Volume 3, Issue 6 – December, 2000

Nene Thomas and Ruth Thompson: Partners in Paint

People write novels and compose music together all the time. But paint together? Maybe in the Renaissance when famous artists ran large schools that served as factories for their styles. But two 21th century artists born to the modern tradition of the solitary tortured genius? Wouldn’t they bump elbows — not to mention egos?

Nene (Tina) Thomas and Ruth Thompson, two fantasy artists with thriving careers in contract and freelance work, liked talking to each other while painting so much that they couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to paint together. The resulting painting, “Shieldmates,” proved to be such fun that they plan to do it again. But before they started their next shared work they shared with Crescent Blueswhat it takes to both paint your own way and as part of a team.

Crescent Blues: How long have you known that you wanted to be an artist?

Nene Thomas: Since I was four and drawing people all the time. I drew and drew and drew. I wouldn’t go out at recess and play with the other kids, because I’d rather draw. I wouldn’t do my homework, because I’d rather draw. I wouldn’t do the housework, because I’d rather draw. Eventually it got to the point where I could make a living off it, which is the best thing.

Did you take art in college?

Nene Thomas: I took a couple of courses in college, but mostly what I do is I try to find artists of a higher [proficiency] level than myself and ask them for help. A Disney animator was helping me out. A comic book artist was helping me out. I’ve approached fantasy artists and asked for critique. How do you do this? How do you do that? So I guess it’s self-taught, but I would try to find people to give me pointers.

What would you consider your first major break or your first major sale?

Nene Thomas: The first major one would probably be the work for Wizards of the Coast. Those were the Magic® cards. With Wizards’ success, twenty million other card companies came out, and for a while there was so much contract work for really anyone who could hold a pen.

How do you prepare work for card games? Do they tell you the story? Do they give you descriptions of the figures and scenes?

Nene Thomas: It varies from company to company. In the beginning, Wizards of the Coast was very free with what they wanted. For one card description, all they gave me was: “It’s a blue-black card — blue for water, black for evil. We’d like something that has to deal with evil and water.” And that was it. Now the requirements for the cards are: “We want this character in this costume with this weapon in this background, etc., etc., etc.” And there’s no freedom anymore.

Are you still doing cards?

Nene Thomas: No, I’m not. [Laughs.]

How about you, Ruth? When did you first know you were going to become an artist?

Ruth Thompson: I never knew I was going to do this when I grew up. I was in biology, but I loved mythology. I don’t think I was really exposed to comics and things like that. I didn’t read Tolkien until I was in college. I actually fell into role-playing games first.

I met the man who was later to become my husband [through role-playing games] in high school, and I started doing sketches of our characters. When we went to college, I continued doing sketches for the game, and I had a major in biology for three years. My younger sister Victoria Williams and Todd (my future husband) made me mat the sketches and put them in the art show at a small convention called Continuity.

They were just pencil sketches that hung up on the wall, and I sold them. It was my first $48. It was the best $48 I ever made in my whole life. It was probably the biggest rush you could ever get — knowing that your ideas meant something to somebody else. And of course, it turns into money, and I have never been offended by money.

Money is a measure of how much work someone else has done. If they choose to give it to me, based on how much work they’ve done, there’s something I’m doing correct. There’s something that’s connecting.

I’ve been a professional for ten years, since 1990 when I graduated from the University of Alabama. I did get my degree in graphic design despite the courses in biology. I had tons of hours in biology. Then I was briefly in Classics, for about a year. That was too hard. It was cool until I hit Ancient Greek, and that was just way too tough.

When I got out of college, I had to decide whether I was going to work for somebody or be a freelancer. So I was a freelancer for a year and really enjoying it. I was making more money then — it’s a little different now with computer-aided design — making more money in six months than I would in a whole year working at a graphics design agency.

Then I went to work for Steve Jackson Games, which was an interesting experience. Not that it was bad! But it taught me that I’m going to work for myself for the rest of my life. If I’m going to screw up my destiny, I’m going to be the one that’s going to do it.

Since then, I still do contract work. I did a lot of Magic® cards when they were really hot, then I pulled away from it and started concentrating on my own work. I’ve done work for TSR and Dungeons & Dragons®, Mayfair Games, ICE…bunches of people. Not White Wolf, because my stuff is too soft for them.

What do you mean by soft?

