Michael J. Riser is an editor, horror author, and freelance writer whose work has appeared all over the internet, from entertainment media sites like IGN and Screen Rant to transgressive/horror print anthologies and literary journals. He is the former managing editor of the now-defunct AllOutGames, and has worked as editorial staff at Screen Rant and Goomba Stomp. A vegan-minded Buddhist and former scholar of religious history, his own religious trauma informs probably way too much of his work. He writes horror novels and short stories whenever hypercapitalism gives him enough of a break to do it, and he currently lives in the Chico area of California with his wife, a rescued pit bull, and a black Halloween cat.

Born under a bald and steaming moon in the grimy alleys of Oakland, California, Michael began his eager ascent up the cruel ladder of history in the early 1980s. He has remained locked in battle with an endless stream of deadline-wielding clocks, the wretched machinations of his great adversary: Time. Perhaps he will one day confront it in the grand spire of its clockwork chamber. Perhaps he will live to thrust a stake through that wicked heart.

Perhaps.

In December 2010, Michael started The Flying Monkey Apparatus, a sad attempt at a website he hopes time has mostly forgotten.

I always thought I’d call my collected work The Flying Monkey Apparatus just because it seemed like an amusing thing to call it. But I had the thought one day: doesn’t humankind strive to be like God whenever they bring those inner things to life? Every time they put pen to paper, brush to canvas, voice to song—those small acts of creation. I think my work, and the work of the artists to whom I’m so deeply indebted, is an unconscious homage to the concept of the divine. Or maybe it’s the divine itself, built from many pieces by land-bound mammals still wishing with all their might to fly.

After getting hit by a ridiculous number of hack attempts (WordPress was not the most secure thing in those days), TFMA was absorbed in gruesome ritual by Bookruptcy. So uh, here we are.