Elizabeth K. Burton

I think I've always loved to read, from the time I memorized my Little Golden Books so I could "read" them for myself. When a bout with polio in 1954 put a crimp in my physical activity, I suppose it was inevitable that I would fall back on reading. A tutor who moved me from Dick and Jane to Black Beauty in the second grade gave me the stimulus that eventually led me to want to put words on paper myself. After a long hiatus during which the only real writing I did was in my journal, I had to find a job to support myself and my children. Journalism seemed the logical choice, given my physical limitations, so I spent the next nine years working for several newspapers. That's when I discovered I couldn't write for a living and write for myself at the same time. I moved to working an information hotline for a small agency where I did most of the desktop publishing. In my spare time, I started working on my fiction again. After another six years had passed, I remarried and moved to Austin, Texas, where I decided it was time to quit fooling around and write. Influences? I think I've learned something from every author I've ever read, even if it was only how not to do something. The first "grown-up" book I ever owned was an old, sentimental dog story called Beautiful Joe. In time, I graduated to science fiction, then horror and from that point on genre became irrelevant. What mattered was the story and the way it was told. That's still the criterion apply.