Aimee Payne leaped into her life feet first. She narrowly avoided doing so in a supermarket when her mother diverted a parade to get to a hospital instead.

It was the first parade held in her honor.

Her parents, not shy about reading in front of their daughter, often read to her as well. Her grandparents indulged an early habit of visiting libraries and bookstores, and an aunt bought her books for her birthday.

Eager to create books as well as consume them, Aimee wrote her first novel at seven and a second at twelve; both are lost to the ages. A decades long drought has followed the second novel, though darkened clouds are forming on the horizon portending a third.

Meanwhile, she continues to sharpen her skills with the short form.

In the summer of 2006, she attended the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop in East Lansing, Michigan. In a strange sequence of events that she hopes has nothing to do with her attendance, the workshop subsequently fled the Midwest.

Aimee lives in the Cincinnati area of Ohio, though she dreams of more exciting locales. She persists in torturing loved ones and small animals by practicing the cello on a semi-regular basis.