Biographical note

John Preston was a pioneer in the early gay rights movement and publishing initiatives and the author or editor of more than twenty-five acclaimed books. Along with the Black Berets series, he wrote numerous entries in Gold Eagle’s Soldiers of Barrabas series under the pseudonym Jack Hild. As Preston McAdam, he wrote the three books in the Michael Sheriff: The Shield series. Michael McDowell wrote a number of well-received horror novels, including The Amulet, The Elementals, and the Blackwater series, as well as historical fiction. With Dennis Schuetz, he cowrote four detective novels under the pseudonym Nathan Aldyne and was also active in screenwriting such movies as Beetlejuice, The Nightmare before Christmas, and Thinner. He provided episodes for a number of television horror anthologies, among them Tales from the Darkside.