shaitarn

Author bio:

Personal stuff - I live in Croydon, South London (you may have seen it on the news during the 2011 London riots) and am married; my long-suffering husband is my first sounding board for new ideas and has to put up with questions from how vampires would earn their money to which element would be the best one to be able to control.

I started doing NaNo in 2010 and find it's a great way of forcing myself to write rather than have my ideas sitting in the back of my mind and never getting much further than just a couple of scenes written down on the computer. Having writting buddies that don't mind prodding me to get things done is also extremely helpful.

I love all the different categories of the genre called fantasy, from dark fantasy to urban fantasy (though I'm a little tired of the vampire romance stuff, I admit) and all the ones in between, with a little bit of steampunk and cyberpunk thrown in for good measure. I love discussing these with people (though do try to stop when their eyes glaze over, or they run screaming from the room), and am always interested in twisting the traditonal stereotypes and changing them - why are so many fantasy worlds stuck in a medieval time-warp, why do elves live in forests and dwarves underground (apart from publishers being afraid to publish anything that strays too far from tradition, I suppose)? Ideas I'd love to develop in the future are my fantasy/horror/western crossover and a fantasy-cyberpunk crossover. If fantasy and horror can come together and create urban fantasy then there's really no reason why other genres shouldn't. That said, I will always read a traditional fantasy story again if the author's telling it well.

If you'd like to discuss fantasy, or even argue about which elemental power is the best, then feel free to email me.