, working also for many agencies. Bavari, in addition, now makes computer animation with Direct2Brain Studios.

Brian J. Conrad | email
"Angel of the Sand"

Brian Conrad has long been a fan of horror and science fiction, growing up on the tales of H.P. Lovecraft, Clive Barker, Roger Zelazny, and Fred Saberhagen. This story is his first story sale and he hopes at some distant day to become a writer full time. He lives in Detroit, Michigan and is a mechanical engineer.

Marc Hutcheson | email
"William's Relic"

Marc Hutcheson is twenty-five years old, and currently resides in Orlando, Florida. Marc is a recent graduate from the Master's of Business Administration program at Rollins College. He is very near to the completion of a novel entitled The Climbing Wave — a work of literary speculative fiction.

Darren Speegle | web site
"Porta Niagra"

Darren resides in Germany, where he is employed as a civilian by the U.S. government. This is his seventh story to be accepted for publication. Among those magazines which are (or will be) representing his work: Blue Murder, Alternate Realities, Futures, and The Edge: Tales of Suspense. Also, his story "The Wholesome Scent of Cedar" (first appeared in The Edge), will soon be available on the Web at The Lost Ages Chronicle. When he is not at work or writing, Darren is experiencing Europe with his wife and their two daughters.

Rew X | web site
cover art - "loving father" and "orphans of the illuminati"

Rew, noting that black squirrels are unusual for his Midwestern region, has recently seen one with some frequency in his neighborhood. He reports that it has yet to say anything in Etruscan.