You've probably heard of showbiz types who were considered a triple threat because they could act, write and direct.

Writer Tom Piccirilli makes those folks look like sad, lazy underachievers. He is what you'd call a Septuple Champion. The title is usually applied to an athlete who has won seven crowns, belts or titles - but in this case, I use it to highlight Tom's seven astounding talents. Over the years, Tom has been or currently is:

I first learned of the work of Stephen Graham Jones when my friend and frequent collaborator Michael McCarty told me, "You'd love this great book I'm reading - it's a novel called Demon Theory. It has tons of great footnotes."

I was immediately intrigued: a novel with tons of great footnotes? Wouldn't all those footnotes be distracting? I read the book and Michael was right - it was filled with footnotes that were just as entertaining as the body of the novel.

These days, zombies are popping up in books and movies like wild mushrooms in a forest after a thunderstorm.

Authors are even retrofitting zombies into literary classics – the most popular example being the novel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Can Gone with the Zombie Wind and Zombie Quixote be far behind?