5. I’m also an artist, specializing in comics/graphic novels – I just completed more than 170 illustrations for a non-fiction graphic novel on the history of the witch craze written by Rocky Wood and Lisa Morton and to be published by McFarland in early 2012!

4. I can’t write through a computer – I’m a rubbish typist, which is probably good because I find I express myself more when writing freehand!

3. Despite my adoration for reading and writing horror and horror films, I was petrified of the dark as a child.

2. When I was a newspaper journalist in Bundaberg, Queensland I covered the “Doctor Death” (Doctor Jayant Patel) scandal.

1. I’ve been hospitalized several times for an irregular heartbeat.