Author Bios

If insanity runs in your family…and you know just the words to explain it, you might be a writer.

One of my least favorite “writer” things to do is writing back cover author biographies. I hate having the same old stuff on every book, so I try to change them up every time a new book comes out. That doesn’t always happen, but I try. I mean, there’s only so much material to work with, and most of it’s out of date.

I haven’t run with the bulls, spent a spring in Paris, or found Bigfoot. I have spent a good many years wandering the country. Looking back on those years, I think a lack of life story material could well be the reason. After thirteen weeks, I'd used up any good stuff I had to tell people.

Four or five books a year, and you can imagine the dearth of material left. I found a solution in the off-the-wall way my brain works. I think it may be a treasure house of information for many writers. Not everyone knows it, but I spent a year in a locked psych ward. Thankfully, they let me out every night when my shift was over.

Over the course of my stay, I picked up some useful information. Like I wasn’t the only person in the world who heard voices. Fortunately, my voices were all prima donnas. They didn’t tell me to do things. They only wanted an audience, and that worked out well years later. I also found that I’m not a prolific writer. I just have a touch of mania to complement my depression.

Before my stint there, I could still be surprised by the things people thought. I thought being an avid reader, I knew how to suspend disbelief and enter a story. What I realized was that I was only a rookie at it. We weren’t allowed to play along with patient psychoses. That did mean we couldn’t take them up and play along in private. Some of my short stories are evidence that was passed along to my readers.

I am my parents’ oldest child, which allows my siblings to say with Mortimer Brewster, “Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.”

Jack LaFountain

Author of Tracks, Krampusnacht, and Tokens of Perdition