Teri Smith
Raising hell for fifty years from Alaska to the Azores and all points in between, Teri Smith was an Air Force brat who never stopped traveling. She was also a mother, a grandmother (of ten!), a help desk wizard, financial assistant and, most importantly, the Queen Nag of the Known Universe. She married the love of her life three times in 2000 and never regretted a single ceremony. Contrary to common belief, she never stopped living.
In the months immediately prior to her death in October 2006, Teri served as a self-described “mild-mannered editor” for Samhain Publishing. After hours and on weekends, however, she wrote science fiction and fantasy, and co-edited Crescent Blues http://www.crescentblues.com . Her short story, “The Visit”, was featured in Let Us Not Forget: A Tribute to America’s 20th Century Veterans. “Magic”, the first of several short stories set in a fairy tale world uniquely her own, appeared in Strange Pleasures 3. A second story set in that world, “Dragon Bait”, is slated to appear in Strange Pleasures 6.
Included amongst her known addictions—such as wasabi and gel pens—were the wonderful worlds she created in her writing: They Shoot Fairy Godmothers, Don’t They? and with Jean Marie Ward, The Chronicles of the Nine Sisters and Where the Gods Live. An avid gamer, Teri enjoyed Final Fantasy. Hack and online games which allowed her warrior avatar, Thelea, to quell her thirst for blood—not to mention her writing, reading, the Misfits (an online group she created to house her hobby of collecting people) and her husband, SJ. Discussion of her other addictions requires a substantial alcoholic libation and the bribe of chocolate.
Jean Marie Ward
When Jean Marie Ward started writing fiction is open to debate. She points to the play about the theft of Thor’s hammer she bullied her third grade class into producing. (Yes, she played Loki. You had to ask?) Others claim she didn’t become a professional liar until she started writing, editing and committing public relations for the federal government.
And like her third grade role model, Jean Marie believes in working both sides of the mike, preferably against the middle. She has served as chief public affairs officer for a major Defense Department agency and associate producer for the long-running, local-access cable TV show Mystery Readers Corner. She’s written news and feature articles for newspapers, magazines and SciFi.com, and edited the respected web magazine Crescent Blues http://www.crescentblues.com for eight years.
With Nine You Get Vanyr, the fantasy novel she wrote with Teri Smith, was released by Samhain Publishing in November 2007. She is also the author of Illumina: The Art of J.P. Targete (Paper Tiger). Her short mystery, “Most Dead Bodies In a Confined Space”, can be found in the Prime Books anthology Strange Pleasures 2. Her flash fiction “First Stone” appears in Prime Books’ Strange Pleasures 3.
You can learn more about Teri and Jean Marie at www.Wardsmith.com
