Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine, in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. He made his first professional short story sale in 1967 to Startling Mystery Stories. In the fall of 1973, he began teaching high school English classes at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels. In the spring of 1973, Doubleday & Co. accepted the novel Carrie for publication, providing him the means to leave teaching and write full-time. He has since published over 50 books and has become one of the world's most successful writers. Stephen lives in Maine and Florida with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. They are regular contributors to a number of charities including many libraries and have been honored locally for their philanthropic activities. Richard Matheson was the New York Times bestselling author of I Am Legend , Hell House, Other Kingdoms, Somewhere in Time, The Incredible Shrinking Man, A Stir of Echoes, The Beardless Warriors, The Path, Seven Steps to Midnight, Now You See It…, and What Dreams May Come, among others. He was named a Grand Master of Horror by the World Horror Convention, and received the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement. He also won the Edgar, the Spur, and the Writer's Guild awards. In 2010, he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. In addition to his novels, Matheson wrote screenplays, including several Twilight Zone episodes, such as “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” based on his short story. He was born in New Jersey and raised in Brooklyn, and fought in the infantry in World War II. He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. He passed away in 2013. Joe Hill is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman, NOS4A2, Heart-Shaped Box, and Horns (which was adapted into a feature film starring Daniel Radcliffe). His book of short stories, 20th Century Ghosts , won the Bram Stoker Award and the British Fantasy Award for Best Collection. He earned the Eisner Award for Best Writer for his long-running comic book series, Locke & Key, featuring the eye-popping art of Gabriel Rodriguez. Chris Ryall is the Chief Creative Officer at IDW Publishing and the co-creator of Zombies vs Robots with Ashley Wood. Ryall has also co-created and written Groom Lake, The Colonized, The Hollows, and Onyx, and has also written adaptations of stories by Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Richard Matheson. He is also the co-author of a prose book about comics, Comic Books 101, and has written comics based on the Transformers, the band Kiss, Mars Attacks, Weekly World News, and, currently, Hasbro’s Rom. Ryall and ZvR co-creator Ashley Wood were nominated for the 2006 Eisner Award for “Best Short Story.”
