ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dianne K. Salerni
lives in Chester County, Pennsylvania with her husband Bob and two daughters,
Gabrielle (13) and Gina (9). She graduated from St. Mark's High School in
Wilmington, Delaware and received her Bachelor's Degree in Elementary Education
from the University of Delaware. She subsequently earned a Master's in
Language Arts Education at the University of Pennsylvania before taking a job
teaching in the Avon Grove School District. She has now been teaching
fourth and fifth grade at Avon Grove for 20 years.
Dianne's full length, historical fiction novel High Spirits was published in 2007 through iUniverse. The book has since been sold to Sourcebooks Inc. and a new edition will be re-released under the title We Hear the Dead in May 2010.
We Hear the Dead has also been optioned for a feature length film by Open Eye Studios. As part of the deal, Dianne is writing the screenplay -- a completely new skill set for her!
In 2009, her horror short story Necromancer appeared in the first volume of Visions, a pulp fiction anthology published by Strider Nolan Media. In 2010, the second volume of Visions was published with Dianne's fantasy short story Greydeere, and the upcoming third volume will include her ghost story titled The Reb.
Writing has been a life-long hobby, and she
frequently shares her work with her students. Dianne
has published a number of educational products with McDonald Publishing, but
We Hear the Dead
is her first published novel and her first venture into the historical
fiction genre. Her original idea for the novel involved a
contemporary humorous story about talent-less spirit mediums, but research
into the history of seances led Dianne into discovering the fascinating story of
the Fox Sisters and diverted her original plan. The novel took her two
years to write, and at times Dianne could have sworn that the characters were
haunting her in a quest to have their story told. In particular, she
blames Dr. Kane for doubling the length of the novel, because once he arrived
"on stage" he refused to leave! Some of her favorite
scenes to write included Elisha Kane and Leah, whose "spirited" personalities clashed
heartily as they battled for control of Maggie's life.
Necromancer evolved from a short story written over 20 years ago, when Dianne was a graduate student working in the Rare Books Library at the University of Pennsylvania. This adult short story about a mysterious scholar attempting to raise the dead was "resurrected" (get it?), revised and updated, and now appears in the first volume of Visions: Chronicles of a Visionary Universe.
Greydeere is the story of a wily thief who causes no end of trouble for the upper class ruler of a human realm in the Age of Magic.