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Author, Editor, Media Tie-In Writer

Mildly Crazy

Writers, by and large, are mildly crazy. We have voices in our heads. We see stories everywhere. We are affected by both. Case in point. After my shower, I was standing naked in the bathroom, combing out my hair. I heard a noise. I walked out of my bathroom to look down the stairs to see what I could see. Nothing but cats. Probably a cat making noise.

Back in the bathroom, this conversation ensued. It lasted all of 10 seconds. Maybe.

“You know, people in horror movies do stupid shit because they don’t know they’re in a horror movie. Like you just did… walking naked to the top of the stairs to investigate a strange noise.”

“Not in a horror movie.”

“Naked girls get killed first.”

“Not a girl. Not nubile. Not in a horror movie. I have 4 cats. They make noise.”

“The cat is always the ruse.”

I was starting to freak myself out. “Not. In. A. Horror. Movie.”

“That you know of.”

The strange sound of an unfamiliar truck* drives by in my quiet neighborhood. It is loud and weirdly menacing. Quick assessment. Garbage truck? No. Delivery truck? No. Neighbor’s truck? No. Assessment: possible danger.

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“Fine. I’ll get dressed. I’m not going to die naked. Sneakers today, I think, too. Never know what you’ll need to run from.”

And thus, I quickly got dressed in jeans, t-shirt, and sneakers. Because, you never know when your life is going to shift from the everyman story into a horror story. I’m just lucky, this time, I didn’t have a conversation like this at midnight and need to sleep with the light on.

*Saw the offending truck later. It was one of those big dump trucks for leaves, branches, and tree trunks. Guess a neighbor is getting a tree cut down. It was empty, thus echoing and strange.

Meet Jennifer Brozek

Jennifer Brozek is a multi-talented, award-winning author, editor, and media tie-in writer. She is the author of Never Let Me Sleep and The Last Days of Salton Academy, both of which were nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. Her YA tie-in novels, BattleTech: The Nellus Academy Incident and Shadowrun: Auditions, have both won Scribe Awards. Her editing work has earned her nominations for the British Fantasy Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the Hugo Award. She won the Australian Shadows Award for the Grants Pass anthology, co-edited with Amanda Pillar. Jennifer’s short form work has appeared in Apex Publications, Uncanny Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, and in anthologies set in the worlds of Valdemar, Shadowrun, V-Wars, Masters of Orion, Well World, and Predator.

Jennifer has been a full-time freelance author and editor for over seventeen years, and she has never been happier. She keeps a tight schedule on her writing and editing projects and somehow manages to find time to teach writing classes and volunteer for several professional writing organizations such as SFWA, HWA, and IAMTW. She shares her husband, Jeff, with several cats and often uses him as a sounding board for her story ideas. Visit Jennifer’s worlds at jenniferbrozek.com or her social media accounts on LinkTree.

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