Staff

A.J. Zaethe is a High Fantasy Author who has spent most of his life filtering the fantastical out of real life and bleeding it back out on the page. Fantasy is his life, and aims to have shelves of his novels at a book store near you. He is also a self proclaimed historian, a title claimed without shame. He loves myth and especially religious history. Yes, he is aware of the edge the subject treads, but it is often the center of his writings. And if he isn't writing or perversely becoming a historian, he is with a mound of clay, sculpting the next David.

Alek has been an avid reader of fantasy since he was told to give The Lord of the Rings a go. Already a geek through his tastes in RPG/JRPG games, his fate was sealed. Since then, although he has attempted to stray from the genre, fantasy has been where his heart belongs. Somewhere along the line, he decided that it would be cool to one day write his own fantasy novel and he has several—although a little scattered—plot ideas that are waiting for him to put pen to paper. Or is it fingers to keys these days? His progress in the writing world was halted for a few years when he toiled full time as a customer assistant in an electronics shop, spending his days surrounded by computers. As such, he can add to his geek résumé that he can change RAM in a computer! At the moment, Alek is a Psychology student and when he’s not studying, or reading, he’s working on his own work in progress. He has a very strong crush on Brynd Lathraea and loves Kvothe so much that one of his cats has been named Reshi after him.

I read a lot of fantasy in my late teens and early twenties - the likes of Feist and Eddings - but became cynical with the genre after the stories all seemed to be about the same teenager who discovered he was the son of a king/had hidden magic powers on the same quest to rid the world of the same dark villain. A few years ago, a friend gave me an old David Gemmel novel, and while reading it I remembered everything I loved about the genre. Other authors - Joe Abercrombie and Scott Lynch, for example - have revigorated my interest and refreshed the genre. I've been a writer for years, but never confident enough to push my work. Three years ago, I was one of 50 runners-up in SFX's Pulp Idol competition, and that, combined with my rediscovered love of fantasy, gave me the impetous to start a novel. It's complete now, and I'm a third of the way through the next; turns out that idea is going to be a trilogy after all... I love to read, I love to write. This seems like a perfect way to combine the two - can't wait.

Amy Rose Davis is an independent epic fantasy author. She lives in Oregon with her husband, Bryce, and their four children. Bryce provides comic relief, editing, and inspiration, and regularly talks her off the various ledges she climbs onto. Amy is an unapologetic coffee addict, but her other vices include chocolate, margaritas, and whiskey. She prefers cats to dogs (but houses both), loves the color green, and enjoys the smell of new pencils and crayons. She has eclectic tastes in friends, music, and books, and is as likely to watch 300 as Becoming Jane. Amy's published works include the novella "Silver Thaw" and the novel "Ravenmarked." Her books are available in all major e-bookstores.

After years of living in a fantasy world, Ashley attempted to leave Neverland and be a grown up. She started a theater company with her husband in Phoenix, Arizona, and for ten years she produced and acted in nearly two-dozen classical and Shakespearean plays, even writing a few that were published. But she never could quite escape that childhood world, and the pull of the fantastical. Her dark-fantasy trilogy beginning with Shadow Fox was picked up by Champagne Books, and it now seems foolish to continue resisting. To test her commitment, she is going to the Arizona Renaissance Festival this year, and will be making her first convention appearance -- as a dealer, no less -- at LepreCon 37. Her favorite fantasy authors are George R.R. Martin and Guy Gavriel Kay, and she’s looking forward to finding even more. It’s good to be back. www.ashleyjbarnard.com

Jennie Ivins is the mother of three boys (one set of twins & one singleton) who for some reason likes living in Central New Jersey. She married a geek and enjoys watching other geeks discuss their geeky ways. In her pre-mom life, she worked as a chef’s apprentice and a retail store manager. Being a stay-at-home-mom means she spends way too much time on the internet, mostly on Twitter and Fantasy-Faction, in between chasing kids and cleaning her house. When she gets a spare second, she loves taking pictures and cooking up new and delicious creations. But her other loves include art, science, music, computers, history and anything else shiny that happens across her field of vision. She is currently writing her first series of fantasy books and enjoying it more then she thought humanly possible. She is not sure exactly how she became a book reviewer, but she is enjoying that as well. However, she has found writing about herself in the third person rather odd.

A young author from sunny England, Ben has been writing since he was old enough to be trusted with a pencil, and since then he has written a great many books, dreamt a great many dreams, and insistently become a nuisance. Ben currently spends his time telling tall tales and daydreaming on park benches. He prides himself in being a downright nice chap, an upstanding English gentleman, and an all-round closet hooligan. Worryingly for the rest of us, he still believes in dragons. He won’t tell you where they’re hiding, because that’s a secret, but he will tell you about them in great detail. At 24 Ben is one of the youngest self-published authors in the UK. In January 2011 he released - The Written , his debut fantasy novel and the first in his coldly brutal Emaneska Series. The Written can be found in the all the usual hiding places such as Amazon, iBooks, and Waterstone's. The sequel - Pale Kings , will be unleashed on February 29th 2012, and is intent on leaving The Written quivering in the shadows. Ben can be found at www.bengalley.com , being loquacious and attempting to be witty on Twitter - @BenGalley , or hiding in your garden shed.

Ben Godby writes mysteriously thrilling pseudo-scientific weird western adventure fantasy tales. He lives in Ottawa, Ontario with a girl, two dogs, and a cat, and chronicles his literary battle stories at http://bengodby.blogspot.com

Chelsea grew up thinking that she could fly... at least at night. It was always strange to her when she woke up the ability seemed to escape her. Now a day, she plays as a vampire in a Live Action Role Playing (LARP) game in the One World by Night (OWbN) organization. When she is not playing make believe, though, she has completed two associate degrees in Liberal Arts and Social and Behavioral Science; along with completing her Bachelor's in English. Not wishing to become a school teacher she has set her dreams upon being a writer. She currently lives in the Sacramento Valley, has been married since 2008 and has two fur babies; she hopes to add to the family in the future. Having many odd jobs in the past she has settled upon a career of secretarial work until her books can sustain her and her family. Hoping to have this a step into that world, hopefully in the next few years someone will be doing a spotlight or a review of her work.

At a younger age, Chloe Smith dreamed of becoming a warrior maiden when she grew up, complete with magic weapons, an animal companion she could ride and/or have telepathic conversations with, and maybe a quest or two. Since then, she has diversified her aspirations, and her quests have included training to become a professional ballet dancer, working as a barista, traveling in India, and, more recently, obtaining her BA in History from Columbia University. She spent last summer as an editorial intern at Locus Magazine, exploring the wild and wooly frontier of Science Fiction and Fantasy publishing. She is currently living in a small town in France (rather like the one when people wake up to say “Bonjour!”) and working as an assistant English teacher in a high school. She also spends a lot of time writing—both fiction and non—and putting it up on her blog, www.imaginaryresearch.blogspot.com. Selections from her long list of favorite authors include Connie Willis, Terry Pratchett, Barbara Kingsolver, Robin Mckinley, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Anthony Trollope. She had a dangerous weakness for anything created by Joss Whedon.