L. Andrew Cooper thinks the smartest people like horror, fantasy, and sci-fi. Early in life, he couldn't handle the scary stuff--he'd sneak and watch horror films and then keep his parents up all night with his nightmares. In the third grade, he finally convinced his parents to let him read grownup horror novels: he started with Stephen King's _Firestarter_, and by grade five, he was doing book reports on _The Stand_.When his parents weren't being kept up late by his nightmares, they worried that his fascination with horror fiction would keep him from experiencing more respectable culture. That all changed when he transitioned from his public high school in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia to uber-respectable Harvard University, where he studied English Literature. From there, he went on to get a Ph.D. in English from Princeton, turning his longstanding engagement with horror into a dissertation. The dissertation became the basis for his first book, _Gothic Realities_ (2010). More recently, his obsession with horror movies turned into a book about one of his favorite directors, _Dario Argento_ (2012). He also co-edited the textbook _Monsters_ (2012), an attempt to infect others with the idea that scary things are worth people's serious attention.After living in Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and California, Andrew now lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where he teaches at the University of Louisville. _Burning the Middle Ground_ is his debut novel.