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Craig Conley has been called a "language fanatic" by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, and a "cult hero" by Publisher's Weekly. An eccentric scholar, Conley's ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the "virtual pet" in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular "Tamagotchi" in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size.

Craig left academia to become a full-time lexicographer and scholar of magic. He is author of Magic Words: A Dictionary and Magic Archetypes: The Art Behind the Science of Conjuring. His study of the primal power of the alphabet, One-Letter Words: A Dictionary, is published by HarperCollins. He is co-author of the McGraw-Hill textbook Human Diversity: A Guide for Understanding.

WEB SITES:
• Abecedarian Web Log
• Strange & Unusual Dictionaries
• The Magician's Hidden Library