First Bio
(yanked june 28, 2007)

Eric W Jepson (the W is silent) was born on Coast Guard Day during America's bicentennial. Ergo he is a superpatriot and can shoot you with fifty stars out of his eyeballs if you fail to pay your usage tax or attempt to smuggle Indonesian seahorses through Zuma Beach. And you will deserve it.

Before developing his uberpowers (with the help of a class at Bakersfield College with exorbitant lab fees), Eric spent the bulk of his time in Montpelier, Idaho. Until Valentine's Day 1987 that is, when it was -40°F and the Jepsons moved to California and 60° weather. Eric’s dog Peppy, an outdoor animal, immediately began shedding and shedding and shedding.

Four Coast Guard Days later, the Jepson family moved to Tehachapi, land of trains, emus, windy wind, acorns and evil, wicked, no-good star thistle which gave young Eric many an inflamed scratch across his tender calves. Stupid Russian weeds.

Among the skills he gained during the next four years only to lose later were grasshopper hunting, tilling, distance bike riding, angst, and who knows what else. They’re lost skills now. No point exhuming the dead. Unless you think a map to the Lost Treasure of the Tomo-Kahni is engraved upon an unsprouted wisdom tooth of the dead in question. But there isn’t. Not this time.

Tehachapi was high school. Two lousy years, two good years. A lot of experimenting with crappy high school poetry, surreal drama, personal essays, short stories, screenplays for animated shorts and The Care Bears Movie III, and novels aborted after five pages.

Additionally, Eric donated one of his many pseudonyms (Antemoff) to an occasionally almost existent gaming company cofounded with Michael Maas and Clayton Arends. Although the games were never made (and although Eric has still never even played a “real” computer game), some of the characters and stories they developed remain bleeding brilliant. Contact Thmazing.com for the movie rights.

Graduation led into a year split between the hamburger industry and Bakersfield College which gave way to two years as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints all over the south of South Korea where he learned how to say humorous things that, alas, cannot be typed with Roman letterforms, and somehow obtained the title The Amazing Elder Jepson, which would become the source of a great many future problems for a great many future people. Including you.

Another year at BC and three minimum wage jobs led to our young pilgrim packing his bags and heading (rather unwillingly) to Brigham Young University .

But BYU was much better than expected and in addition to flexing his supersexy academic muscles, he wrote his first book, the lost lousypiece Peace, Love & Gingerbread. Putting in twelve-hour days pumping out and rewriting that 600-page behemoth was an education in itself.

That education would not have been possible without the financial and emotional and ahemual support of the newly minted Mrs. Jepson (est. 2000).

Eric met Lynsey his first year at BYU and they wed during his second.

Lynsey is a designer, an artist by temperament, what one might call “a tall glass of orange juice”, and all kinds of beautiful/delicious. According to her husband. And he would know.

Eric graduated in 2002 and so did Lynsey. Sort of. Eric put his BA to use by taking a job removing stickers from boxes and the two of them stayed in Utah for two more years. In December of 2003, Lynsey wrapped up her BFA and birthed a healthy man-child. Eight months later they would be in California.

Eric supported his nascent family by checking things off his Every Writer’s Resume checklist. In order: substitute teacher, newspaper gofer, newspaper reporter, newspaper editor, high school English teacher, high school PE instructor. All in just 23 months.

Bastille Day 2006 brought the family north to the East Bay with its accompanying moderate weather and greenery--things that had been sorely lacking in the Jepsons’ lifestyle.

Meanwhile, Eric’s real career was starting to find its legs. His first-fiction-for-money was the short story “Afterlife” which appeared in the online magazine Quantum Muse , and his first novel, Byuck, is forthcoming from Zarahemla Books .

As is a second mini-Jepson. (Although not from Zarahemla Books.)

It would seem Eric is doing his share to make the world a better place.

The odds lie at 3:1. Place your bets now.