Black Walnut was born in Mississippi during the largest mass UFO sighting in history, and often gazes wistfully at the stars, waiting for his people to return. He has been an actor, writer, funeral director's assistant, academic researcher, amateur anthropologist, resident English teacher in Japan, and collector of postmortem memorabilia. He believes that we are on this earth to leave it better off than we found it, and that neutrality is not an option. He lives in New York City when he isn't traipsing about in Asian climes.

Additional material added at the insistence of the voices inside Black Walnut's head:

Interests include shouting at birds, filling the bathtub with cooked rutabagas, wasp-eating contests, charting fluctuations in hog futures, Vlad the Impaler, interpreting odd noises and smells, words ending in ~weenis, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Hog the Mountie Grunter, Frog the Mouthy Shunter, Bog the Grouty Flunter, and Mog the Hefty Blargins. Black Walnut also seeks out media depicting vocal cord damage, cursed vegetable matter, and the quandary of separated persons who haven't decided whether they want a divorce or just need some time to themselves. Favorite literary offerings include "The Philosophical Investigations of Larry Fine," Tony Alamo tracts, "Build That Tree House from Bird Droppings!," mail-order bride catalogs from the 1980s, and the works of Mary Wollstonecraft Bullweenis.

Third favorite quote: "He not busy being born is busy dying." ~ Bob Dylan

Second favorite quote: "Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." ~ Denis Diderot

Favorite quote: "Better than nothing? Is it possible?" ~ Samuel Beckett