Cislyn Smith likes playing pretend, playing games, and playing with words. She calls Madison, Wisconsin her home. She has been known to crochet tentacles, write stories at odd hours, and study stone dead languages. She is occasionally dismayed by the lack of secret passages in her house. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Strange Horizons, Diabolical Plots, and Mermaids Monthly. She is a graduate of the Viable Paradise Workshop, a first reader for Uncanny and GigaNotoSaurus, and a founding member of The Dream Foundry.