Ruth Thompson: White Wolf’s stuff was rather moody — not that it was just horror-based, but it was looser than the kind of stuff I would do. I like their work. I admire the other artists, because I like to buy work like that. But it doesn’t look like the kind of work that I do.

Rather like the Yoshitaka Amano paintings in the DragonCon Art Show.

Ruth Thompson: Isn’t that stuff great? There’s that one piece over there, “Visitor from the Forgotten Past” — oh, I love that one. His stuff is just out there.

In 1994 — and Nene does this too — I added Renaissance festivals, which are beginning to cross over more [into the fantasy arena]. I have two full-time assistants now, and we do four big Renaissance festivals: Minnesota, Kansas City, Colorado and Arizona. I have a part-time couple in Florida who do the local shows. They do about four local Renaissance festivals in Florida.

They sell your work at the Renaissance festivals?

Ruth Thompson: Oh yeah, thank God! Because my butt’s home painting. That’s the only way you can do it. You can’t do all the shows you have a chance to do, because if you do, you burn yourself out and you won’t have time to paint.

Since then, it’s been an interesting journey, it really has. I love some things about it, and there are some things that make me go: “Why am I doing this?”

How do you build a painting? You mentioned computer-aided design. Does that play a role in your work?

Ruth Thompson: I’m not as familiar with that. Some people can do it backwards and forwards. Some friends of ours who use it for Christmas stuff and do some amazing stuff. What I do is a pencil thumbnail, which is a quickie sketch. Then I’ll rough it out on a grid — nothing that takes a long time — to know the placement.

I’m getting into doing more studies, because I’ve learned that the more studies I do, the less I screw up later on. After I have a finished little sketch, I’ll start pulling for reference. That’s where a lot of [computer-related] things come in. You can go on the Web and find wonderful photographs of people and critters.

I use the computer for manipulation. Say I found a set of wings from a bird that were a great reference, but they were kind of scrunched. I would stick it into Photoshop(r) and stretch it here and stretch it there and shift some colors until they’re perfect. That’s exactly the reference I need when I go to paint the wings on a Pegasus or on an angel.

I use the computer as a tool, because I’m not really familiar with it. I can get by. I’m still in love with the painting process.

What’s your favorite medium?

Ruth Thompson: I used oils and watercolors on every piece you see in my booth. People go: “Oh, it’s acrylic!” And I go: “No, it’s both.”

I know it’s freaky. But I had no money in college, and you get more bang for your buck in a watercolor palette. One tube of oils was like $7. In college? Are you kidding? For $7 I could get 25 colors. So that’s where I learned how to use watercolors.

Then I realized that oils allow blending all over the place. I’m shifting more and more into oils, especially when I want to get highly detailed areas like the face. Of course, the face is the most important thing of any piece for me. The face, hair, little tiny bits of armor — I’ll spray them with workable fixative, and I can do oil, watercolor, and do it in layers.

You can work with any medium. So many people say, “Why do you do that?” You just do. You add more medium to whatever you want to do. I’ll add more white to my watercolors so the paint will be heavier and sit on the surface.

What do you use as your base?

Ruth Thompson: I use illustration board and pencil. With the big ones, I’ll do an underpainting in black and white ink — an ink wash. Then I’ll rough in the big areas of color that need to be knocked out, then I’ll start painting.

Actually, I start with the faces, because I’m impatient. If I do it the traditional way, which is the background then the foreground, by the time I get to the face I’m just exhausted. I just want to get done. So I start with the face, then the background and the foreground, so I can keep my focus and get that one thing correct in the beginning.

What about you, Nene? How do you build a painting?

Nene Thomas: Like Ruth I start with a thumbnail, a really quick little sketch. For me the thumbnails are the most enjoyable part of the piece. There’s the most freedom. No one will ever see them but my husband and me. Nobody needs to know the code to: “Oh, that’s a person, that’s a dragon, that’s a cow.”

Once I have the thumbnail, then I’ll start looking for references. “OK, I need a reference of a knight standing this way with this rock.” And sometimes, if I can’t find a reference, I’ll get lazy and make it up.

After I’ve done the big sketch — usually it’s one-to-one, as big as I’m going to paint it — I make a photocopy of the big sketch and reduce it to 8-by-10. I put the sketch on my Artograph(r), which is a projector, project it on illustration board and trace it all out. Then I work with watercolors in layers. I don’t put anything on the board except the color. Sometimes I’ll use inks to outline. On my last four pieces, at the end I used a little bit of colored pencil, because it makes the color a little heavier. It gives the color more body and richness.

