Stephen Mark Rainey Stephen Mark Rainey is an author of novels, short stories, and various works of nonfiction. From 1987 to 1997, he edited Deathrealm, a magazine of horror and dark fantasy fiction, for which he won several awards for Best Editor.

Darrell Schweitzer.

Darrell Schweitzer is an American writer, editor, and essayist in the field of speculative fiction. Much of his focus has been on dark fantasy and horror, although he does also work in science fiction and fantasy. Schweitzer is also a prolific writer of literary criticism and editor of collections of essays on various writers within his preferred genres, many of which are available from Wildside Press.

Clark Ashton Smith.

Clark Ashton Smith (18931961) was a self-educated American poet, sculptor, painter, and author of fantasy, horror, and science fiction short stories. As a member of the Lovecraft circle, Smith remains second only to Lovecraft in general esteem and importance amongst contributors to the pulp magazine Weird Tales, where some readers objected to his morbidness and violation of pulp traditions. (It has been said of him that "n.o.body since Poe has so loved a well-rotted corpse.") His work is marked chiefly by an extraordinarily wide and ornate vocabulary, a cosmic perspective, and a vein of sardonic (and sometimes ribald) humor.

Brian Stableford.

Brian Stableford is no stranger to weird fiction. He is the author of more than 100 books, covering pretty much every aspect of the science fiction, fantasy, and horror fields, from novels and short story collections to critical essays and author studies. About his story in this volume, he writes: "'The Innsmouth Heritage' is a sequel to 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth,' by H. P. Lovecraft. It was commissioned for use in an anthology called Shadows Over Innsmouth, edited by Stephen Jones, but when the anthology initially failed to sell, I redirected it to a specialist publisher of Lovecraftiana, Necronomicon Press, who issued it as a chapbook in 1992. The anthology eventually sold to Fedogan & Bremer, who published it in 1994."

Brian has two volumes of short stories now available which will without doubt be of interest to fans of the Cthulhu Mythos: The Innsmouth Heritage and Other Descents (Wildside Press, 2009) and The Legacy of Erich Zann and Other Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (Wildside Press, 2012).

Jason Van Hollander.

Jason Van Hollander is an award-winning ill.u.s.trator, book designer, and far too infrenquent author. His stories and collaborations with Darrell Schweitzer earned a World Fantasy Award nomination. His work has appeared in Weird Tales, Interzone, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and many other places.

Lawrence Watt-Evans.

Lawrence Watt-Evans is the author of about fifty novels and over a hundred short stories, mostly in the SF, fantasy, and horror fields. He won the Hugo award in 1988 for his short story, "Why I Left Harry's All-Night Hamburgers," and was president of the Horror Writers a.s.sociation for two years. His most recent book is Tales of Ethshar, a collection of short stories set in the same universe as The Misenchanted Sword and many of his finest fantasy novels.

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