Anthony Burns was born in 1979, and is the son of Welsh poet and novelist Sheenagh Pugh. He read English Literature at the University of Leeds, and in 2004 completed his PhD on Gothic literature and the morbid, vampire-obsessed Romantic poet P B Shelley, probably best known these days as the blond character with very few lines in “Bride of Frankenstein”. He has also worked as an alternative model, teaching English in Beijing, and writing advertising copy for a toyshop. His literary and not-so-literary influences include C S Lewis, Tolkien, Terry Pratchett, H P Lovecraft, Bram Stoker, and any mythology that happens to take his liking, but especially Norse and Aztec.