Three of Bill Ransom's short stories appeared in the PEN/NEA Syndicated Fiction Project that the National Endowment for the Arts called "The Pulitzer Prize of the Short Story". "Uncle Hungry," "What Elena Said" and "Learning the Ropes" appeared in Sunday magazine editions of major U.S. newspapers. Bill has six novels available from WordFire Press: Jaguar, ViraVax, Burn, and he co-authored The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect and The Ascension Factor with Frank Herbert. The Pandora Sequence holds the entire Herbert/Ransom trilogy, plus insights into their collaborative process. Brother Blood/Sister Death is his seventh WordFire novel.Bill was a firefighter, firefighting basic training instructor, and an Advanced Life Support Emergency Medical Technician for twelve years. He volunteered with humanitarian groups in civil wars in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. He's had plenty of experience with blood.He twice received writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and recently retired after fifteen years at The Evergreen State College, his last five years as Academic Dean of Curriculum.