Joe R. Lansdale lives in East Texas with his wife, Karen. The author of over thirty novels and two hundred short stories and articles, he is the recipient of numerous awards, including the British Fantasy Award, the Edgar, seven Bram Stoker Awards, Italy's Grinzani Cavour Prize, and many others. In 2007 he received the Grand Master Award from the World Horror Convention.

His novella Bubba Ho-tep was filmed in 2002 by producer/director Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis, while his story "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" became the first episode of Showtime Networks' Masters of Horror series, from the same director.

Lansdale's most recent novel is Devil Red, the latest in his best-selling series of quirky crime novels featuring mismatched investigators Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, which includes such titles as Savage Season, Mucho Mojo, The Two-Bear Mambo, Bad Chili, Rumble Tumble, Captains Outrageous and Vanilla Ride.