How do you generate your prints off the watercolor? Do you use your computer?

Nene Thomas: I take my original to my lithographers, and they shoot an 8-by-10 photo-transparency. They take the photo-transparency and make plates from it.

Computers don’t play any part in my work, not because I have anything against computers at all, but I’m afraid of them. I don’t know how to use them. I don’t want to take the time to learn how to use them. The only thing I use computers for is email, getting on the Web and collecting references.

But you do have a lovely Web site.

Nene Thomas: I have a friend who does that for me, and I’m encouraging my sister to train herself to update the Web site.

Just to clarify something: when you’re building up the layers of watercolor, do you spray fixative between the layers? Or do you let the paint dry and simply paint over it?

Nene Thomas: I’ll put down a wash that’s mostly water with a little bit of paint, and it will dry almost immediately. Then I’ll put down another wash and another. And there are places that may have twenty or thirty washes, again and again with different colors. For things that need to be really white or really black, sometimes I’ll even work a little bit of acrylic into it…

I have read that some traditional watercolorists will not use white watercolor or black watercolor. I have no such compunctions. I think black watercolor and white watercolor are lovely colors — if indeed they are colors.

What are your next goals for yourself as an artist?

Nene Thomas: I would like my people to get more realistic, to start introducing lighting into my paintings. A recent innovation for me has been full backgrounds from the designed panel. So, more realistic people, more realistic lighting and, definitely, backgrounds that show more storytelling.

How did you and Ruth get together?

Ruth Thompson: I was aware of Tina’s stuff —

Nene Thomas: I’d heard of your work. Actually, people were comparing my stuff to yours before I’d ever seen a single piece. In fact, the first time I saw one of your pictures I thought it was by one of my friends, April Lee, because it was a male angel with a dragon behind it. I thought that was by April Lee, believe it or not.

Ruth Thompson: Going to conventions, I’d seen Tina’s stuff. It must have been when she was getting started. I started in ’90, and you started in?

Nene Thomas: Ninety-three was my first convention, and that was where Wizards of the Coast approached me. I found your stuff and Lawrence Allen William’s stuff the first time you were sharing a booth. I was blown away, just absolutely blown away by Ruth’s work. She had a piece called “Task of Heaven” that looked like a classical painting but of a modern fantasy woman. She had the original art, and it was beautiful, and if I had the money, I would own that painting now.

Ruth Thompson: I think we met in ’94 or ’95 at a convention, but we really got to know each other in ’99 at GhengisCon. Since then Tina and I have evenings where I’ll call her and spend hours on the phone, where I’ll say, “I’m working on rocks.” “Oh? I’m working on water…” And we’re just chatting away about whatever until my cordless phone uncharges five hours later. It’s a good thing I’m getting like seven cents a minute or the bill would be terrible.

I notice some artists have that kind of competitive edge, and they can be kind of difficult with each other. But with Tina and I, it’s never really been that way. Mostly because there’s a ton of work out there. If you want to do contract work, there’s a ton of work out there, you’ve just got to go get it.

But there’s nothing personal about somebody choosing one person’s artwork over something else. I can do a piece I thought was pretty good, and it will be all right. Then another, and I’ll say, “Well, this is pretty good too.” And the second one is the one that everyone will love. Taste is as varied as Snickers® bars and Almond Joy®.

Were you surprised at the response to “Ascension?”

Ruth Thompson: Yeah! I’m finally painting men! It’s not that I didn’t want to paint men before, but I think that where I was in my head was that I really couldn’t understand them. I couldn’t understand them. My men were either too swishy — which is OK. But they were just too soft, or they were just big, bulked-up guys that you’d see — big, huge Conan-looking dudes.

But there wasn’t anything that really appealed. There wasn’t anything that captured a nerve. They didn’t look alive. The first one I did was “Azrael” [a.k.a. “Ascension”], and he came alive. Maybe it’s because I’m beginning to understand people better as I get older. I’m 33, and I’ve been doing it for ten years.

The one thing about being an artist and doing what we do is that it gives you a lot of time to think.

Nene Thomas: Yes, when you’re painting, you have hours upon hours to think, and that’s it.

Do you have a preference — painting men, painting women?

