Stephen T. Vessels wrote his first story when he was six years old. Forty years later he wrote one that sold. His earliest inspirations were the horror films of Bela Lugosi, Boris Karlos and Vincent Price, and science fiction films like Ib Melchior's "Journey to the Seventh Planet." Later he encountered the legendary Modern Library anthology, "Tales of Terror and the Supernatural," which he read in the back seat while his parents drove through Texas. In 2012 he received the Best Fiction award from the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, and in 2014 was nominated for a Thriller Award. This is his first published book.