Lucius Shepard

Lucius Shepard was born in August of 1947 in Lynchburg, Virginia, and raised in Daytona Beach, Florida. He escaped home at the age of fifteen and began a lifetime of wandering. His first adventure was to Ireland aboard a freighter followed by several years in Europe, North Africa, and Asia, working in a cigarette factory in Germany, in the black market of a Cairo bazaar, as a night club bouncer in Spain, and in numerous other countries at numerous other occupations. On returning to the United States, Shepard entered the University of North Carolina. He dropped out several times and traveled to Spain, Southeast Asia (at a time when tourism there was generally discouraged), and South and Central America. He says he ended his academic career as a tenth-semester sophomore with a heightened political sensibility, a fairly extensive knowledge of Latin American culture and some pleasant memories.

Lucius says that while on the road to California, his car broke down in Detroit so he joined a band there and passed the better part of the 1970s playing rock and roll in the Midwest. Then (I know I'm making this seem simpler than it was), in 1980 Lucius attended the Clarion Writers' Workshop at Michigan State University and began his writing career. He sold his first story, "Black Coral," in 1981 to New Dimensions.

So far Lucius has written eighteen novels (I may have missed some here or there), seven short story collections, and one non-fiction book,"Sports and Music." In the past year alone, he has published A Handbook of American Prayer, Liar's House, Viator, Trujillo, Two Trains Running, Colonel Rutherford's Colt, Floater, and Louisiana Breakdown. Some of those books are available for at the back table courtesy of Black Swan Bookstore.

Lucius received the John W. Campbell Best New Author award in 1985, the Nebula Best Novella, World Fantasy Best Collection, and Hugo Best Novella awards. His fiction, journalism and commentary appear frequently in Playboy, Spin, Omni, Asimov's Fantasy and Science Fiction, and online.

Far from being a writer of mere genre-based, escapist adventure, Lucius uses the fantastic in his stories to ramp up cultural perspectives and psychological relationships.

Lucius lives in Vancouver, WA. His website is: www.lucius-shepard.com .

Please welcome.... Lucius Shepard!