About the Author

The Oecumenicum trilogy was compiled and formatted by a lone author, Eric Muss-Barnes, from public domain text, based upon the American Standard Version biblical translation, originally published in 1901.

Brought up by the 1940’s swingkid generation of his maternal grandparents, Eric Muss-Barnes is a patriotic Fifth Generation citizen of the United States of America, born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio during the 1970’s. There, he spent the first 32 years of his life, before picking up and moving to California, with no job and nowhere to live, in the spring of 2003. (Although, he frequently jokes, he was, “Born and raised 2,500 miles outside of Los Angeles.”)

During the course of five decades, Eric has spent years programming websites at Walt Disney Studios; solo-piloted hang gliders over 6000 feet above the Earth; dated bikini models, rockstar goddesses and glamazon actresses; been thrown and dragged by horses (arguably similar to his dating experiences); earned a living as an American Greetings toymaker and a Hollywood game designer; ridden motorcycles more than 130,000 miles through mountains and desert sandstorms (make that “over” mountains, he’s not Buckaroo Banzai); produced, directed and edited numerous music videos and an award-nominated film (The Unseelie Court); crewed on an Academy Award nominated movie (American Splendor) and one of the first videogame-adaptation motion pictures (Double Dragon); skateboarded in pools all around California with Olympians and documented his adventures in an online video series called “Skateboarding California” and “Learn To Ride A Skateboard” which have garnered over 7 million viewers; written an epic duology of vampire tales, plus standalone speculative fiction stories and imaginative literature (for a total of 12 books, including 6 novels); photographed numerous fashion models and sold his images in several art gallery showings across the nation from Cleveland to Hollywood; had stories published in multiple fiction/non-fiction anthologies; served 12 years hard time in parochial schools; been trained in the use of firearms by the San Bernardino County sheriff’s department; purchased 10 acres of the Mojave desert (while unemployed) to begin building a Disney-inspired, technologically-advanced, off-grid, dreamhouse/cabin project dubbed “Luthorville”; started an educational video series called “Teaching Girls & Grandpas How To Build Websites” to share his decades of computer programming knowledge; made a video project entitled “Learn BMX Racing” to introduce new riders to the sport, and created a blog named “InkShard” featuring videos and essays about his experiences as a writer.

Despite attending Roman Catholic private schools for 12 years, Eric never read the entire Holy Bible until compiling all the volumes of the Oecumenicum.

A true child at heart, he has been 100% sober and straightedge since the day he was born; never once touched drugs, never once taken a single drag from a cigarette, never cussed in front of his late mother or grandparents, never got a tattoo, and never once tasted a drop of alcohol, with the exception of sips of wine at church and those childhood shots of whiskey administered by his grandparents when he had a flu. The guy is Little Lord Fauntleroy incarnate.