Even before Janice A. Cullum could read and write she was creating new fantasy worlds by telling herself bedtime stories at the age of four. "My father refused to read children's stories to me calling them utter rubbish", said Ms. Cullum, once in a interview. He did, however, approve of Kipling. Therefore, Janice's earliest literary hero was Mowgli of the "Jungle Tales". She made sure to read them to her daughters too. Janice always believed in reincarnation. This life after life experience was evidenced by Janice's sensation of "remembering how to read". She applied this "recalled" knowledge by voraciously consuming books. The first book she recalled reading on her own was Walter Farley's The Black Stallion; her second, Robert Heinlein's The Red Planet. Cullum had an early wealth of influence that many SF and Fantasy writers would have given a world or two for. These Janice affectionately called "the stacks" - nearly two tons of science fiction and fantasy magazines collected by her father. From Amazing Stories to the Unknown, her dad had it all! Janice's favorites were the Planet stories of the late 1940's which featured stories by Leigh Brackett, C. L. Moore and Poul Anderson. One of the greatest tragedies of the author's life came when her father donated all two tons of magazines to the Syracuse Library! Her later influences include Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, Georgette Heyer's regency novels, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Dorthy Dunnett's Chronicles of Lymond, and Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels. She read "King Kull" when she was about 8 and was offended that the snake people were portrayed as totally evil. Cullum liked snakes, so she created a world where the snake people were no more good or evil than the humans. The snake people eventually morphed in the lizard folk. Ms. Cullum loved science fiction and fantasy conventions, which she started attending with her family when she was eight, and where she met her husband, who shared her love of science fiction and fantasy.