This is the biographical information that I plan to attach to my press materials for Goblin Moon. I'll be sending it out to blogs and websites I the hope that they'll either want to interview me or review GM. Is it too long? Would it bore you — or make you eager to do an interview with me?
I believe I began telling stories as soon as I learned to talk.
As a child, I was a voracious reader with interests that were always changing as one book or series after another would catch my imagination. But I was happiest reading tales of the fantastic and marvelous: the Oz books, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland; the classic fairy tales like “East of the Sun and West of the Moon” or “The Seven Swans,” literary fairy tales like “The Light Princess” or “Beauty and the Beast.” Then and afterwards these were the stories that influenced my writing. However, it wasn’t until I was a teenager and discovered the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis that my true love affair with fantasy began. The Lord of the Rings was a mind-altering experience from which I have never recovered
Six years later, my decision to be a stay-at-home mother left me ... if not with much time on my hands ... at least in easy reach of a typewriter. This, and a particular interest in alchemy, the old fairy tales, and Celtic mythology, inspired me to begin writing The Green Lion Trilogy. I never imagined it would take me almost ten years to write. Ignorance can be a blessing.
After the Green Lion books, came the proto-steampunk/fantasy-of-manners Goblin Moon. It had a modest success at the time, and gained an enthusiastic following over the next two decades. If the world was not quite ready for Goblin Moon when it first appeared, the world eventually learned its mistake — to the benefit of the used-book stores if not to myself. Meanwhile, I was writing other novels, as well as a handful of short stories. In 2004, I returned to epic fantasy with the first book in a new series, The Rune of Unmaking, published under the pseudonym Madeline Howard.
Growing tired of the pressure of deadlines, and of the struggle to maintain my creative integrity while still meeting the expectations of my publishers (they had already paid me to write the books, and one can hardly blame them if they wanted me to do so), I decided that traditional publishing no longer suited me. As a result, I’m now engaged in self-publishing my backlist, with plans to eventually release new books and new stories in the same way. This new phase of my career begins with the re-release of Goblin Moon.
Thanks to the collapsing economy, my husband and I now share our home with three of our adult children, a son-in-law, twin grandsons, and the obligatory pets — for what fantasy writer doesn’t have pets? The house is full but we all seem to get along with each other surprisingly well ... though the books are beginning to feel crowded and are muttering threats of rebellion.
And after that I'll add my bibliography. Now that I've padded it with the articles I posted on the front page here, it looks pretty impressive.
Description of GM will come after. But you've already seen all that — unless you've been very determined and clever at avoiding it, in which case why spoil a perfect record now?
Here's the photograph of me that goes with it. I'm not sure whether to put that at the beginning, or somewhere part way through the bio. Click the thumbnail and you'll get a better idea of it's size.
I believe I began telling stories as soon as I learned to talk.
As a child, I was a voracious reader with interests that were always changing as one book or series after another would catch my imagination. But I was happiest reading tales of the fantastic and marvelous: the Oz books, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland; the classic fairy tales like “East of the Sun and West of the Moon” or “The Seven Swans,” literary fairy tales like “The Light Princess” or “Beauty and the Beast.” Then and afterwards these were the stories that influenced my writing. However, it wasn’t until I was a teenager and discovered the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis that my true love affair with fantasy began. The Lord of the Rings was a mind-altering experience from which I have never recovered
Six years later, my decision to be a stay-at-home mother left me ... if not with much time on my hands ... at least in easy reach of a typewriter. This, and a particular interest in alchemy, the old fairy tales, and Celtic mythology, inspired me to begin writing The Green Lion Trilogy. I never imagined it would take me almost ten years to write. Ignorance can be a blessing.
After the Green Lion books, came the proto-steampunk/fantasy-of-manners Goblin Moon. It had a modest success at the time, and gained an enthusiastic following over the next two decades. If the world was not quite ready for Goblin Moon when it first appeared, the world eventually learned its mistake — to the benefit of the used-book stores if not to myself. Meanwhile, I was writing other novels, as well as a handful of short stories. In 2004, I returned to epic fantasy with the first book in a new series, The Rune of Unmaking, published under the pseudonym Madeline Howard.
Growing tired of the pressure of deadlines, and of the struggle to maintain my creative integrity while still meeting the expectations of my publishers (they had already paid me to write the books, and one can hardly blame them if they wanted me to do so), I decided that traditional publishing no longer suited me. As a result, I’m now engaged in self-publishing my backlist, with plans to eventually release new books and new stories in the same way. This new phase of my career begins with the re-release of Goblin Moon.
Thanks to the collapsing economy, my husband and I now share our home with three of our adult children, a son-in-law, twin grandsons, and the obligatory pets — for what fantasy writer doesn’t have pets? The house is full but we all seem to get along with each other surprisingly well ... though the books are beginning to feel crowded and are muttering threats of rebellion.
And after that I'll add my bibliography. Now that I've padded it with the articles I posted on the front page here, it looks pretty impressive.
Description of GM will come after. But you've already seen all that — unless you've been very determined and clever at avoiding it, in which case why spoil a perfect record now?
Here's the photograph of me that goes with it. I'm not sure whether to put that at the beginning, or somewhere part way through the bio. Click the thumbnail and you'll get a better idea of it's size.
And I know a lot of it isn't true, but what the heck? Insert your own stories if you want the truth, just make 'em interesting...) 
