Eileen F. Watkins credits her overprotective parents for her love of mystery and horror. She recalls, “They tried so hard to keep me from reading or watching anything scary that I couldn't get enough of funhouses and Chiller Theater!” Growing up in Cranford, NJ, she always aspired to write novels. Her earliest efforts involved adventure stories about horses, or Nancy Drew-type mysteries.

In her freshman year at Marywood College in Scranton, PA, she won first place in a college-wide short story contest. The real turning point occurred later in that year, when a friend lent her a paperback of Dracula. She read it by flashlight during a thunderstorm and blackout in the dorm. “I fell in love with the book, ” she says, “and knew that was the kind of thing I wanted to write.” More contemporary suspense authors who have influenced her work include Ira Levin and Dean Koontz.

Over the years, she has written novels featuring a lake monster, a ghost, a genetic-mutant “yuppie” and a reincarnated pagan fertility god. Dance With The Dragon, her first novel with Amber Quill Press, fulfills her fondest ambition-to create her own interpretation of the most memorable monster in all of fiction, as he might have adapted to the 21st century.

Eileen has published horror short stories in the magazines Belladonna and Doppleganger. In 1994, she won First Prize in a national contest sponsored by the Garden State Horror Writers, with an excerpt from her unpublished novel Paragon. In 2000, she won second prize in the Philadelphia Writer's Conference contest with an excerpt from her novel Black Flowers. She is a founding member of, and publicity officer for, the Garden State Horror Writers. She is also a member of the Horror Writers Association, Sisters in Crime/Central Jersey and The Writer's Workshop, Englewood, NJ.

A professional journalist for more than 20 years, Eileen covered art, architecture and interior design for The Star-Ledger of Newark, NJ. She now freelances, writing on these same subjects. She shares her 1922 house in northern New Jersey with two cats—Bela and Harley—and rides horseback, specializing in dressage. She also collects furniture, clothing and fabrics from the 1930s-40s.

You can visit her website at: www.efwatkins.com.