Escaping Purgatory: Fables in Words and Pictures

Gary A. Braunbeck is a prolific author who writes mysteries, thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mainstream literature. He is the author of 24 books -- evenly divided between novels and short-story collections; his fiction has been translated into Japanese, French, Italian, Russian, German, Czech, and Polish. Nearly 200 of his short stories have appeared in various publications.

He was born in Newark, Ohio; the city that serves as the model for the fictitious Cedar Hill in many of his novels and stories. The Cedar Hill stories are collected in Graveyard People, Home Before Dark, and the forthcoming The Carnival Within, all published by Earthling Books.

His fiction has received several awards, including 7 Bram Stoker Awards: the first for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction in 2003 for "Duty"; the second -- also for Superior Achievement in Short Story -- in 2005 for "We Now Pause for Station Identification"; his collection Destinations Unknown won the Stoker for Superior Achievement in Fiction Collection in 2006; and 2007 saw Gary winning 2 Stoker Awards; the first for co-editing the anthology 5 Strokes to Midnight, and the second for his novella "Afterward, There Will Be a Hallway." (5 Stokes to Midnight was also nominated for The World Fantasy Award that same year.) In 2011 his non-fiction book, To Each Their Darkness, received the Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction; and at the recent 2013 Stokers, his novella "The Great Pity" took home the Long Fiction Stoker. His novella "Kiss of the Mudman" received the International Horror Guild Award for Long Fiction in 2005.

Alan M. Clark grew up in Tennessee in a house full of bones and old medical books. He has created illustrations for hundreds of books, including works of fiction of various genres, nonfiction, textbooks, young adult fiction, and children’s books. Awards for his illustration work include the World Fantasy Award and four Chesley Awards. He is the author of 24 books, including 17 novels, a lavishly illustrated novella, a lavishly illustrated novelette, four collections of fiction, and a nonfiction full-color book of his artwork. Mr. Clark's company, IFD Publishing, has released 47 titles of various editions, including traditional books, both paperback and hardcover, audio books, and ebooks by such authors as F. Paul Wilson, Elizabeth Engstrom, and Jeremy Robert Johnson. Alan M. Clark and his wife, Melody, live in Oregon.