About the Editor

My name is Pat Nielsen and I'm female. I make this distinction because many of the newcomers assume that I'm of the male gender. I take no offense to this; I can see how some folks can make that assumption. I was bom and raised in the South. I've been married for 24 years and have two grown children. I recently moved out to the boonies and have a cemetery in my back yard, and another across the road. I decided to settle here because it would be a great place for Crossroads to live and thrive.

I've been writing for the past 10 years and my most recent publishing credits are three stories published by Donna Burgess of The Blue Lady.

Before turning to my true love of writing horror, I had publishing credits in several men's slick magazines. The pay is great, but not what I really wanted to do. So after I made enough money to set up my home office, I began editing.

Crossroads and my telecommunications business now takes up most of my time and I don't write or market my work as often as I'd like.

I started Crossroads in 1992. That was after many months of research on the right title for my little magazine -- and after many calls to Janet Fox of Scavenger's Newsletter for her suggestions and looking at other horror magazines to figure out the format. Most of it was hit and miss on my part. My very first issue featured J. N. Williamson, a dear friend I met in Rhode Island at the 1987 NECON. He agreed to grace the pages of Crossroads to get me off to a good start. And that he did; I almost sold out of that issue right away.

I edit and publish for no other reason than the love if it. I went into this venture with my eyes open. I had no delusions of making money or fame -- just the love of helping out new writers and putting something I love on those pages. I do hope that others like what I do, it's so nice to share with others who appreciate the hard work that goes into editing and publishing.

It's great to see the writers that had their first publication credit in Crossroads move on to make a "name" for themselves. It's heartwarming to see their names all over the small press and to know that you played a small part in their lives.