Joe Bright grew up in a Victorian house with four brothers, three sisters, and—according to family legend—a ghost or two, or it could have been a goblin or an incubus. It’s hard to say.  That upbringing sparked his lifelong love for the macabre and gifted him a dark sense of humor.

A fine arts scholarship landed him in university, but Joe spent more time strumming guitars, writing songs, and fronting a band than studying. He snagged a win in the KFC songwriting contest (surprisingly, not about chicken) and won a battle of the bands.

To fund his creative pursuits, he took a break from school and headed to the oil fields of Wyoming, where he met the kind of rugged characters you don’t easily forget. Some of them end up in his novels. He also toured with a dance group, performing across Canada and Europe, because of course he did.

After earning his English degree, Joe became a technical writer for Thiokol—the company behind the space shuttle boosters (though long after that infamous disaster). Later, he taught English in Honolulu and Berkeley, gradually shifting his focus to fiction.

These days, Joe lives in a man cave of his own design, where he watches gloriously terrible horror movies and conjures up stories filled with darkness, humor, and the kind of weirdness that can only come from firsthand experience.