Joseph Armstead has been a lifelong fan of horror, science fiction and suspense fiction, in both the printed media and in cinematic form. He has always enjoyed creating interesting characters and telling stories. His education and training in the scientific disciplines led him towards developing a more physically plausible outlook on the traditional presentations of supernatural or fantastic fiction. Cliches annoy him. He believes that the more firmly rooted in Reality a novel is, the more a reader can instantly connect with the events and characters therein. Mr. Armstead decries the current "gore-for-gore's-sakes" school of horror fiction, instead infusing his work with intelligence and scholarship. His writing centers on the themes of personal and societal alienation, xenophobia and interspecies racism, dark conspiracies, criminal violence and renegade scientific technologies. He is known as an essayist, a postmodernist poet and is frequently published in various literary publications. Mr. Armstead is also a member of both the American Mathematical and World Future societies.

He currently lives in northern California, near the shark-frequented waters of the Pacific, and works as a computer technologist in the legal industry.