Joy Sillesen has worn many hats in the publishing industry, including copy editor, managing editor, and graphic designer, and is currently a freelance editor and designer. Her first exposure to fantasy came at the age of eight, when she devoured the entire Chronicles of Narnia in a single weekend. From there she launched into the Lord of the Rings and any other epic fantasy she could find (along with a healthy dollop of hard SF from Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov).

Explorations of alternative music in high school led to her wanting something a little darker to read, and she moved on to the works of Tanith Lee, Robin McKinley, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, and others. She feels that in some way dark fantasy brings us back to the deeper roots of storytelling, to those fairy tales that didn’t always end with a happily ever after and which often alluded to the shadows that lurk in the corners of our realities.