The Best of Gryphonwood features favorites published on our webzine in 2006, plus two new pieces. This anthology features stories by Mary J. Daley, Eric Gribkoff, A.J. Kenning and Sherry Thompson, plus novellas by Michael Merriam and Adam Janus. Cover art by James Weidman.
I began writing, via daydream--when I was in early elementary school. By sixth grade, I must have committed something to paper because my teacher suggested that I read aloud from it a few minutes each day in homeroom. I don't remember anyone snoring.
Well, leaping ahead, I received my BAAS in Interdepartmental History from the University of Delaware, earning enough credits to qualify for unofficial minors in English and in psychology. I had been working 15-20 hours a week in the university library since I was a sophomore, and I liked it. All those books!
I ended up working at the UD Library for a total of 35 years, then retired early so that I could finally devote all my time to writing. You see, I began writing "Seabird" a YA fantasy--and its sequel "Earthbow"--in 1979 & kept working on them until 1983, at which point I had to stop writing because of the demands of my career. Since I retired, I've been writing, revising, participating in three writers groups, attending conferences and otherwise living a long-deferred dream.
My first fantasy novel, "Seabird", finally made it into print January 2008, courtesy of a brand new small publisher, Gryphonwood Press. (Thanks, Dave!)
"Earthbow" volumes 1&2 came out in 2010, also via Gryphonwood. Both are available in paperback and for Kindle.
I plan at least three more books in the Narentan Tumult series. One is "Marooned". Another is "Da Boid da Tree-Rat 'n Da Loser" --which will need retitling before pubbing. The last is a gigantic manuscript that wants to be its own trilogy. Chapters for that are filed on my computer under "The Gryphon and The Basilisk", but in conversation I usually call it "The Behemoth". That's what I'm working on right now.
In the next few months, I expect to begin searching for an agent for "Life Tides" (tentative title), an account of my extremely dysfunctional family. Suffice it to say they got the love of reading right, but not so much the rest.
Other interests are my faith, meditation with or without walking a labyrinth, filk music, folk music, world music especially Putumayo recordings, my two cats (Khiva & Vartha) and, I confess, a few television shows-- CSI, CSI: Miami, Numb3rs (all gone now) and Without a Trace (also all gone). And Bones!
I love virtually all of the writings of C.S. Lewis, Tolkien's Hobbit & LotR, Charles' Williams' 7 spiritual thriller novels, Barbara Hambly's fantasies, Madeleine l'Engle, Susan Cooper, Ken Grimwood, Tony Hillerman...and like that.
Dark chocolate isn't bad either.