Nene Thomas: I really prefer to paint women. They’re easier to pose. It’s easier for me to think up a background to go with them. In fact, I have one sketch of a man planned, and I just want to paint him, because then I will feel: “All right, I have painted a man. Now they’ll be happy — the people who come up and want men. There he is. There he is.” And I won’t have to paint another one for at least a year.

Do you use live models?

Nene Thomas: No. I do the thumbnail, then I find a reference — a photo, whatever, that looks close to what I have in mind. Sometimes I piece them together like a Frankenstein monster, using a head here, arm here, leg here. OK, he’s finished.

Ruth Thompson: I didn’t used to use live models. First of all they’re expensive. Now I’m beginning to see — I don’t use them live, though. I’ll do a photo shoot. If you go to something like the Festival of Chosen, you’ll find people who are in great shape. Whether they’re intelligent or not is not important. It’s what they look like and what I’m looking for. So I’m getting rolls and rolls of reference film.

One of the angels I have in the Dealer’s Room [Vox Fini]– that’s a man. That’s a real person. That’s how I painted him. I did not paint him realistically to look exactly like him. I painted him with my style in mind.

But I’m finding… say you’re trying to paint a piece of armor or a shield. How in the heck does sunlight on a shield end up looking when it’s 45 degrees and there’s a tree falling over it. Well, if you have a picture, you know that it’s going to look correct. So, photographic reference is something you can pull from for anything.

It would be nice to have a live model. I use my husband. All my hands and feet — those are Todd’s. I take out my little Polaroid® and say, “Do this with your hands.” Click. Then I’ve got this perfect hand, right there. I know exactly what it’s got to look like.

What was the genesis of your collaboration on “Shieldmates?”

Nene Thomas: It was Ruth’s idea.

Ruth Thompson: I said, “I really want to do a piece together. Why don’t we do a piece together?”

Nene Thomas: You told me pretty much what you wanted, so I went and I…

Ruth Thompson: You did the whole first sketch.

Nene Thomas: I found the pose out of one of the Playboy newsstand specials. It was a little, bitty picture, an inch wide and an inch and a half tall. It was really hard to draw from, actually. So I did the sketch, and you transferred off your girl.

Ruth Thompson: I transferred off mine, then I sent it to you, because we were together over Thanksgiving [1999]. That’s when we get together to do the pencil.

I did my girl and gave it to Tina so she could take it back. Tina did her girl and knocked in the sky — how the sky was going to look. The arch was already done, and I added ivy. And I began with the face for my woman.

Which woman was whose?

Ruth Thompson: Oh the red-haired woman’s mine.

Nene Thomas: The dark-haired woman’s mine.

Ruth Thompson: My woman’s kind of chesty and pretty large. Most of my women look kind of large. Not that there’s anything wrong with anything small and waif-like. I just like to paint that way. And I did the background sky, then the arch and detailed in the ivy. Then Tina went back and did her woman.

When Tina got done with her woman, I went back and changed mine to alter some colors. I wanted the colors to fit better together.

Were you physically in the same spot when you painted the picture.

Nene Thomas: No.

Ruth Thompson: We did the pencil together. Tina went through all my photographic references of skies. That’s how we did the background, but for the actual painting, I sent it to her. It’s not very large. The original is 14-by-21. If it was a big piece, I could see two people working on it at once, but with this picture, no way.

Nene Thomas: Our elbows would be in the way.

Ruth Thompson: Yeah, they’d be pushing.

Are you planning to paint another picture together?

Ruth Thompson: I don’t know. Weren’t we talking about a tarot idea?

Nene Thomas: I was thinking with the tarot idea — if we did companion pieces, you could do the guy, and I’d do the girl.

Ruth Thompson: Now I’m really enjoying painting men. Not that I’d rather not paint women, but I can feel my style changing. It varies. With the angel series, it’s going through something, and I like it. I just hope that other people do too. But I think that’s what we’d like to do together. I’d do the guy, and she’ll do the woman, and we’d try to make a set. Get it from me. Get it from her. Get it together.

Nene Thomas: I like the wildlife triptych art where there have three pieces, and there’s a continuing background. It’s really beautiful.

Some tarot decks use continuing backgrounds for each suit.

Nene Thomas: The King of Swords, the Queen of Swords… That would be awesome.

There you go.

Ruth Thompson: We’ll make it so it’s actually broken up. What we might do if we do that — although there’s nothing wrong with the traditional way of doing the same background for every card. I just don’t paint traditionally. I’ll use anything: coffee, cat hair…

Nene Thomas: That’ll work fine.

