William Warner Sleator III says that he began writing when very young and that even then he was interested in the uncanny aspects of life.

Sleator, though raised among a family of scientists, was always interested in the arts, eventually becoming a pianist, composer, and writer. It is perhaps this blending of dual interests in art and science that prompted his avid reading of science fiction. He was born to William Warner, Jr., a college professor in physiology, and Esther Kaplan Sleator, a pediatrician, in Havre de Grace, Maryland, on February 13, 1945.

He composed music by high school that reflected his preoccupation with the macabre, and he gave these works titles such as "Guillotines in Springtime." He entered Harvard as a music major where he says that he was miserable, with his unhappiness reflected in unhappy compositions. He seems to have been very productive whatever...