About Anthony

I was born during the great flood of 1607 in The Kingdom of England. As the story goes, the precise moment when the sea wall at Burnham-on-Sea gave way, I emerged. I was branded as a cursed child and left exposed to the elements.

If that wandering troupe of thieving, necromantic, circus folk hadn’t happened by, my first life would have ended before it began. I grew up learning the dark arts and juggling. I liked juggling best, but will-manipulation of small forest creatures had its advantages.

By age 20 I had learned all I could from my extended vagabond family, so I left on what would be a journey of self-discovery and enlightenment. Unfortunately I was stabbed in my sleep two days later and died shortly after amidst great celebration of the drunken murderers who’d robbed me.

I spent the next 360 years as various, lowly creatures of little consequence. It seems necromancy isn’t exactly the karmic booster shot one would hope. Though it did afford me the self-awareness—both a blessing and a curse—to relay these events to you.
Centipedes, dung beetles, rats, I lived as them all. The only life worth note were my years as Edgar Allan Poe’s housecat, Cattarina (though, more often Callers). During my time as Eddie’s cat, I decided to pursue writing as a career. I knew it’d be many years before I inhabited a body with the proper appendages to accomplish this feat, but I was patient.

Then it happened. In 1980, I was again born as a human child. I spent my early years in Brooklyn, doing normal Brooklyn-kid things: That is, not necromancy. I channeled my darker thoughts onto the page as Father Edgar had, however indirectly, taught me.

I now reside in Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is from this somewhat secluded resting place I bring you the amalgamation of my 400-someodd years of life experience in the guise of fiction. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

-Anthony J. Rapino