Shane Jiraiya Cummings

Shane Jiraiya Cummings has been acknowledged as "one of Australia's leading voices in dark fantasy". Shane is the author of the forthcoming Yokai Wars series (Circle of Tears, Clockwork Legion, and Blight of the Underworld) and the dark fiction books The Abandonment of Grace and Everything After, Shards, the Apocrypha Sequence (Deviance, Divinity, Insanity, and Inferno), and the Ravenous Gods cycle (Requiem for the Burning God and Dreams of Destruction). He has won the Australian Shadows Award and two Ditmar Awards, and he has been nominated for more than twenty other major awards, including Spain's Premios Ignotus.

Shane is an Active Member of the Horror Writers Association and former Vice President of the Australian Horror Writers Association. When he is not writing, Shane is an editor and journalist by day. By night (and on weekends), he can be found indulging in hobbies such as playing the guitar, photography, sword fighting, and testing the limits of his cruiser motorcycle.

In his youth, Shane was trained in the deadly arts of the ninja, and the name Jiraiya (lit. "Young Thunder", after the legendary ninja Jiraiya) was bestowed upon him by his sensei.

Shane was born and raised in Sydney, Australia. He lived for many years in Perth, Western Australia, and Wellington, New Zealand, but he has returned to his old home town to revisit the ghosts of his past.

More information on Shane (including his free fiction) can be found online at www.jiraiya.com.au.