Ruth Thompson: When I hear the comment, “Oh, you work in acrylics,” I’m always surprised. But I guess I shouldn’t be, because I don’t use any paint traditionally. I don’t use oils traditionally; you don’t see big swatches of blending. I don’t use watercolors traditionally; I use them really heavy.

And when we do this, we’ll probably do it on one big board, draw it all together, then chop it in half. So the drawing will be done together.

Nene Thomas: That’s a cool idea.

Ruth Thompson: OK, that’s our January work.

What about your work styles — are you messy when you paint or neat? And are your styles compatible?

Ruth Thompson: My studio is half very organized and half a big, sloppy mess. I can be very organized in the beginning [of a painting]. I have little Post-It(r) notes on what the piece is I want to do, and the books are arranged in a certain order. By the end of a painting, it’s all over the place. There are references on the floor. There are places where our kitties have slid all over everything. There’s a blob of oil paint over there — which is why I like a mat underneath my paintings, because I get messy when I paint. Are you messy or clean?

Nene Thomas: When I’m in the middle of painting it looks like chaos in there. The cats drink the watercolor water, lay on the paintings.

Ruth Thompson: There’s something special about watercolor water. They’ll wait. They’ll see you open the white, and all three of them will sit down, waiting for me to get it in the water.

Nene Thomas: They probably think there’s some vital mineral in the paint.

Ruth Thompson: They’re trying to evolve to the next level, and they think if they get enough watercolor in their bodies…

Isn’t there a book called Why Cats Paint?

Ruth Thompson: That is the coolest book! And there’s a new one out where they have people dancing with them. The cats dance, and the people dance with them, and they leap in the air. I wish my cats would do that. Most of the time they just blot out.

Nene Thomas: Mine too.

Ruth Thompson: On your paintings.

Nene, you were an Air Force spouse for many years. Given your work style, how difficult was it to box everything up and move it every few years?

Nene Thomas: It was terrible. He got out of the Air Force. He works for me full-time, and we moved back to Oklahoma. We bought an old — it’s not a Victorian home. It was built in 1912, but it’s old and big and wood and pipes that smell and dry rot. Old homes are beautiful, and they have so much atmosphere, but they’re money pits. But all houses are money pits. Cars too.

Did you find the mobility of military life made it difficult to make connections, or were the connections at the shows unaffected where you were starting from?

Nene Thomas: The networking was pretty much unaffected by constantly moving. What was affected by constantly moving was the time and the concentration to paint. That was truly affected by the moving.

How did you find a man who did custom mats, or did you train him?

Nene Thomas: He trained himself, actually. I only framed double- and triple-mats, occasionally with a small, fancy cut. I asked him for some help one night, and he did the simple mats. Then he got a ruler and a mechanical pencil, and started mapping out this very elaborate grid, and he just taught himself.

Then I married him quickly so he wouldn’t escape. That’s the key: having a spouse who helps.

Ruth Thompson: I couldn’t be where I am if I didn’t have Todd Jordan. We’ve been together now for 16 years, and the bottom line is I wouldn’t have employees or businesses or the shops or the Renaissance festivals if he hadn’t been willing to sacrifice his dreams for about eight years.

It’s his time now. I’ve hired another person, and I’m going to get one more person in about a year or so to do Todd’s work. So I have one lady who does the paperwork, and another person who handles framing and matting. I do the shows, and he only does the shows that he has to.

That’s pretty rare. Tina and I discussed this. It’s pretty rare to find a man who’s able to say, “You know what, we’re going to try to rely on your talents and abilities and your decisions.” It’s a different kind of supporting. We’re intimately tied together, not just in business, but as partners. I think a lot of artists don’t have that. I feel bad that they don’t have that. It’s a pretty rare thing to find.

I think more for women artists than male artists. Women tend to approach these things differently.

Ruth Thompson: You feel guilty if you don’t get everything done. You feel, “Oh God, I’m not getting everything done. I’m not doing this. I’m not doing that. I didn’t make sure somebody’s birthday card got out on time.” You can’t handle everything at once. And you’re right, it has something more to do with females than it does with males. Male artists, you know, they don’t have a problem. They just sit and paint. They don’t keep the house clean.

Nene Thomas: The woman takes care of the house, the kids, the yard…

What advice would you offer to an aspiring artist?

