Neal was born and raised in Tacoma, Washington. He attended college at Western Washington University, pursuing a course in secondary education before being drummed out of the program and forced back to his one true love, the written word. It’s a long story. An administrator went bonkers and he wasn’t much interested in teaching anyway. Don’t worry about it. By this time he had written three novels, but hadn’t yet learned his lesson, and proceeded to continue writing novels for the next twenty years. The more recent ones are worth damns. As he did this, he wrote a number of comic books, ultimately settling on about the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth for proper publication. There were times, many times, when his work was accepted by publishers, and then those publishers closed, so most of the time, he works for himself. This is good. It keeps him hungry. It makes the work better. That’s what he tells himself, anyway. It would be nice to have some scratch, though, he often thinks. In the middle of all of that, to pay the bills, he delivered papers, bussed tables, hosted, waited tables, cooked, worked construction, did day labor, was a caregiver, and took work as a handyman. When he was a construction worker he built houses, which is kind of cool, but unfortunately most of his clients when he was a caregiver have since died. It wasn’t his fault. Honest. Most recently he was a personal assistant. Now he just writes. And after he wrote that last sentence, he wondered casually how one could reduce all the time, faith, effort, work, and life that goes into writing into a “just,” but by the time the next sentence had come to pass, he’d moved on. Produce or die. He was represented by a reputable agent for a good long time, but that agent forgot that he existed and unceremoniously dumped him randomly. It was a bummer. Are you an agent? Do you want a crazy, dedicated, hard-working and hungry writer with a whole bunch of experience and some good books that need to get noticed? Let’s kick some ass. Neal Bailey is a closer. He gets coffee. No, that’s not what I mean. I won’t get you coffee. It’s a reference. I have to explain that? Oh, Jesus Christ.