Lewis Carroll's Alice thought Wonderland was strange. Sarah Hollingsworth knew her adventures in Office-land were twisted and downright bizarre. The office of the 1990s was a hunting ground where the unprotected were bagged and disposed of. The trick was not to be one of them. Hawks flew high, mules slogged away on their computers and praying mantises searched for prey. Butterflies and moths danced in the neon light. And the old caterpillar looked on passively to various unfolding dramas. Meanwhile mall rats and lika-lika birds, growing up in this decade, fervently hoped that everything about the office would become more civilized by the time they had to get a DESK JOB. Whether or not the office has really changed much since the 1990s I will leave to you, dear reader, to decide. Rod Marsden was born in Sydney but did most of his growing up while on holidays in the northern NSW fishing village of Iluka where his mom, May, and dad, Chic (short for Charles), taught him how to fish. It was on these fishing trips he discovered through his mom, he actually did like to read and wanted, one day, to be a writer.Way back in the '70s, Rod visited the USA but never got to meet his heroes Ray Bradbury, Robert Silverberg, Leonard Nimoy, Jimmy Doohan, George Takei, and the lovely Nichelle Nichols. He also never got to meet his all time favorite members of the Marvel Comics bullpen Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Gene Colan.It can be said that USA artist Gene Colan's renderings of the sexy, slinky Black Widow made him wonder about becoming an artist.Rod was first attracted to vampires (femme fatales of course) by the British Hammer series of horror movies, which included Vampire Lovers and To Love a Vampire, and by certain early Universal films such as the original Bela Lugosi version of Dracula.Rod has a BA in Liberal Studies, a Graduate Diploma in Education and a Master of Arts in Professional Writing.Rod's short stories have been published in Australia (Small Suburban Crimes anthology), New Zealand (Australian Animals are Smarter than Jack 2 anthology), England (Voyage magazine), Russia (Fellow Traveler magazine) and the USA (Cats Do it Better than People anthology, Night to Dawn magazine, Detective Mystery Stories magazine). Then there is the more recent NTD book, Undead Reb Down Under Tales.He lives on the south coast of NSW, Australia.
