THE FALSE KNIGHT ON THE ROAD
Neil Gaiman, well known for his writing achievements in the comics genre for such books as The Sandman, Death: The High Cost of Living, Mr. Punch, Violent Cases, and Signal to Noise, has won numerous awards, including, in 1991, the World Fantasy Award for best short story (Sandman, No. 19: A Midsummer's Night Dream). Currently, Gaiman is working on movie and television screenplays, as well as several novels, including Stardust, an illustrated fairy-tale for adults, with paintings by Charles Vess.

KING HENRY
Jane Yolen is a poet, novelist, and children's book writer, and has published over 150 books to date. Among her numerous honors are the World Fantasy Award, the Kerlan Award, the Golden Kite Award, the Mythopeic Society Award, the Christopher Award, the Regina Medal for her contribution to children's literature.
Jane and her husband, David Stempel, share two homes; one in western Massachusetts and the other on the east coast of Scotland.

THOMAS THE RHYMER
Sharyn McCrumb is an internationally known author whose works, twice named New York Times Notable Books, have won all five of the major awards in crime fiction and two Best Appalachaian Novel Awards. She is author of The Ballad series, which includes the New York Times bestseller She Walks These Hills, and her most recent novel The Ballad of Frankie Silver.
Sharyn lives in Virginia's Blue Ridge mountains with her family, less than 100 miles from the Smoky Mountain valley where her ancestors settled in 1790.

BARBARA ALLEN
Midori Snyder is the author of numerous fantasy novels, including the Oran Trilogy: New Moon, SadarÕs Keep, and Beldan's Fire. She recently published a Western-Irish novel, The Flight of Michael McBride, which combines the Celtic fairy tale tradition with folklore from Texas cattle drives. She also has two forthcoming novels The Innamorati and The Proposal, set in 16th Century Italy among the actors of the Commedia dell'Arte. Ms. Snyder plays traditional Irish music on the mandolin and, when pressed -- or bribed with Jamison whiskey -- will sing ballads such as this version of 'Barbara Allen,' one of her favorites. She currently lives in Wisconsin with her husband, Stephen, and her two children, Carl and Taiko.

THE GALTEE FARMER
Jeff Smith has been writing and drawing the comic Bone for the last several years, however, the lovable characters are not new to him. Jeff created the characters in kindergarten while growing up in Columbus, Ohio. Batman, Peanuts, and Uncle Scrooge were some of his favorite comics, but when he was nine, somebody showed him one of Walt Kelly's Pogo books. From that moment on he wanted to be a cartoonist. In 1991, Bone became a comic book and took the industry by storm, winning awards and critical acclaim.
Fortunately, none of this went to the author's head. He describes his work as "a postmodern, neo-retro, deconstructed docu-dramedy. Plus it's fat packed with info-tainment!"

THE DAEMON LOVER
Delia Sherman was born in Tokyo, Japan, and raised in Manhattan. Her published novels are Through a Brazen Mirror, and The Porcelain Dove. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous magazine and anthologies of fantasy. She is a contributing editor for Tor Books, along with the latest of the Bordertown punk-elf anthologies with Terri Windling from Tor. She lives with fellow author and fantasist Ellen Kushner in a lovely old house in Somerville, Massachusetts, which has just enough garden for roses, lilacs, herbs, and a few tomatoes.
She prefers cafes to home for writing (they bring you things to eat and the phoneÕs never for you) and traveling to saying put.

SOVAY and TWA-CORBIES
Charles DeLint is a full-time writer and musician who presently makes his home in Ottowa, Canada, with his wife MaryAnn Harris, an artist and musician. His most recent novel is Somewhere To Be Flying, featuring the crow girls from Twa Corbies at greater length. The novel, based on corvid folklore and mythology, is based on the old ballad which he has been performing for many years.
For more information about his writing, music and art, visit his website at .

DISCOGRAPHY
Ken Roseman has been a free-lance music journalist writing about Anglo-European folk and roots music for over 20 years. He's also a comics and fantasy enthusiast who deeply enjoys the works of J.R.R. Tolkein, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Robert Crumb. Ken has long dreamed of a project that would combine his interests in music, fantasy, and comics and is pleased to be involved with the Ballads project.

ILLUSTRATOR/PUBLISHER
Charles Vess has been a bona fida free-lance illustrator since1976 when he first sold work to Abrams Books and Heavy Metal Magazine.
Specializing in art of a fantastic or mythic nature, he has made a name for himself within the graphic narrative field with such works as Spirits of the Earth (a Spider-Man graphic novel where Charles placed the webslinger in the countryside of Scotland), A Midsummer's Night Dream (an illustrated Shakespeare play), Sandman, No. 19 (World Fantasy Award Winner), The Books of Magic, No. 3 (limited series), Sandman, No. 75, and Stardust (a profusely illustrated novel).
In the winter of 1995 he conceived the hairbrained scheme of self-publishing a series of comic books that would adapt his favourite type of music: the English/Irish/Scottish ballad. To this day he still doesn't know what to think of this idea.