Lisa Cindrich

Once upon a time I was an elementary-school-aged writer: letters in gilt ink from one member of a large network of 'dog royalty' to another; a poem about a girl named Mary Chate who 'sold her soul' so she could get 'her very main goal' (ending rather badly for her in H-E-Double-Toothpicks); another poem "America the Beautiful" for a school contest. Hey, second place, not so shabby!

Once upon a time I was a high-school/college-aged writer: a poem about the Phoenixville Area High School field hockey team read aloud at the sports banquet; a war story rivaled only by Danielle Steel's Message from Nam for most unlikely piece of 'in-country' fiction; a collection of poems deemed by Professor Anthony Hecht to "out-Poe Poe". (Macabre tendencies coming through loud and clear, although, um, it IS possible his comment was not, perhaps, a compliment. That's okay . . . a great poet and a fine professor!)

Once upon a time I was a (more or less, kind of, are we ever really?) grown-up writer: several preliminary, failed, never-to-be-seen-again novels; a "not for the faint of heart" (thanks, School Library Journal!) novel about a child trapped in a brutal leper colony; a novel about legalized hitmen; humorous short stories about, you know, killers; and novels in various stages about 1.) a vengeful water witch freed from long imprisonment, 2.) a damaged man fighting an infestation of demons, and 3.) an immortal digital mind deflected into a distressingly mortal and debilitated body.

I live in Kansas (yeah...it seems mild enough but check out the Bloody Benders, In Cold Blood, and Gillian Flynn's Dark Places) in a KC suburb that is a mere hour's drive from the "Most Haunted City in Kansas"(!) with my completely corporeal family and an equally non-ghostly Brittany Spaniel mix.