Paragenesis: Stories of the Dawn of Wraeththu (54 page)

The people mentioned here were
only physical inspirations, and sometimes more than one of them
contributed to the creation of a character’s appearance. The
personalities of the characters had nothing to do with real
individuals; they were entirely made up. Perhaps the Jungle Boy
Mowgli and the likes of Joey Ramone and Johnny Thunders are
unlikely companions, but they were all part of the formula.

Storm Constantine

June 2010

About the
Contributors

Storm Constantine

Storm is the creator of the
Wraeththu Mythos, the first trilogy of which was published in the
1980s. However, the influences and inspirations for the Wraeththu
world go much further back than that, and continue into the future
as she plans more stories for it. Storm is the founder of Immanion
Press, created initially to publish her out of print back
catalogue, but which evolved into the thriving venture it is today.
She has written over thirty books, including full length novels,
novellas, short story collections and non-fiction titles. Her
interests include magic and spirituality, Reiki, movies, music and
MMOs. Among her many occupations, most of which are unpaid, she
runs a Reiki school, the Lady of the Flame Iseum, which is a
magical group affiliated to the Fellowship of Isis, and a guild
called Equilibrium on the EU servers of World of Warcraft. She
lives in the Midlands of the UK. Her website can be found at

http://www.stormconstantine.com

Wendy Darling

Based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA,
Wendy Darling is co-author of
Breeding Discontent
, published
by Immanion Press in 2003 as the first
Wraeththu Mythos
novel. She has been involved in Wraeththu in many different
capacities, including editor of the revised
Wraeththu
Chronicles
, webmaster of the
Inception
and
Forever
Wraeththu
fan web sites, and staff at several Wraeththu
conventions. Her full-time job is as a web projects manager at
Emory University, but she engages in many side projects and
hobbies, including photography and writing. She has also forged
relationships with Wraeththu fans around the world and has been
fortunate to meet several authors whose work is included in this
collection. At home she is ruled by two cats, cats she did not have
in her life until she met and visited with Storm, who as usual had
a strong influence on her. Wendy enjoys international travel and
tries to visit Storm and her husband Jim as often as she can.

Andy Bigwood

Andy is an author, artist,
draughtsman, bookbinder, cartographer and illustrator from West
Wiltshire, UK, where he lives alone, only venturing out for
disastrous foreign holidays and the occasional convention. Trained
in technical illustration, in Bath (shortly before the evolution of
computer aided art), Andy has provided artwork, cartography and
cover designs for a variety of Fantasy, Horror, and Science fiction
novels winning the British Science Fiction Association Award for
best artwork for the anthologies ‘disLOCATIONS’ and ‘Subterfuge’.
Specimen 16, is Andy’s first published short story.

Brad Carpenter

Brad’s introduction to the
television industry began 15 years ago courtesy of Rob Tapert and
Sam Raimi at Renaissance Pictures with their shows “Hercules:
Legendary Journeys” and “Xena: Warrior Princess.” His training in
the world of scripted episodic continued over several seasons of
HBO’s much lauded, “Sex and the City,” and broadened into the
unscripted world with 67 episodes of Bravo’s “Queer Eye for the
Straight Guy.” After being fortunate enough to work on the first
Emmy award-winning season of NBC’s “30 Rock,” Brad went on to
Co-Produce “Life Is Wild,” a family drama for The CW Network shot
on location in South Africa. Over the past two years, Brad has been
alternating between Producer duties for Showtime’s “Nurse Jackie”
starring Edie Falco, and HBO’s “Bored To Death” starring Jason
Schwartzman, Ted Danson and Zach Galifianakas. Brad is currently
developing a television series based on “The Wraeththu
Chronicles.”

Christopher Coyle

Born, died, and reborn again
within moments of being first brought screaming into this world,
Christopher grew up in a military family. With constantly moving
and always being the new kid around, he chose to immerse himself in
creating worlds within his mind. From even an early age, he knew he
wanted to be a writer, to continue to share those worlds with
others. From having worked as a designer and art editor for a game
company founded by Margaret Weis, working on such projects as
Dragonlance and Sovereign Stone, he jumped at the chance to work
with another of his childhood idols when he decided to move to the
United Kingdom once more, involving himself with the Wraeththu
world. Now, years later, Christopher is ecstatic at once more being
able to involve himself with the Wraeththu Mythos, while he is
working once more on developing his own new worlds, and going back
to college in order to finish his degree in Graphic Design. He
likes to stay busy, that Christopher!

Suzanne Gabriel

Born in the USA to nomadic
Canadian parents, Suzanne grew up in Canada, the UK, and USA. She
is a wife and mother of three children (more if you count the ‘fur
kids’). She completed a Master of Science degree in Food Science
and Nutrition and spent several years working in the food industry
doing quality control, new product development, and marketing/PR
and sales. Suzanne currently works full-time at a University where
her job includes managing her Faculty’s social media endeavours,
web site administration, and other duties as assigned. Suzanne is
fascinated by old cookbooks, old etiquette books, and antiquities
museums. Even when there isn’t any music Suzanne is likely to be
dancing and she will go out of her way to hug a tree. She adores
animals, travel, history, archaeology, science, hiking, laughter,
yoga, and photography. Recently she has become involved in the
Society for Creative Anachronism – ‘going mediaeval’ on people has
become a way of life! She has come to realize that she has way too
many hobbies and interests but she wouldn’t dream of giving any of
them up. In fact she plans to add more to the list.

