Deb Taber

Deb Taber was born in the foothills of Colorado, but eventually traded the Rockies for the Cascades and became a full-fledged Pacific Northwesterner, complete with the standard-issue coffee addiction and an irrational affection for giant slugs.

Always more inclined to read than speak, Deb's first complete sentence was reportedly “I wanna book,” which was no doubt grammatically corrected to “I want a book,” or better yet, “May I have a book, please?” She should have seen her dual career as writer and editor coming.

Despite a few secretive attempts at writing in her early years, the visual and performing arts swallowed her first, leading to hours and then years spent under, behind, beyond, or dangling precariously above the theatrical stage...essentially, anywhere but on it.

While Deb still designs lighting for Seattle-area dance and music groups upon occasion, she settled at last into writing and editing professionally beginning in the early 2000s. She sold her first short story, “How to Raise a Human,” to Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest, then managed to join the staff of that same magazine as an editor before the story made it to print. There, she progressed from slush reader to senior editor of the small press’s book division. She also edited a horse magazine for a few years before leaping to full-time freelancing, and now edits and/or proofreads everything from self-published science fiction to thrillers for New York Times best-selling authors.

After a day spent polishing other writers’work, she finds time now and then to write her own brand of speculative twists and turns. Her dark fantasy stories have appeared in such venues as Fantasy Magazine and River: An Anthology and her science fiction short stories have appeared in various anthologies, including Art From Art and Dark Futures. Necessary Ill is her first novel.

You can occasionally spot her lurking at www.debtaber.com.