Bios and introductions are difficult for me; all the bios I’ve submitted for publications so far have been three or four sentences and focused largely on my pets. (Sadly, the nervous dog mentioned in them passed away a few months ago; she is greatly missed. The angry cat is still kicking.)

I live in Maryland with said cat. I have a day job that also involves writing, in a very non-fictional capacity. I grew up in Michigan and lived in Colorado and Missouri for college and grad school, where I studied international relations and political science.

I wrote my undergraduate honors thesis on representations of the Chechen conflict in US media, and my master’s thesis on international response to cases of genocide. While those topics aren’t necessarily what I write about when I’m writing speculative fiction, I think they give a sense of what drives my thinking and writing: How do things fit interact and together? How does a conflict inspire a response on the broader scale? How does an idea spread, and how does it change as it moves?

Of course, other times I have a thought like “vampire hummingbirds” and just go with it. They can’t all be deep.

My other interests include photography, needlecraft (knitting, cross-stitch, blackwork embroidery), music featuring guitars and causing me to have feelings, reading (of course!), and equestrian sports. I’ve been riding horses since I was six, with a decade-long break through high school until recently, and I’m very glad to be back in the barn again. Horse Stuff in fantasy fiction will almost definitely be a subject of posts here.

When it comes to my spec-fic roots, quest high fantasy and sword & sorcery started me off, along with Star Trek. Always Star Trek.