Nene Thomas: Draw all the time, every day. Hold down a full-time job and draw when you get home at night and before you go to work in the morning. Love it enough to work around your full-time job until it gets big enough to start generating money. Then you’ll have the love to put into it when it just becomes a job, and it will. Eventually, even if you do something you truly, truly love, it will become a job. It will become work.

Following that theme, how has painting changed for you since you got your first contract? Has your style changed? Has your outlook changed?

Nene Thomas: Yes. The style has changed. I’d like to think it’s grown. My outlook has changed, because it used to be the money from the artwork was just extra. Now we plan around it — we will do X amount at X show. OK, we can put this into the house to do this, we can put this into the vehicle to do this. I guess the outlook has changed, because the money is being applied to very practical things instead of: “I sold a $150 painting. Woo Hoo! Let’s go out to eat.”

What about you, Ruth? What advice would you offer?

Ruth Thompson: I was noticing this coming back to conventions as opposed to Renaissance festivals. I love the atmosphere at Renaissance festivals. I really do. It’s more like a theater production. The cannon goes off and boom! I’m a stage player. I really am. I love talking to people.

But when I’m at a convention, I can really be me. I don’t have to speak a certain way. I don’t have to be in “garb.” If I feel like going to a panel or whatever, it’s: “Somebody watch the booth. I’m going to do this.”

I’ve noticed with this show that there’s a lot of beginning artists — and a lot of [artists working in three-dimensional media] — who are so promising. My best advice would have to be: do what you want. There is no formula. Just because this artist did it this way does not mean you’ll succeed doing it this way. Another artist was a contract artist for ten years, then decided to be a freelancer. That’s not the way I went. I was only a contract artist for a year, then said, “I’m done! I’ll do my own thing.”

If you do love it, you’ll find a way to make it work. If this is what you want to do, look for venues that it will sell in. There are conventions all over the country. If it’s science fiction and fantasy — even if it’s not — there’s so many places where it will appeal.

And it’s going to hurt when people say, “No.” It’s OK. Just realize that and don’t ever apologize for yourself being a beginner. Don’t let that stop you.

So you would encourage fledgling artists to enter the amateur shows…

Ruth Thompson: Yes! And that gets back to your question about how things have changed. Beginning as an amateur, you’re going to have this freshness and innocence. It’s going to be the best you’ve ever felt before, because it’s not going to be like working for anybody else. Even if you get paid well, it’s the difference between your ideas and someone else’s. It’s my idea that someone else is purchasing. Oh my God! I love this. When you first have it, at the very beginning, you’ll never lose it. It’s like your first love.

The first person you’re in love with — that will never go away. You’ll always remember it — even if the memories are bittersweet, because you’re not with that person. It’s the same way with art. Start at the beginning and enjoy it, because the innocence will leave.

Look at it this way, the innocence is there, but you have a lot of fear. The fear will fade, but so will the innocence. You have to accept it and go: “Sometimes, this is a job. Sometimes, I really don’t want to get up and go to work.” And the nice thing is, if I’m not doing a show, I can. I can stay in bed all day. Which is why I set it up so half the year I’m doing shows — and my painting is at a minimum — and half the year, I’m painting full-time.

I might change it. I might shift the way it is to get more balance. But I kind of like it the way it is, because trying to paint eight hours is like trying to balance a pin between your two fingers and balancing a piece of paper, flat, on top of that for eight hours. It’s not a concentration like it is when you’re doing math problems for eight hours. It’s focus. You have to be focused — cutting out all that extraneous stuff in your head — because the thinking in your head has to be clear and precise, or it will come out on the board.

Doing it can be wild. It really is. Honestly, my advice for everybody would be why not? And don’t ever quit. Don’t quit. That’s the hard thing. You see people from year to year, at different shows, who are amazing and wonderful, and then you’ll see them five years later and ask, “Are you still doing it?”

“Oh, no, I’m not.”

I don’t know if it’s about the money — because they aren’t making any money — or because it is hard work once you get into it.

Jean Marie Ward

In addition to editing Crescent Blues, Jean Marie Ward writes for a number of Web-based and print magazines, including Science Fiction Weekly. She is the author of Illumina: the Art of Jean Pierre Targete (Paper Tiger) and several short stories, including “Most Dead Bodies in a Confined Space” in Strange Pleasures 2 (Prime Books). Her first novel, With Nine You Get Vanyr, written with Teri Smith, is scheduled to be released by Samhain Publishing in late 2006..