R. Michael Burns is an October's child who spent most of five years living in Japan, teaching English to students from 1 to 70.  He has been involved in a long and lingering affair with unreality, having performed in numerous plays and musicals and written 6 full length novel manuscripts and over two-dozen short stories.  He has previously been published in the Colorado Engineer, Cthulhu Codex, Dreams of Decadence, Dark Regions, City Slab, Lovecraft's Weird Mysteries, Apollo's Lyre, Whispering Spirits, Andromeda Spaceways and the anthologies Bell, Book & Beyond and Extremes 5.  Mr. Burns has also worked as a cartoonist for the CU Colorado Springs Scribe, the CU Boulder Campus Press, and the Boulder Planet. A sampling of his mediocre poetry appeared in the 2000 edition of Riverrun.

EYES OF A STRANGER (short story) - A dark yet brilliant artist becomes fixated on a young woman he spies at an exhibition, but it quickly becomes unclear which of them is the seducer, and which the seduced.  Originally published in Dreams of Decadence magazine, Issue #6, Spring 1998.

CELIA (short story) - 'Celia' appears in the anthology Bell, Book & Beyond, edited by P.D. Cacek, from the Design Image Group.

GASLIGHT AND SHADOWS (short story) - An actress learns just how much she's willing to give to her art.  First published on the DNA Publications website in Summer 2000.