Jess Nevins

I was born in 1966 in Boston, Mass. That I'm now living in suburban Texas surprises me as much as anyone else.

By day I'm a reference librarian at a community college outside of Houston. But by night I write. Most of what I write can be described as genre reference books--encyclopedias of superheroes, detectives, the heroes of pulp fiction, even the main characters of an entire century of fiction. Occasionally I'll dip my toes into other waters, and edit an anthology, or write a guide to one particular genre of fiction. Increasingly, though, I'm giving way to the urge to write fiction, where I have substantially more ideas about what I want to write about.

For now, though, genre reference books remain my primary output. THE EVOLUTION OF THE COSTUMED AVENGER: THE 4000-YEAR HISTORY OF THE SUPERHERO is my most recent book.