Meet the authors

    Brad and Nicki met one fateful day in 2005 thanks to the 29th Infantry Division Public Affairs office. Brad had just transfered in and Nicki took him out for Chinese food to get acquainted, not realizing that he was a strict anti-vegetarian. They hit it off right away and have been writing together for the U.S. Army and private projects ever since.

     As you can see by the photo on the left, Brad and Nicki have done quite a bit of traveling beginning with a 30-day tour of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and ending up currently in Kosovo. They hope to get back to Munich, Germany, to visit their lion as soon as possible.

 

Brad Staggs

     Brad was raised in the town he destroys in the opening of Ashmadai -- Rockville, Indiana. Even though he destroys the town in the book, he wouldn't trade his childhood for anybody else's.

     Brad started writing while still in school, oftentimes writing his own vocabulary quizzes to his english teachers on the back of test papers. When he graduated from high school in 1985, he joined the Air Force and ended up in Washington D.C. and, eventually, Sembach in what was then West Germany.

     Following his stint as a fly-boy, Brad tried his hand at higher education at Indiana State University where he discovered that he was actually expected to attend classes. Luckily, he made a life-long friend in Mary-Margaret Bowles, a woman who left her imprint on him until the day she passed away in 2004.

     In the 1990's, Brad became a theater rat, working with Civic Players of Logansport, Indiana, throughout the decade culminating in the production of his two-act stage comedy Essentially American. He worked for Mark Racop and MagicHouse Productions on Starship One: Havoc at Homeworld and Starship Two: Rendevous with Ramses as well as writing a comic book mini-series entitled The Traveler's Pub with artist Kevin Halter.

     In early 2001, Brad joined the United States Army as a Journalist. His service has taken him around the world and back more than a few times, ending up working full-time for the Army's Chief of Public Affairs at the Pentagon in Washington D.C. -- right back where his military service began. He lives in Arlington, Virginia, with several comic books and DVD's and can be found blogging his heart out at Brad's Place. Needless to say, he is still single.

 

Nicki Fellenzer

    Nicki was born in what used to be known as the Soviet Union – or the USSR – until her parents dragged her through several different European countries in order to escape the Soviets. In 1980 she and her parents wound up in the United States, where she would eventually drink her way to a BA in International Relations at the Johns Hopkins University.

     She joined the United States Army as a broadcast journalist a year after graduating college, because her parents claimed bartending was not an appropriate occupation for a Hopkins graduate. They were real sorry they criticized her bartending career after learning of her enlistment. Nicki spent more than three years at the American Forces Network in Germany, sampling different beers and losing a good portion of her hearing to a very loud radio studio. Apparently no one ever informed her the volume could be turned down on occasion.

     After finishing her enlistment, Nicki worked for a commercial radio station until she realized getting up at 3:00 a.m. – the same time she usually went to bed during her college years – was not something she was ever going to get accustomed to. She switched to print journalism and developed a passion for politics, especially Second Amendment rights. She has been a contributing editor to the NRA’s Woman’s Outlook magazine and Concealed Carry Magazine, as well as several online gun rights publications.

     She has a background in music, having been forced to play the piano, like a performing organ grinder’s monkey, at the tender age of four. She discovered vocal music, opera and musical theater in high school and continued nurturing that passion through her college years. She lives in Virginia with her family, as well as two stupid dogs, three stupid cats and three kids who are way too smart for their own good. She can be found at the Liberty Zone daily.