Gwyn Harper

Gwyn has always had one foot in
the mundane world and another in the land of Faerie. She wrote her
first novel at the tender age of ten, but when adults informed her
that few people make a living writing fiction, she relegated her
scribbling to the back-burner, and instead pursued an interest in
ancient civilizations, which turned out to be almost as poorly
compensated. She earned advanced degrees in anthropology and
archaeology and has worked as an editor, researcher, educator, and
exhibit designer. In recent years, Gwyn has returned to her love of
word-smithery, pursuing academics by day and hunting muses with her
elf friends at night. She writes in various genres including
historical fiction, fantasy, and sci fi. Her avatar enjoys
exploring the lively cyber realm of fanfiction and playing with
gender-bending concepts. Gwyn lives in a mountainous desert where
she is kept busy by her family, a slew of imaginary characters, and
a sultan reincarnated in the form of a very demanding cat.

Fiona Lane

Fiona born and brought up near
Glasgow during the Time Of The Flared Trouser and Unfeasibly High
Platform Shoes. By the time we all came to our senses, she had
relocated to Aberdeen, and spent several years waiting for a number
six bus, in a horrible collision involving the nature of time and
the Aberdeen weather. During the eighties, while she was waiting
for the Internet to be invented, she acquired a husband and a
couple of replacement units, and they all now live in a field full
of sheep in Aberdeenshire, along with the odd cat or two and
Fiona’s posse of obsolete computers, many of which she has
single-handedly restored to a completely non-functioning condition.
She once kept chickens, but they were messy and she couldn’t use
them to buy vintage shoes from Ebay. The eggs were good though. She
likes gin and hats, and dislikes the oppression of the proletariat.
Her hobbies include cooking, gardening, and staring into the
abyss.

Maria J. Leel

Originally from the fenlands of
Peterborough, Maria J. Leel now lives in the infinitely hillier
Shropshire and has thigh muscles that recognise the difference. She
manages a half acre garden with the assistance of her husband,
Malcolm, two cats and four chickens. Trained originally as an
ecologist and teacher she made the logical career progression to
First Aid trainer for St John Ambulance. She wrote her first play
at the age of ten and has been writing dramatic pieces and short
stories ever since. One of these days she really will have to sit
down and write that first novel. Maria spent a year travelling the
world volunteering on various environmental projects and lived for
a while on a kibbutz in Israel. As a result she has an abiding
interesting in alternative lifestyles and communal living. She is a
member of the dark and mysterious world of Morris dancing, plays
guitar and is a member of the local rowing club – so those thigh
muscles are really getting a pasting.

Kristi Lee

An award-winning fanfiction
author since 2003, Kristi is known throughout her various fan
communities as Thevina. She’s had an obsession with redheads and
things of a Celtic nature since a very young age, which has only
increased in adulthood. Her real life and fan life have crossed as
she’s an independent academic. She’s been a professional singer, a
prospect analyst, a graphic designer, an award-winning costumer,
coordinated seating for an opera company, nude modelled, and in
2009, had a total fangirl moment when she was able to meet in
person her all-time favourite living composer, Phillip Glass. She
was only introduced to Wraeththu in December of 2007, but says
another lifetime highlight was meeting Storm in person in 2008. As
of April, 2010, she’s begun writing original fiction for the first
time and is very excited by the prospect of having fans of her own
who might wish to write fanfiction some day. Since Wraeththu
hermaphrodites sadly don’t exist out in the world for her to fawn
over, instead she continues to feed a perhaps unhealthy fascination
for men in kilts.

Martina Luise Pachali

Martina Luise Pachali was born
in Germany in 1967 and has been inventing and telling stories all
her life. She has studied Japanese and Medieval Latin in Munich,
Germany, where she lives with the obligatory two cats. Wrangling
databases for a living and reviewing books for additional pocket
money, her interests as a writer mostly lie with collaborative
storytelling, net literature, and the grassroots entertainment
movement fuelled by the internet and the possibilities of cloud
computing and user generated content.

Ruby

Ruby is the official artist for
the Wraeththu Mythos, who creates all the covers for the Immanion
Press editions. She started drawing from her imagination long
before she could or indeed would talk. Still heavily influenced by
the fairy tales and myths absorbed from her childhood Ruby has
grown into a multimedia illustrator interested in exploring the
darkly sensual, symbolic and surreal undercurrents of life. Ruby’s
illustrations blend perfectly the mythological, the classical and
the future fantastic and are also evocative of Beardsley and Mucha.
She is now a much sought-after cover artist and interior
illustrator for books across many genres, and is the creator of the
ongoing Wraeththu Tarot project.

Storm Constantine’s Wraeththu
Mythos

Other Wraeththu
Mythos Titles

The Original Wraeththu Books

By Storm Constantine

The Wraeththu Chronicles

The Enchantments of Flesh and
Spirit

The Bewitchments of Love and
Hate

The Fulfilments of Fate and
Desire

The Wraeththu Histories

The Wraiths of Will and
Pleasure

The Shades of Time and
Memory

The Ghosts of Blood and
Innocence

The Alba Sulh Sequence

The Hienama

Student of Kyme

Other Mythos Titles

Breeding Discontent

By Wendy Darling &
Bridgette Parker

Terzah’s Sons

By Victoria Copus

Paragenesis: Stories of the Dawn
of Wraeththu

Edited by Storm Constantine
& Wendy Darling

Song of the Sulh

By Maria J Leel

Visit our web site for printed
versions of these books and many more

http://www.immanion-press.com