Dave Hoing is retired from the University of Northern Iowa Library, where he was a Library Associate in the Special Collections and Archives unit. His tenure there could be measured on a geologic time scale, and he was often mistaken for one of the ancient artifacts. He lives in Waterloo, Iowa, with his wife Joni, a dog named Tree who he calls Doodle, and a cat named Squeakers who he calls many colorful, and sometimes off color, names. His adult stepchildren, Jon and Jovan, have emigrated to the fantasy land known as California. In his other life, from which he has not retired, Dave is a member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, although he now concentrates on literary and historical fiction. In addition to writing, he pokes his fingers into a lot of other creative pies, dabbling in composing, drawing, painting, and sculpting. Music is his first love, but he concedes that he's better at stringing words together than notes, so there are times when he must tear himself away from one kind of keyboard to work at another. He also enjoys traveling-42 states and 27 countries to date-and collecting books printed before 1800