Gary A. Braunbeck was born in Newark, Ohio in the Year of the Rat and has been apologizing for it ever since. After surviving eight years of Catholic school, he studied for the priesthood until he didn't anymore. He's worked at a variety of occupations over the years, including actor (stage, television, one movie), musician, a carny "stick," animal groomer, short-order cook, bartender, janitor (six stints at that one), newspaper reporter, and habilitation supervisor for developmentally disabled adults. When he's not out and about accosting strangers to forgive him for his sins, he can usually be found holed up in his office, writing, which everyone agrees is best not only for him, but society at large. He made his first professional fiction sale, "Amymone's Footsteps," to Twilight Zone's NIGHT CRY in 1985 and has been writing and selling steadily ever since. To date, he's published nearly 200 short stories in the horror, science fiction, western, fantasy, and mystery fields. His published novels include In Hollow Houses, Isaac Asimov's I-Bots: Time Was (co-written with Steve Perry), This Flesh Unknown, and The Indifference of Heaven (the last nominated for both The International Horror Guild and Bram Stoker award for Outstanding Novel). Among his collections are Things Left Behind (another Bram Stoker-nominated work), Escaping Purgatory (in collaboration with Alan M. Clark), and GRAVEYARD PEOPLE: The Collected Cedar Hill Stories, Volume 1. Borderlands Press will be releasing another collection, this a compilation of short-shorts, entitled The Little Orange Book of Odd Stories, sometime in 2004. x3 is his first science fiction collection.