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Multiple New York Times Best Selling Author Piers Anthonys first book in the Xanth series (now numbering 29 books) won him the Derleth Fantasy award in 1977. Hes had over 120 books published and doesn't plan on quitting, even though hes reached what others call retirement age. Heres just a partial list of his fiction books and series:
Xanth (series) Bio of a Space Tyrant (series) Geodysseys (series) Incarnations of Immortalitys (series) Shade of the Tree Quest for the Fallen Star | Clusters (series) Tantham Mound Modes (series) Firefly Dream a Little Dream Tarot Volk | Mouvers Magic (series) Spiders Legs Realty Check The Adept Apprentice (series) The Secret of Spring Of Man and Manta (series) |
And his autobiographies:
| | Bio of an Ogre, (out of print, but can be found) How Precious Was That While (the sequal |
Piers Anthony: Bio Sketch
I was born in Oxford, England, in AwGhost 1934. My parents both graduated from the University at Oxford, but I was slow from the outset. I spent time with relatives and a nanny while my parents went to do relief work in Spain during the Spanish civil war of 1936-9. They were helping to feed the children rendered hungry by the devastation of the war. When that ended, my sister and I joined them in Spain. I left my native country at the age of four—and never returned. The new government of General Franco in Spain, evidently error-prone and suspicious of foreigners doing good works, arrested my father in 1940. They refused to admit that they had done so, making him in effect a disappeared person, but he was able to smuggle out a note. Then rather than admit error, they let him out on condition that he leave the country. World War II was then in progress, so instead of returning to England, we went to my fathers country. In this manner I came to America at age six, on what I believe was the last ship out. Though I was too young to understand what was going on, in time I learned, and I retain an abiding hostility to dictatorships.
My parents marriage grew strained and finally foundered. Suffering the consequences of separation from my first country and my second country as well as the stress of a family going wrong, I showed an assortment of complications such as nervous tics of head and hands, bed-wetting, and inability to learn. It required three years and five schools to get me through first grade. I later gained intellectual ground, but lost physical ground. When I entered my ninth school in ninth grade I was at the proper level but not the proper size, being the smallest person, male or female, in my class. However, boarding school, and later college, became a better home for me than what I had had, and I managed to grow almost another foot by the time I got my BA in Writing at Goddard College, Vermont, in 1956. This was just as well, because I married a tall girl I met in college; I had to grow, literally, to meet the challenge.
When I was discharged from the Army in 1959, my wife and I decided to move to Florida. We had family there, and the winters were warm. I had spent several years going to school in the cold winters in Vermont and I do not like the cold weather. I do like the mountainous scenery so we live in north-central Florida where it is hilly, rather than flat.
I had the hodgepodge of employments typical of writers. Of about fifteen types of work I tried, ranging from aide at a mental hospital to technical writer at an electronics company, only one truly appealed: the least successful. But the dream remained. Finally in 1962 my wife agreed to go to work for a year, so that I could stay home and try to write fiction full time. The agreement was that if I did not manage to sell anything, I would give up the dream and focus on supporting my family. As it happened, I sold two stories, earning $160. But such success seemed inadequate to earn a living. So I became an English teacher, didnt like that either, and in 1966 retired again to writing. This time I wrote novels instead of stories, and with them I was able to earn a living. As with the rest of my life, progress was slow, but a decade later I got into light fantasy with the first of my ongoing Xanth series of novels, A Spell For Chameleon, and that proved to be the golden ring. My sales and income soared, and I became one of the most successful writers of the genre, with twenty one NEW YORK TIMES paperback bestsellers in the space of a decade. This enabled us to send our two daughters to college, and drove the wolf quite far from our door. We now live on a tree farm, and would love to have a wolf by our door, but do have deer and wild cat and other wildlife. I am an environmentalist. My autobiography to age 50, Bio of an Ogre, is now out-of-print; there is a sequel, How Precious Was That While. I have had 122 books published.
But a writer does not live by frivolous fantasy alone. I turned back to serious writing with direct comment on sexual abuse in Firefly, and on history in novels like Tatham Mound, which relates to the fate of the American Indians, and the Geodyssey Series, covering mans past three and a half million years to the present, and Volk (available via the Internet), which shows love and death in Civil War Spain and World War II Germany. So I close the circle, returning in my writing to the realm I left as a child. My literary personality is splitting, with the fantasy paying my way in Caesars coin, and the historical research addressing the god of this agnostic. There has always been a serious side to my writing, even in my fantasy, and my readers respond to it. I answer more than a hundred letters a month, as well as acknowledging 400 emails, so remain in close touch with them. They tell me that I have taught many to read, by showing them that reading could be fun, and that I have saved the lives of some, by addressing concerns such as suicide. So I date my letters with my fantasy months, such as AwGhost, OctOgre, and FeBlueberry, but take my readers as seriously as I take my writing. A number of them have become collaborators, in a series of joint novels. In fact I am a workaholic, and I love my profession. I have several unpublished novels , including a major fantasy series, ChroMagic (note: this is now published, see below), where volcanoes erupt colored magic, and a childrens novel, Tortoise Reform. I have, of course, an ongoing battle with critics, who see only the frivolous level; it is doubtful whether my work will ever in my lifetime receive much critical applause, but I believe in its validity for the longer haul. So do my readers.
Piers Anthony
The Piers Anthony Hi Piers, the official home page of Piers Anthony and Xanth - with sections on Whats New: from the life and career of the author; Newsletter: bimonthly online newsletter; Internet Publishing: vast document containing reviews of many online publishers and self-publishers for writers looking for non-traditional publishing solutions; Bibliography: a complete run down of Piers books; Xanth: all about Piers most popular series;Awards: for the HiPiers web site; and Links: a comprehensive list.
Recent Novels:
- ChroMagic - a sexy fantasy series where volcanoes erupt colors of magic in hardcover, trade paperback, or e-book from Mundania Press L.L.C.

Ralan lives in Scandinavia, earning his living writing, in one way or another, and running his twice Bram Stoker Award Nominated writers resource. His work has appeared in numerous publications, such as Amazon.de, Byline, Colonies, Horrorfind.com, More Monsters From Memphis antho, Oceans of the Mind, SBD SF&F antho, SciFiDimensions.com, SpecFicWorld.com, and Twilight Tales. To the consternation of his old English teachers, several have even won contests, awards, and/or readers polls.
Ralans Official Web Site is also a writers resource with updated daily listings for speculative & humor fiction markets (poetry, nonfiction & art needs for these markets are also included), over 800 categorized writing links, dead markets, how to submit, manuscript format, contests, response times ... and info about Ralans fiction.
Ralan is still working on several ambitious novels, and trying to concentrate on one!
Artist Cathy Buburuz | Artists Bio:
Cathy Buburuz, a Canadian horror writer and illustrator, lives in Saskatchewan where she editors Champagne Shivers, Expressions, and the new Potters Field anthology. In 2003 Cathy was the recipient of the James Award for best illustration.
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