Gracie and Zarkov are the pseudonyms for an intrepid pair of SF Bay Area psychonauts most well-known for their Notes from Underground, which first began to appear in 1983. While writing about their psychoactive drug experiments, they worked by day as investment bankers. Gracie has an MBA in marketing and finance, a BS in physical anthropology, and she has taught assorted science classes. She currently works as a communications specialist. The enigmatic Zarkov's background is more of a mystery.

Gracie and Zarkov were Associate Editors for High Frontiers, and frequently wrote for Reality Hackers and MONDO 2000, where they contributed articles, reviews, and interviews related to Heavy Metal music, books, and esoterica. Psychedelics, sex, magic, and a libertarian ethos were important elements in their underground research. They were the first to publish information regarding the potentiation effect that Peganum harmala extract has on smoked DMT. Although a book version of their Notes was planned for some years, it never materialized, and three Notes--each listed as "article in process" in a collection of their works--remain unpublished. Gracie and Zarkov always encouraged readers to copy and reprint their writings, remarking that "in a truly free society the price of packaged information would be driven down to the cost of reproduction and transmission"--a prescient attitude back in the early 1980s, considering how the Internet has mushroomed since that time.