E-mail: neild@echonyc.com

Home: Brooklyn, N.Y.

Life Story: Grew up in New York City, USA., the town that never sleeps, the Big Onion. Earned an education on the streets of Berkeley, Manhattan, Connecticut. Parlayed a Sociology B.A. into a series of dead-end gigs in the hardscrabble New York publishing world. Calls himself a writer now, but he can still turn some Quark Xpress tricks to earn a quick buck.

Accomplishments: Written for rags all over the map. Some you can still find: Extra!, In These Times, Z magazine. Others, like New York Newsday, the Guardian Newsweekly, and Brooklyn Metro Times, weren't so lucky. Then one day opportunity came knocking, and he got to work on the book. Buy it, if you know what's good for you.

Interests: Picked up a nasty habit called interactive fiction a couple of years back. Wrote a few games, even picked up an award along the way. You might find him hanging out on the backstreets of the I-F MUD, shooting the breeze with his fellow miscreants.